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Show Notes

Barbara Schumacher and Kae Elgie come into the studio to talk about Cooperate For Canada, vote splitting, approaching party leaders, riding associations, and candidates to combine their efforts, and making information available to voters to vote strategically.

The interview starts at 2m34s.

Online:

• Website: https://cooperateforcanada.ca/
• Bluesky: Cooperate For Canada (@coopr84canada.bsky.social) | Bluesky
• Facebook: Cooperate For Canada (@Cooperate4Canada) | Facebook
• Instagram: Cooperate For Canada(@cooperateforcanada) | Instagram
• E-mail: info@cooperateforcanada.ca

Podcast

Download: ckms-community-connections-2025-02-24-episode184-cooperate-for-canada-with-barbara-schumacher-and-kae-elgie.mp3 (53 MBytes, 58m09s, episode 184)

Index

Time	Title	Album	Artist
0m00s	Theme for CKMS Community Connections ccc	CKMS Community Connections	Steve Todd
0m48s	Seven Bridges Road	Live @ Halo Studio	Eric Jackson & The Willow River Band
2m34s	Barbara Schumacher tells us about Cooperate For Canada, she is a co-founder with Isaiah Ritzmann; the concern was the rising prominence of federal right-wing politics. By March of 2024 there was a rumour of an early provincial election, so the group changed focus to that.
4m35s	Vote splitting is causing the wave of conservative electoral success with only 30% to 45% voter support, so the majority of voters voted against the conservatives, those being the Liberals, NDP, and Greens. But the centre-left parties are all pretty similar, the differences don’t matter all that much. How do we repesent the values of the centre left? We have to bring together the centre-left parties, to stop them splitting the vote. But having a proportional representation voting system is a better solution, overall. Barbara explains that our values aren’t represented, and the First Past The Post voting system only works in a two-party system, so they want to bring the parties together.
9m15s	Kae tells us how they are bringing the votes together. They’re using polling data from Canada 338They’re looking at ridings where the conservative candidate is in the lead, but the second-place party is close, and looking to merge the vote by asking the third and fourth place candidate to drop out. They’ve approached the party leaders, the riding associations, and the candidates.
12m15s	All of the Liberal, NDP, and Greens have electoral reform and proportional representation in their platforms. Even though some of these parties have promised an end to FPTP they’ve rescinded their promise once they’re elected. But if the Conservatives get elected we won’t get proportional representation for sure.
14m12s	Talking about coalition governments. “Coalition” has been a dirty word among Canadian voters, but Barbara and Kae are both hopeful. They see no way to address issues like the climate crisis any other way. These issues have to be addressed now, next election is too late. The current Conservative government is not looking after the people. Kae and Barbara believe there is enough coherence between the parties that they can form an effective coalition or a confidence agreement. They’ve been pleasantly surprised by the support they’ve received so far.
20m26s	I Don’t Have a Name	(YouTube)	Henry Taylor
24m30s	Cooperate For Canada has not been trying to get all the parties to cooperate; they’ve been accused of being a partisan group for being against the Conservatives. But if the Conservatives had progressive policies Cooperate For Canada wouldn’t be against them. It’s not just climate, but also health, education, safe consumption sites, homelessness, and using the Notwithstanding Clause to get their way.
27m57s	They’ve spoken to party leaders, riding associations, and candidates. They’ve not just asked candidates to withdraw, but to cooperate when they’re elected. All candidates they’ve spoken to have agreed. They’ll probably be doing this again in a federal election. But they haven’t targetted all ridings, not doing the “safe seat” ridings for Conservatives. Now their focus has shifted to the voters themselves. Encouraging voters to work with candidates not necessarily in their ridings to get the candidates in precarious ridings elected. They’ve had information tables at all-candidate meetings, they’re active on social media, they’re engaging writers to write Op-Eds in newspapers. Other organizations like Divest Waterloo and the Civic Hub have sent information about Cooperate For Canada. Grand River Watershed is one chapter of Cooperate for Canada.
34m34s	Bob remembers similar strategic voting campaigns, but saw no difference in the results in the voting results. Kae and Barbara agree that it’s a difficult process. Bob suggests infiltrating the Progressive Conservative party with progressive-minded people to influence their policies; Barbara sees that as a long-term strategy and there’s no time for that. Campaigning for proportional representation is happening at the same time, by many of the same people. In places with proportional representation politicians don’t attack each other, something that Canadians are really asking for. Barbara sees a need for a Cooperative Movement, not just to change the voting system but to address all the issues like climate, health, education. Parties tend to ratchet their policies to the right, it takes a new party on the left to make a change. Could the Greens be that party? Barb says people don’t vote Green because they think the Greens can’t win; a self-fulfilling prophesy.
43m26s	Living With Your Memory	(YouTube)	Natalia Valencia
46m53s	The results of Cooperate For Canada’s efforts in this provincial election will determine how they approach the upcoming federal election. They want to have a strong leader that can lead Canada through difficult times.
48m52s	Reviewing the Cooperate For Canada website, looking at the Ontario page. Reviewing the social media sites. People can join the movement by signing a letter on the website, or make a pledge to vote for the candidate most likely to defeat the Conservatives. Either will get people added to the C4C mailing list. There are no specific meetings or events planned for this election campaign. C4C is partnering with “Not One Seat” in Toronto, some of those volunteers have restarted their campaign in Toronto. “Music Ontario Votes” is having performances in certain ridings; after campaigning for the “unity candidate” they hold a concert.
58m07s	Thank yous, Goodbyes, and End Credits.

CKMS Community Connections Hour One airs on CKMS-FM 102.7 on Monday from 11:00am to Noon, and Hour Two airs alternate Fridays from 3:00pm to 4:00pm.

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