Prominent Green Party supporter and environmentalist Guy Dauncey is urging Vancouver Island voters to forsake all Green Party candidates and vote NDP and Liberal in ridings where they can defeat Conservatives.

Dauncey, who says he wrote the national Green Party's climate platform, calls on voters to support four NDP candidates and one Liberal candidate. Dauncey makes no recommendation between an NDP and Liberal candidate in another riding.

Green leader Elizabeth May has said she is strongly opposed to strategic voting.

Here is Dauncey's complete email:

Dear Friends,

Voting on Vancouver Island

I know it hurts to vote against your instinct, to make that all-important democratic tick for a party other than the one you believe in.

Under our antiquated, colonial, discriminatory, stupid, undemocratic, first-past-the-post voting system, however, when we split the progressive vote not two but three ways, every vote for a candidate who has little chance of winning makes Conservatives cheer.

They are laughing all the way to a possible majority government, packed with Conservative MPs many of whom, If the disgraced MP Maxime Bernier is anything to go by, think climate change is a joke, a Rocky Horror Show of doom and gloom dreamed up by us eco-freaks.

I have been a member of the Green Party in Britain and Canada, on and off, for 35 years. I wrote our Canadian Green Party's climate platform, that was awarded the highest rating by the Pembina Institute. And I am urging all people of a progressive hue not to vote Green, but to vote strategically, to put aside party loyalty for greater loyalty to our Planet Earth.

We absolutely must stop the Conservatives from getting back into power. A Liberal/NDP/Green coalition government (hoping Elizabeth May gets elected) would get Canada back on track with committed action on climate change.

In Vancouver Island North, this clearly means voting for Catherine Bell, NDP - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/31

In Nanaimo-Alberni, this clearly means voting for Zeni Maartman, NDP - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/75

In Nanaimo-Cowichan, this clearly means voting for Jean Crowder, NDP - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/95

In Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, it's a close race between Keith Martin (Liberal) and Jennifer Burgis (NDP) - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/129

In Saanich-Gulf Islands, this clearly means voting for Briony Penn, Liberal - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/127

In Victoria, it clearly means voting for Denise Savoie, NDP - see http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/node/155

This is also what 120 of Canada's top climate scientists are urging us to do - vote strategically - see http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2008/10/07/scientists-environment.html

Just as a comment - if all these candidates won, with Jennifer Burgis in Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, 100% of Vancouver Island's MPs in Ottawa would be women - which would be amazing.

To all those committed Greens who think this means I am betraying my deepest principles - I apologize. Our undemocratic voting system turns good friends into bickering enemies, which is a drag. I have good green friends who are running for the Green Party, and I'd love to support them - but it just does not make sense.

And yes, we all want to see Proportional Voting in Canada.

We will NEVER get this with a returned Conservative government. But we MAY have a slim to good chance with a new progressive coalition government.

with best wishes,

Guy Dauncey

Victoria