Strategic voting in Canada

Barry Kay: Without splitting the left-of-centre vote, Conservatives could not form the government.

With the Canadian election approaching, incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears destined to remain in power, with the only question remaining being: How much power will he attain? Senior Editor Paul Jay sat down with Barry Kay, who's own seat distribution forecast at http://www.wlu.ca/lispop shows Harper's Conservative Party just two seats away from forming a majority government. This despite the fact that the vast majority of Canadians support parties that campaign to the political left of Harper's policies. Barry explains both the reasons for this phenomenon in Canadian politics, and the sort of strategy which would be required to ensure an electoral outcome more reflective of the Canadian populace.

Dr. Barry Kay is a Professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. His research focuses on the topics of elections and public opinion. He is a past member of the Canadian National Election Study team, and recent publications pertain to electoral systems, public opinion polling, and the impact of single-issue interest groups. He has developed a model for projecting parliamentary seat distributions from popular vote or opinion polls, which is updated regularly and can be found at www.wlu.ca/lispop. He is also a political analyst with Global Television, for their national election coverage.

See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89382638_strategic_voting_in_canada

See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89400173_canadians_want_to_keep_health_care_system