British Columbia

Unfortunately politicians lie a lot. The NDP is still far more honest and transparent than Christie Clark's train-wreck of an administration.

I won't defend the NDP for scandals like this but on the whole they've been a net positive and are a reasonably representative government.

So half "there aren't any better alternatives" and half "all governments suck, this one (while still sucking) is in a high percentile of unsucky governments".

and are continually working against the public interest for things like forestry and climate change (LNG anyone?). Is it just because there are no other options?

The problem is the only party that would directly do anything good about this (The Greens) are seen as a one-issue party, in addition to semi frequent news stories about members being anti-vaxx, etc. Always overblown, but it does hurt the party.

Also, the NDP are excellent at areas other than Forestry, so even though I can't stand voting for them based on their horrific logging/environment history, my options are:

BC ~~Conservatives~~ 'United'

BC (extra) Conservatives

BC Greens

Now, I think there's a good future for the Greens, and I think Furstenau is doing an excellent job. They are getting around 1 in 6 to 1 in 7 voters, and for a Green party in Canada, that ain't bad. What I hope they do is force the NDP to up their environmental game, because right now it's fucking awful.

Essentially we follow the Canadian tradition of voting against parties, for the most part, rather than for them.

The rules don't change.

1. Vote the party who stands the best chance on delivering a net-positive platform, even if it's the best of a bad bunch.
2. Repeat.

It's like evolution: with enough iterations, we will grow a good administration.

This means that we vote in the party we do, not because they're good, but because these disenfranchising liars and racists and sellouts are the least-worse.