We cannot stand aside and risk the profound dangers of climate change, economic injustices, and attacks on our democratic rights to go unchallenged – not for ourselves, and certainly not for our children. We cannot afford to do nothing!
Electoral cooperation is a strategy that can prevent vote splitting and can take many forms, including only running a candidate of the party that is the clear front-runner, or running “paper” or token candidates in the parties least likely to win.
Electoral cooperation among progressive parties (whether formal or informal) has successfully prevented vote-splitting in many countries such as the UK in 2019, Germany (2021) and Chile (2021) , and France (2017) including their 2024 election . It is worth noting that electoral cooperation also took place in Canada when the Alliance Party merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form the Conservative Party of Canada in 2003.
Since 2022 the Liberals and the NDP have been working together successfully under a supply and cooperation agreement. Cooperating for the next federal election would involve continuing those efforts between the parties to work together.
Building this kind of cooperation between the parties takes time. It requires providing education and information to the general public, so they can call upon their representatives and riding associations to cooperate for the good of Canada, and our collective future. Similarly, it takes time for the decision-makers to hold discussions within and between the parties to convince them to move away from the status quo and focus on building a common strategy for the election, working together to address the multiple crises that Canadians are facing. Consequently there is real urgency to get these actions and conversations started as quickly as possible. Circumstances today dictate that the needs of Canadians must outweigh our traditional approach to party politics.