I know. There’s no perfect answer, especially under FPTP. But holding your nose and voting strategically isn’t the worst thing to do just to buy time, prevent the utter destruction of the public institutions, preserve free expression, and slow the rise of the far right. The USA shows us that in hindsight a strategic vote can look more clearly like the thing to do than it did at the time, even when it’s a vote for wishy-washy liberalism. I consider myself further to the left than any mainstream party in Canada, yet I look at the USA and think they would have done a lot better to re-elect the (genocide-supporting) Democrats. It would have been more neoliberal imperialism, but it would have bought time for the people to organize against fascism, and perhaps for the fascists to make mistakes and lose support, that the USA now doesn’t have.

I don’t like to be saying this, but a strategic vote may be more necessary than ever this time. I don’t want my friends and family persecuted and disappeared off the streets, academics censored, science defunded and suppressed, and public institutions systematically dismantled, as is happening in the USA, and Poilievre intends to lead us in that direction.