Make that a four-colour map

I've worked about 150 hours for the Green Party over the past few weeks, and on election day I spent one last 12-hour day as a scrutineer. So naturally I'm disappointed that my candidate and my party did so poorly. Based on the voters I've talked to, the reason is quite clear: the Green Party has the "softest" voters, and many of them voted strategically to defeat the Conservatives. And they did help deprive Harper of a majority, so I take some consolation in that.

Another big reason for the low Green vote is our amateur "party machine"--events planning, PR, get-out-the-vote, etc. See the next post.

Stephen Harper bet his political career on a majority and lost; after a $300 million campaign, we are exactly where we were 6 weeks ago. Many people don't follow the issues, but a frivolous election is highly unpopular, and Harper is entirely to blame.

The Liberals and NDP didn't change their standing significantly. The seat numbers changed, but the Libs are still the Loyal Opposition, and the NDP are still far behind. When the Liberals get a more popular leader, I predict they will be back in majority territory at the expense of the NDP and Bloc Quebecois.

I thought the Bloc would do quite poorly because their provincial equivalent, the Parti Quebecois, slipped to third place in their last election. The Bloc's entire campaign strategy was to attract strategic voters, and I suspect that's where most of those seats came from.

In the final account, only the Green Party benefited from this 5-week waste of time. In the next campaign we will have significantly more legitimacy, name recognition, money*, and expertise. It would have been nice to have at least one Green in Ottawa, but there's no use crying over spilled milk.

There is one last thing I want to add. If all eligible voters are included, the party support drops to 22% Con, 16% Lib, 11% NDP, 6% Bloc, 4% Green, and 40% undeclared. That's a pretty meagre mandate. A big reason for the low turnout is that the election was the day after a long weekend: I don't know about you, but my brain told me Oct 14 was Monday (heading to work after a weekend out of town) when I knew the election was Tuesday. I think Harper chose that day deliberately because low turnout always favours the incumbent.


*Federal parties are publicly funded. Each vote cast gives $2 per year to that party, split between the local riding and headquarters. If it gets above 10% of the vote, a local campaign gets 60% of its spending refunded (which is a huge advantage: my candidate will start with $18 000 next time not $3 000). With 12 MPs elected, a party gets official party status and hence additional funding. So that's the next thing we're working towards.