CKUT's Wednesday Morning After invited me to come and talk about the elections bright and early this morning. Voici mes talking points, albeit in more articulate form, not that I got to all of them:
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Coalition Talk?
I think an NDP-Lib coalition supported by the Bloc is a lot more possible than people would anticipate.
First of all, Dion has everything to gain and nothing to lose. It's the only way could stay in power. He would probably stand to gain a better image through governing than through election bantering. It would send the Tories into a tailspin as well having to regroup around a new leader.
The Lib insiders would have a heart attack and may never let it happen. But it'd be such a curveball I don't think folks would know how to react. Any seats lost to the NDP would probably be gained by by Tories in Ontario and BC.
Second of all, the NDP have run out of options. If spending like crazy, major media presence with two of the weakest leaders in history squaring off against each other doesn't cause a major breakthrough then they will not grow any time soon. Actually being in government might help and would see the passage of good policy.
Third of all...how could the Bloc say no? They would undoubtedly stay out of the government but would be able to hold the other parties to any ransom they sought. The Tories can now turn to any party for support in the next few years.
Party insiders I've talked to say the Bloc would do this. If any Lib leader would, it would be the weak, policy driven political scientist.
Wildcards would be Layton. I'm not sure he'd see the wisdom in this. Also, the Tories would have to put forth a confidence motion before Dion got tossed.
Yeah
I actually got into the lack of promotion in all of the cases a bit in the interview. But I think that's part of what has to be taken into account when looking at how hard it would be to get federal PR. If promoting it at the prov. level is that hard, then how much more resistance will a fed PR initiative face?
Proportional Representation
The BC referendum in 2005 was theoretically on proportional representation but ended up being a vote on the Single Transferable Vote, the concept was poorly explained and there was little (surprise!) political will by the allmighty BC Liberals to publicize it properly.
The main reason the STV vote came about in BC was campaigning and petitioning using the BC Recall Act. The 'Free Your Vote' initiative was spearheaded by Adriane Carr, then leader of the BC Greens, after they got 12.5% of the votes in the 2001 provincial election and (surprise!) no seats.
Might be something we'll see Green candidates take on at the national level now, hopefully with more success.