From: golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy)
Subject: Re: The next federal election 
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:49:10 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.223551.11701@bmerh85.bnr.ca> nadeau@bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau) writes:
>In article <1993Jan8.175345.27765@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
>>
>>Look what happened in the last provincial election when the voters
>>to cavalierly just voted against Peterson without carefully checking
>>whether the opposition party they were voting for had any coherent
>>policies.
>>
>>The purpose of the next election should be to attempt to achieve
>>a result that forces the three major parties to have leadership
>>conventions.
>
>Ah, but a lot of people who voted NDP in the last Ontario election
>didn't expect them to win a majority government, and were shocked when
>they did.  Voting to ensure a minority government (and I agree that this
>is best, in general and especially in this specific case), may lead to
>unexpected, and perhaps unwanted, results.  (There are people who will
>vote for Reform, or the BQ, or the NDP, without wanting them to win.)
>

But this is why I recommend voting Tory, Reform, or National, (and perhaps
NDP in the West), because to vote Liberal is to risk a majority
government where we are stuck with Chretien for five years, and then
face another election where we just want to throw the bums out after
they massively screw up.

The Reform and National parties can't possibly win and offer an
alternative on the right and on the left, and both parties have taken
the time to offer clear policy positions, and advocate democratic
reforms in the system.     

And voting Tory is permissible, because even if Mulroney gets a slim 
majority, it is extremely unlikely he would stay around for more than
a couple more years, and which would have the side benefit of insuring
that the Liberals, the NDP, and the Tories would all have new leaders
in an election that would likely occur 3 years down the road.

The goal should be to purge the system...this cannot happen if
Chretien gets a majority...it will still happen if Mulroney wins,
perhaps not as quickly as those who absolutely despise Brian would
like, but soon enough.

The worst possible outcome of the election this year is a Liberal
majority government...which means none of our problems get solved.
Just because we despise Mulroney and want to punish him, we should
not be so masochistic that in seeking our pound of flesh, we end
up with Chretien.    

>The best way to ensure minority government is proportional
>representation (very few parties, after all, ever get more than 50% of
>the vote; this would be even less likely under PR, since now people
>often refrain from voting for their prefered, but unlikely to win,
>candidate for fear of wasting their vote).  Of course, since all three
>major parties hope to form a majority government in the next election,
>there is no chance we'll get PR in the foreseeable future - it's just
>not in the interest of the established parties.
>

The National Party supports PR...if you support democratic reform,
and are left-leaning, then vote for them rather than the NDP or
Liberals.  If one is right-leaning, and unable to bring oneself
to vote for Brian again, than vote Reform, because, they to advocate
democratic reforms...the National and Reform Parties actually agree
on the need for democratic reforms, and some of their proposals on
this issue are similar, but their economic positions are completely
divergent.

Strategic voting is crucial in the next election...and voting Liberal
is not a smart or strategic vote.

Gerald