Catch 22 'Super-Voters' Can Keep Harper Humble

For Immediate Release April 8, 2011

FYI: For interest of the news media or publication as an op-ed

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GETTING SMART - CATCH 22 ‘SUPER-VOTERS’ CAN KEEP HARPER HUMBLE

By John Deverell

It is the strangest of elections. Nobody really has a feel yet for how many voters will show up or what the outcome will be.

Stephen Harper, the benign dictator (his phrase), is openly campaigning for a majority – and he might get it. Voter turnout in Canada has been dropping toward U.S. levels. The right is united in a Conservative Party engorged with funds raised by tax credit. The Harper permanent campaign machine is organized and motivated to pursue its large advantages within Canada’s wonky voting system.

If voter turnout is low, the usual response to a flood of televised attack ads, and if there is no new issue which shakes up people’s voting tendencies, then the May 3 headline is: HARPER WINS MAJORITY. If that happens, it won’t be long until we read: LIBERALS AND NDP SEEK NEW LEADERS.

What can still change this picture is informed tactical voting. A year ago, a small group of people bothered by the Prime Minister’s suspension of Parliament for 22 days set up a volunteer group, Catch 22 Harper Conservatives (http://catch22campaign.ca/). They wanted to short-circuit Harper’s maneuvering toward unchecked majority control of government.

The Catch 22 founders realized that, given the usual vote-splitting among squabbling opposition parties, only a smart, targeted campaign run independently of the parties could deny Stephen Harper his goal. This Catch 22 upstart is starting to inspire discouraged voters in 52 of Canada’s 308 electoral districts to vote together against Harper and astonish Canada.

Catch 22 director Gary Shaul, a long-time campaigner, knew that winners and losers in most Canadian electoral contests are pre-ordained. Some citizens vote for a winner, many do not get a representative they want, and all know which of the two categories they are in before the ballots are cast. The trick, whether for tax-financed political parties or democracy-starved tactical voters, is to focus on the few ridings which are actually in play.

Personally, I wrote a book about the need for proportional representation and other democratic reforms nearly 20 years ago. For the past decade as a Fair Vote Canada activist I have campaigned for equal votes and equal representation, but the resistance in Parliament to such democratic accountability remains stiff. With no reform in sight, I’ve become a Catch 22 supporter.

With a Harper majority government there will be no hope of democratic reform. If Harper is denied complete control, there’s a chance the opposition Liberals will finally realize that, for them to get back into government, fair voting has become a necessity.

On Thursday, Catch 22’s research team crunched the numbers again. What shook out of the analysis were 52 hotly contested ridings, 32 held by Conservatives and 20 by opposition MPs where, with the switch of a small number of opposition votes to the leading opposition candidate, the Harper Conservatives would lose their dream of a majority and see their role as a minority government challenged.

Because they hold the fate of the Harper government in their hands, we call anti-Harper voters in target ridings the Catch 22 Super-Voters.

Catch 22, operating on a miniscule budget, is using the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, massive e-mailings, local newspaper ads and selective robo-calling to spread the target riding information, distribute leaflets, remind the Super-Voters of their potential to astonish Canada, and galvanize them to organize and use it for the common good.

Will it work and Keep Harper Humble? We think so.

When the word spreads, and throngs of Super-Voters turn out and vote for the recommended candidates in all Catch 22 target ridings, they will greatly shrink the number of Conservative Party seats in Parliament. Harper Conservatives would still be the largest faction, but they would be able to govern only with the help of the Liberals or the Bloc Quebecois.

In Canada, in 2011, this is as close to a democratic outcome as the citizens of Canada are allowed to get.

For Further Information:

Ottawa: Tracy Morey 613-730-0140 tracyjmorey@yahoo.ca

Toronto: Nick Fillmore 416-903-2613 fillmore0274@rogers.com

Vancouver: Masrour Zoghi masrour_zoghi@yahoo.ca

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Comment by Freda Davies on April 13, 2011 at 11:40am: Re Wilf Day's desire for a slogan:

Here's one: "Riding by Riding, Tactical Voting"

Maybe long but it has a kind of rhythm to it

Comment by Chuck on April 10, 2011 at 6:30pm: Take a look at how desperate reformers are http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150222832963868&set=o....

A facebook screenshot captured by a left supporter. - (Captured paid posters want ad on craigslist. That in itself isn't that outrageous as we've heard this before, but the encourgement to make up facts, insult, for pay. What a sad lot. No platform other than to rob Canadians...smacks of SunTV. Ultimate goal Strauss - serfs.

Comment by Wilf Day on April 10, 2011 at 1:57pm: Originally your goal was 'Contribute to the defeat of the Conservative government. We can achieve this by targeting at least 22 vulnerable, sitting Conservative MPs across Canada (at least one MP for each day of prorogation!)"

Your name is out of date, and conveys no meaning. It also fails to convey the meaning of strategic voting.

You need a fast re-brand for the election campaign itself, a slogan name (sponsored by Catch 22, if you need to explain the website name). For example, in 2008 we saw the slogan "Vote Smart" used by another group.

It has to convey "think local." Stop Harper by voting for the local candidate who can win your riding and beat Harper locally, if your riding is one of the (50?) battleground ridings.

I'm sure someone else can do better. I'll start the brainstorming. Example: "Your local Stop Harper Vote."

