THE FUTURE OF TOM MULCAIR WILL BE DECIDED SUNDAY. BUT IF A LEADERSHIP REVIEW IS ABOUT THE FUTURE, THE NDP LEADER MAY STILL BE IN PLACE MONDAY, WRITES ANDREW COYNE.
Strategic voting would no longer be viable
The purpose of a leadership review is not, or should not be, to punish past failures, but to assess future prospects. The question before the NDP, then, is not: did Tom Mulcair win last time, but can he win the next?
The leader, of course, is only one part of the equation. But the choice of leader is inseparable from the broader issue of the party’s direction, and where it positions itself on the political spectrum. The party’s positioning, in turn, cannot be considered in isolation from that of the other parties. And these can only be framed with reference to the rules of the game: the electoral system, the rewards and penalties it bestows, and the strategic considerations to which these give rise.
The peculiarities of the present system, known as first past the post, that give such pain to its critics — the tendency for majority governments to be elected with a minority of the vote; the denial of representation to any but the winning party in a riding, and thus the heavy emphasis on strategic voting, to avoid “splitting the vote”; the bias toward parties that can cluster their vote geographically, with the related phenomena of safe ridings or indeed whole regions in which one party dominates to the near exclusion of all others — are well known to the parties, and critically inform their strategies.
Thus the Tories were able to win a majority of the seats, notwithstanding their inability to win even 40 per cent of the vote, by taking highly divisive positions that polarized the electorate into those for and against them. Thus the Liberals, in the last election, were able to win a majority, rather than the expected minority, by taking every one of the seats in Atlantic Canada, and by taking a majority of the seats in Quebec, with barely a third of the vote. And thus the NDP’s reversal from its 2011 breakthrough, based as it was on a near-sweep of Quebec.
But now we are in a very different situation, in which radical reform is promised but not yet fulfilled, the particulars of its design as yet wholly unknown. Assume, however, that the system we have known until now can be ruled out. What does that mean for the parties?
The Liberals have traditionally succeeded by squeezing NDP voters into voting strategically, turning the Conservatives’ polarizing strategy to their advantage: vote Liberal, they tell NDP leaners, or you’ll be electing them. Yet they appear now to have adopted a very different strategy. Where past Liberal governments were careful not to get too offside with centre-right voters, for fear of losing them to the Conservatives, the Trudeau Liberals have tilted noticeably to the left. The game now seems not so much to be about governing from the centre, then rounding up unhappy left-wing voters at election time, as it is simply swallowing the left side of the spectrum whole, leaving very little room for the NDP.
And what may be driving this is the anticipation of electoral reform. On the one hand, it is difficult, in any system but first past the post, to play the strategic voting card against the NDP — for vote-splitting ceases to be an issue — necessitating a more positive, frankly leftist appeal. On the other, the threat from the Tories, at least in the short term, is reduced. The Tories are unlikely, under any system, to win a majority of the popular vote; therefore cannot win a majority of the seats, in a reformed system; and without a majority, being the only right-of-centre party, are unlikely to take power.
For the Conservatives, the implications, as they choose a new leader, are obvious. Where first past the post rewarded a polarizing strategy, and a leader, in Stephen Harper, to match, in a reformed system they will need, not merely to mobilize their existing base, but to expand it: to attract voters’ second- and third- choices, should that be a part of the new system, and to win votes in all parts of the country, not just in their regional power bases.
The Conservative leadership vote is not for another year. By that time, the Tories will have a greater sense of the electoral landscape facing them in 2019. The NDP, by contrast, are forced to decide on Mulcair’s leadership this weekend. Yet, as a wise old head pointed out to me recently, their own choice is as much affected by the shape of the electoral system as the Tories’.
Were the next election to be contested under first past the post, there would be a strong case for moving the party sharply to the left, as many are recommending: not only would this be ground the Liberals cannot occupy, but by cementing the loyalties of hard-core supporters, would make it harder for the Grits to lure them into the strategic-voting pen. Given his centrist history, Mulcair would make an unconvincing leader of such a party.
But if elections are now to be contested under some other system, the strategic argument for going hard-left fades. If the game is to compete for voters in the centre and centre-left, if secondand third-choice votes are now in play, Mulcair may yet be the right leader for that party, at least in the absence of some obvious and more compelling alternative.
Given that the matter remains in doubt — and given that the party leadership comes up for review again in 2018 — that may be enough to persuade New Democrats to leave him in place, for now.