Right, but if you have a non-con incumbent, the thing Brits decided was the smart move is to strategically vote for the incumbent. So instead of BQ or NDP voters voting for Liberals, Liberal voters should vote for BQ or NDP, in seats where the incumbent was BQ or NDP, to use the tactic that was popular in Britain’s latest election. In the UK there were also some seats previously held by Conservatives where the public as a whole decided it was better to coalesce behind LibDems or someone else, rather than Labour, because of past voting patterns in that seat, even while in most seats strategically voting for Labour was the way.

I think they had a longer election campaign, which allowed for setting up campaigns to encourage this so even relatively low-information voters could work out what the best strategic option was for them. I dunno if that might be part of the reason it doesn’t seem to have happened in Canada, or if there are deeper ideological or cultural reasons behind it.

I’m lucky enough to live somewhere we don’t use FPTP, so I’m not best placed to say one way or the other is the right way to strategically vote. I’m just observing that it seems interesting that the two countries have, in these latest two elections, taken very different approaches. (I will say that this whole discussion is just all the more reason both countries should adopt a real democratic voting system. IRV at the least. A proportional system preferably.)