Our long term goal of getting proportional representation (PR) is more important than a short term response of becoming legitimately angry at Trudeau for dropping PR on Feb 2, 2017.
All of our messaging should reflect that priority, including in the short term.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not becoming soft on anyone who does not want PR. Instead, I’m just saying that we need to strategize for the long term goal, because that is much more valuable than the value of legitimate anger at this very big bump in the road.
That strategy probably means a long term coalition. Coalitions mean building bridges, not burning them. We can’t burn the bridges that took us years to build, just for the sake of responding emotionally to a very big bump in the road.
To strategize for the longer term, we need the following cool-headed logic:
First, to get critical mass behind our movement in the fastest way possible, we can’t wait for the NDP/Green/Bloc coalition to reach critical mass on their own.
Second, that means building alliances in some MPs within both of the larger parties.
So, what should our messaging be at this disappointing time?
The regressive actions of Trump over the next four years will be giving our PR movement a very strong argument for PR (see below). So for the next four years, we could use the anti-Trump sentiment in the Liberal party to get more and more support from the Liberals.
Perhaps that argument might even work in some of the Conservative circles, given the fact that even some of them were disgruntled at the centralized control that Harper had over the power of individual Conservative MPs.
Below is an example of messaging that will build our non-partisan inroads into the larger parties, instead of burning our bridges:
The rise of Trump makes it more urgent than ever to reform our electoral system. In our present system, a future “Trump in Canada” could win with as little as 35% of the vote. Proportional representation should now be quickly grasped onto as an urgently needed deterrent against that horrifying, but very real, possibility. Therefore we urge all MPs in all parties to return to a strong path towards proportional representation as soon as possible.
Possible slogan:
Without proportional representation, there’s more danger of a Trump in Canada
We aim to Make Votes Equal in their effect on election results in Canada and its provinces.
I agree with the sentiment of "keep going" and "focus on the goal." The reference to a foreign leader is (to me) just another distraction to replace the ill fated focus on 2019.
ReplyDeleteThe goal is to have an effective and representative electoral system. Let's keep working toward that.