30 Sep Time for progressives to decide

We are reaching the point in the election campaign where progressive voters* must decide whether to support Mulcair’s New Democrats or Trudeau’s Liberals.

There are planks to like and dislike in both parties’ platforms, but if we keep dithering between the two of them, we will be complicit in re-electing Stephen Harper.

Two obstacles impair the ability of Canada’s progressive majority to defeat Harper:

The apparatchiks of both center-left parties care more about their team winning all the marbles than they do about saving Canada from the damage Harper will do given another four  years.

The leaders of  both center-left parties have been trying to attract progressive voters by attacking the other center-left leader. Consistent, cogent, principled criticism of Harper is much more likely to win us over than negative infighting.

In ridings where the Conservatives have no chance of winning, progressives may be lulled into believing they can safely vote for either the NDP or the Liberals. But if their core objective is to defeat Stephen Harper, they should pay attention to the last few weeks of the campaign, and vote for the opposition party with the best chance of achieving that outcome.

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*Liberals, New Democrats, Greens, and those who once called themselves Red Tories.