If Canada had a democratic electoral system and the polls are right, next week we'd have a majority government that supports strong action on climate change; government intervention to create jobs and defend ordinary Canadians against the impact of the global economic crisis; an end to the war in Afghanistan; public support for the arts; implementation of at least the Kelowna Accord to raise the standard of living for aboriginal people; and a national child-care program that includes the creation of thousands of new child-care spaces. In the latest polls, the parties that agree on these policies have the support of more than two-thirds of Canadians. Yet my morning paper is still talking about how the Harper Conservatives may still craft a majority.
There is a way to ensure that we get the government we want. Instead of turning on each other in these critical last days of the campaign, the opposition parties can start negotiations to ensure that a new government representing the majority of Canadians will emerge from this election.
The first step is to deny Stephen Harper that majority. As Margaret Atwood points out, in a delicious irony, the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois may very well save Canada from a Conservative majority by defeating them in Quebec. Tory support is now starting to slide in Ontario as well because of Mr. Harper's do-nothing approach to the financial meltdown.
The next week will see a desperate fight between the Liberals and the NDP to convince us that one or the other is the right choice to defeat Mr. Harper or at least to prevent a majority. When the voting sands are shifting as rapidly as they are today, it is difficult to predict the outcome, as anyone who remembers the 1993 election will know. The once-mighty Tories fell to almost nothing. A new party, the Bloc, became the Official Opposition, and the previously marginal Reform Party got almost as many seats.
Should the Tories win enough seats to form a minority, the other parties or any combination of them can form an alliance based on their considerable agreement, reflecting the views of most Canadians. The model is the Liberal-NDP accord in Ontario in 1985. In that election, the Tory government was reduced to a minority, with only four seats more than the Liberals. The NDP offered to support a Liberal government for two years based on an accord that included some of their key policy planks such as pay equity legislation.
There is no reason why the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens cannot do the same thing. With the support of a majority of voters, they can agree on government action to protect jobs, homes and pensions in the face of the global economic crisis and on significant action on climate change. With such agreement, they can defeat the government and go to the Governor-General with an offer to form a new government. They don't have to agree on everything, and they don't need to form a full coalition government. They just have to agree on some key points, and whoever has the most seats can form the government with a written promise to bring in the policies agreed on.
It's what would happen if we had proportional representation. It's what would best represent the wishes of the majority of voters. And it just might save Canada from an autocratic Prime Minister who supports the very policies of deregulation, market fundamentalism and militarism that have led to the economic collapse in the United States and the continuing devastation of the global climate.
Just as voters rose up to ensure that the Greens' Elizabeth May was included in the leaders debate, so, too, can we let the parties we support know we want them to work together to defeat the Harper Conservatives and establish a government that represents us in our majority.
Judy Rebick holds the CAW-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University.