Message: "Go to the "Your local Stop Harper Vote" website. Find out if you are in a battleground riding. Find out how to stop Harper locally by voting for your local candidate who can win your riding."

Comment by Catch 22 on April 10, 2011 at 1:16pm: Thanks. In our longer explanations of Catch, we've always made it clear that being "strategic" means focusing on a limited number of a ridings. We've made it clear that we will be recommending candidates from all opposition parties (not just one). We have written about not using national polls to figure things out locally. We have publicly criticized the leader of the Liberal Party on more than one occasion for suggesting that a vote anywhere for the NDP or Greens is a vote for Stephen Harper. We will continue to make voters aware of the pitfalls of the current voting system and appreciate any suggestions for trying to synthesize what we're about into a single sentence.

Comment by Chuck on April 10, 2011 at 12:35pm: Just to add - too late to change the Catch22, but it can still be used as a foundation as to why it is called that.

Comment by Wilf Day on April 10, 2011 at 10:28am: Every time the news media mentions "strategic voting" without defining it, another hundred voters in Oshawa, Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar, Burnaby-Douglas, etc., think "I'd better vote Liberal" without knowing the Liberals are running third in their riding.

The challenge for Catch-22 is to find a way to make this point in one phrase, so that your campaign doesn't do more harm than good. The name implied looking at only 22 ridings, but you've gone beyond that. I don't have a new phrase for you. But unless you come up with a way to redefine "strategic voting" in one phrase, you're not helping your cause.

Comment by Chuck on April 10, 2011 at 8:26am: While it would be fine having the NDP in power, that is just not going to happen. While Layton is truly for families and is the most trustworthy, he is outnumbered, by power and big money. Power and money, always had and always will have no bottom when it comes to sleaze tactics. An honest person is no match for true deception.

The immediate goal however - is to stop Jets and jails. Jails that will certainly become privatized and pricy jets that are not only unsuitable for Canadas' needs, but at the expense of health-care and education.

Studies have shown that the Conservative mentality is driven by fear. Fear is rigid, paranoid and selfish - it also desperately needs heirarchy and eventually seeks out some form of violence (mental or physical) as relief. 30% of Canadians have this mind-set. Jets and jails suit this group perfectly.

Splitting the left vote is just not effective - reformers/cons love this mess. If an NDP were within a few hundred votes in Kitchener centre, the NDP would receive my vote, but that is *not* the reality here. If that's the reality in your area - great NDP all the way. Catch22 - is here to stop Harper - not to debate Ignatieff vs Layton.

Comment by Frederick Thornton on April 10, 2011 at 7:19am: This election is interesting on many fronts. While I am a supporter and have promoted the cause of Catch-22 via social media and comments on news articles, there is the rationale of replacing one corrupt political party with another corrupt political party as a means to improve government is illogical at best and fulfilling the definition of insanity at its worst. They both have a hundred year history of scandel and self-entitlment and to expect the Liberals to be any better than the Conservatives is being delusional towards the self-evident.
Another issue in this election is the idea that mass media should have control of how an electoral debate should look. This flies in the face of what a democracy is and is more proof how our electoral systems in Canada are in desperate need of evolving. For when media barons(elitists) say that only those parties in Parliament(political elites) can partake in an electoral debate, you have in fact not a democracy but an oligarchy. Debates by political candidates during an election should be the mandate of Elections Canada.

Another aspect to this election is the over shadowing voter apathy of the last election, where 40% of the electorate did not vote. Many of these people will not vote again, due to what I refer to as a hundred year history of corruption and self-entitlement. And while this apathy is apparent, not one opposition party is making an real attempt to address it. As the media pundits say there is no real issue to rouse up the electorate. Or is there? If the Liberals are the real alternative why is this not reflected in their Red Book. Where instead of dealing with the real issues facing democracy in Canada, we have a throwback to the 70's in a blatant attempt to steal NDP votes, to ride a wave of hatred for Harper in the hopes of getting elected. Many people voting Liberal are not pro-liberal but are in fact anti-Harper. And I fear more voter dissatisfaction will only lead to more voter apathy in future elections. and the further erosion of our democratic institutions by international corporate self-interests.

As a Canadian it is disheartening to see our democracy being threatened as it is, especially when we see on the international stage, people dieing for the right to vote. And certainly, after thirty years or being under the rule of the 'benign dictator' as Harper called himself , that could be Canadians dieing during peaceful protests. We already have seen a taste of that police state mentality when Harper hosted the G20.

So, to wrap this up, I want to say to those whose riding are not vulnerable to strategic voting, and feel dissatisfied with both the major parties and wish to make a point, both politically and economically, then vote for the extreme underdog. Rather than not vote, vote for the party that hasn't got a chance of effecting the outcome in this election, for your vote will bring them economic support in that 2$ subsidy that Harper would like eliminated. For the more money they have the stronger they are to keep a corrupt and self-serving government in check regardless of which party is in charge.

Comment by Chuck on April 9, 2011 at 3:04am: My son will vote for the first time this year. He has a good deal of facebook friends and he is very persuasive and looked up to by his peers. Karen Redmond for our area - only a few hundred votes separated candidates last time!

My wife is moving from NDP to Liberal for the cause. I like the idea of targeting Harpers riding - if that worked - it would be outrageous! I'm on all the boards everyday - let's keep the train moving:)