Over 13,000 sign petition for cooperation between NDP, Liberals and Greens

The movement for cooperation between Canada's left-leaning parties is gaining momentum as the best chance to defeat the Conservatives -- themselves a product of a "Unite the Right" campaign.

A new petition from independent organization Leadnow has garnered over 13,000 signatures in support of cooperation between the NDP, Liberal and Green parties. The group’s aggressive new campaign, Cooperate for Canada, joins political voices like NDP leadership hopeful Nathan Cullen as part of a renewed push for strategic cooperation on the left. But according to Liberals like Vancouver Centre MP Hedy Fry, it’s not going to be an easy sell.

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What proponents like Cullen and Leadnow are advocating for is not a merger, but a cooperative strategy that could involve joint nominations to run candidates in a way that prevents another Conservative majority. While some NDP MPs are apparently willing to consider the idea, most Liberals say it’s not even on the table.

“There is absolutely no discussion about that,” said Fry.

“It was done once with the Liberals, and that was when Stephane Dion was the leader and we stepped aside to allow for the Green Party’s Elizabeth May to run in [her] riding. And we all thought it was a mistake later on, in hindsight.”

Fry says the main reason for the party’s regret came from disappointed Liberal supporters, who complained about being robbed of the chance to vote Liberal in the election. But for the increasing number of Canadians who support cooperation, setting aside party differences may be the only way to defeat the current Conservative government.

Leadnow co-founder Jamie Biggar says it all comes down to how our current electoral system operates.

“In the last election, we saw that over 60 per cent of Canadians voted for change. They voted for the NDP, Liberals and Greens or Bloc,” said Biggar, noting common frustrations with the resulting Conservative majority.

“There’s just this huge disconnect between what people voted for in the last election and the government that we ended up getting. And the reason for that is this first-past-the-post electoral system that we have.”

Democratic reform: a common goal?

Under the country’s current electoral system, the candidate with the most votes wins regardless of whether or not they’ve secured an absolute majority. Splitting the votes across opposing parties meant success for the present Conservative government, even though more Canadians voted against Prime Minister Stephen Harper than for him.

“From our perspective the question is, what do we do to make our democracy work better going forward? And we think that there’s no kind of easy solution to that, but we think that a practical pro-democracy strategy would be to have the NDP, Liberals and Greens agree to cooperate,” said Biggar.

So far, Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen is the only NDP leadership candidate who has raised the idea of strategic cooperation with other parties. In an interview with the Observer, he echoed Biggar’s opinions about the need for electoral reform.

“We need a one-time offer to get into government and change the voting system to some form of mixed-member proportional representation – something that says, 'When you vote, your vote will be reflected in the parliament',” he said.