Is it possible for the New Democrats, Liberals and Greens to take back Canada? Stephen Harper's Conservatives can be beaten by forming a National Coalition Government backed by 60 percent of the electorate.

It can be done with a National Coalition Government.

Forming the National Coalition Government of NDP, Liberals and Greens. This election is shaping up as a major opportunity to stop Harper.

Harperland is a term I coined to examine Canadian politics from a right wing perspective.  In 2011 it attracted 39.7 percent of the electorate kicking out Liberals and New Democrats in many ridings by first by the post vote splitting.  Harper’s policies are opposed by 60 percent of voting Canadians who vote Liberal, New Democrat or Green. 

It is always the politics of first past the post division where progressive politics and policies are placed on the political back burner every five years by the Harperland right wing agenda. 

I keep thumping away at Harper because I find where he is taking my country is to a bad place. It is a place where as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his right wing ideology is always right. He believes the right wing mantra that less government and less taxation is always a good thing. As a result he has run up $150 billion more debt during his decade in office for Canadians to pay back in the future long after he is gone.

Harper ignores the Liberal balanced budgets are good fiscal management that was the hallmark of the Chretien and Martin governments before him.

Harper believes that Liberals are soft and wet and the New Democrats and their ideas are pie in the sky pure orange mushiness. He runs attack ads about Justin Trudeau that assert that he isn’t ready to be Prime Minister.  He attacks the Wynne Liberal government in Ontario with contempt never recognizing that Ontarians gave Kathleen Wynne a majority. 

The new Notley NDP government in his home province Alberta gets no slack as they take power they are already making mistakes and descending into socialist mushiness in Harper’s view. Harper believes that ideas other than his own, die in some kind of political natural selection that only lets the strong survive. In his mind Harper’s views are always correct. He doesn’t learn from other experiences that are different from his own.

These attacks are not based on facts they are ideological propaganda without foundation and designed to build a right wing Canada operated by fundamentalist ideologues like himself such as Paul Calandra, Pierre Poilievre and Jason Kenny. They are propaganda to reinforce the 40 percent who vote for Harper’s Conservative agenda. A good proportion of these 40 percent would elect a post if it was painted blue. His weakness may be the more centre oriented Conservatives who will eventually balk at Harper’s view of Canada.

And in the recent budget he “balanced” the books of the country mostly for optical election reasons and while a recession is brewing and very likely here. Stephen Harper is convinced himself that he is a good fiscal manager. The truth is Canada is slipping into more national debt amplified by low oil other commodity prices worldwide. A recession is probably started.

His notions of security basically restrict people’s rights and freedoms with the likes of Bill C 51. This pernicious legislation expands surveillance while it erodes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms with new powers for judges to break the law for national security reasons. He has also created crowded prisons, longer sentences and less ability to rehabilitate those who run afoul of the law. 

People with security certificates are left to rot even when there is no evidence or terrorism. Conservatives of a Harper bent want to be perceived as a hard lot tough on anyone who disagrees with them. That of course includes those who support the Liberals and NDP.

In addition during the election campaign Stephen Harper announced vague travel restrictions to places where terror organizations are or may be operating. This idea is to stem Canadians going abroad and serving with ISIS and their ilk. Will a commonwealth country like Pakistan be on the no-travel list if it is known that they tolerate the Taliban? How will these restrictions work with business arrangements? No one knows how these new restrictions on travel will be implemented by the next parliament.

In all his security legislation there is nothing that builds positive relationships with immigrant groups at home. There is nothing to educate youth in these communities who might be or have been radicalized towards jihadist ideas. There is nothing for those who went abroad and then decided that they would not finally join the jihadists. Their anti-terror ideas are all punitive and never rehabilitate. That would be a wet Liberal idea that could not be fathomed by the right wing Conservatives base.

The good news of course is the polls show the election is currently in a dead heat. Support for the Conservatives has dropped to about 31 percent at the moment from the 39.6 that elected their majority in 2011. When polls are analyzed it is clear that the country is split three ways at the moment. The NDP and Liberals both say at the moment that they will not work together or create a coalition. That could ensure a Conservative minority government.

My modest proposal to the NDP, Liberals and the Greens is to work together in parliament for a national coalition to undo the decade of right wing Harper ideological view of Canada. If the numbers hold that would make Tom Mulcair, Prime Minister and Justin Trudeau deputy prime minister. Mulcair and Trudeau should also ask Elizabeth May of the Greens to take on the Ministry of the Environment. There is enough talent on the Liberal and NDP benches to build a cabinet of national coalition. After all that what 60 percent of Canadians wanted in 2011 and seem to want this time by the parties they support.