Do you think Harper has deliberately set out to discourage people from voting?

Absolutely. People thought that Harper had become more popular between the 2006 and 2008 elections but not so: 170,000 fewer people voted for a Conservative candidate in 2008 than in 2006. His larger seat count is a tribute to his ability to discourage people from voting. The 700,000 fewer people voting for the Liberals did so on the basis of attack ads. None of what the attack ads do is to make people like the Conservatives more — it’s a question of framing, first Stephane Dion and now Michael Ignatieff in the worst possible terms based on the most sophisticated marketing genius of the Karl Rove variety.

All of these things add up. The next best option to proportional representation is to figure out how to — through whatever mobilization, viral, citizen grassroots campaign — to say not only am I going to vote, I am going to make sure that I talk to my friends and neighbours who I don’t usually talk to about politics and make sure they vote — not how they’re going to vote just that they vote.

One of the persistent features of progressive Canadian politics is the huge divide between party politics and extra-parliamentary politics. It’s almost unique to Canada that movement groups are so rigidly non-partisan when it comes to elections. How do we deal with that?

Well, one of the things that has to happen is that the Revenue Canada rules around charitable status have to change. Look at the David Suzuki Foundation for instance. David is acknowledged as one of the top 10 Canadians. He made a very strong comment about Harper on the CBC’s George Strombolopoulos show. Now his organization as a result of that is having its charitable tax status threatened. He cannot possibly support the Green Party.

But the fact is that you don’t have to tell people how to vote — you just have to tell people to get out and vote. The call is — “Hey people, look at the numbers. Do you think that all those people who stayed at home in 2008 would have voted for Harper if they’d gotten off their duff to vote?”