Strategic votes for May

A group that's grown out of opposition to the 2009 prorogation is throwing its support behind Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

Catch-22 started in protest when Stephen Harper shut down Parliament at the end of 2009. Instead of re-opening the House and Senate at the end of January, parliamentarians came back to Ottawa March 3, after the Vancouver Olympics ended.

Just over a year later, they're still angry. So they're focusing on about 60 ridings they think they can turn against the Conservatives, hoping to shut them out of the House of Commons.

In a news release Monday, the group said they decided May has the best chance of beating Conservative Gary Lunn, who has held the seat since 1997.

"We'll now work extremely hard to have as many people as possible vote for Elizabeth and get rid of Lunn, who has been a very weak MP," said Masrour Zoghi, a Catch 22 campaigner in B.C.

The release says the group will endorse opposition candidates in about 42 ridings where organizers feel the Conservatives are vulnerable, and in another 20 ridings where candidates won by a small margin over the Tories in the last election.

"Catch 22 members in Saanich-Gulf Islands are optimistic that the group's endorsement will help May become the first Green Party member ever elected in Canada," the release says.

Both the NDP and the Liberals have been trying to get people to vote strategically if they don't like the Conservatives. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says his party is the only national party that can beat the Conservatives.

NDP Leader Jack Layton, meanwhile, says in Western Canada his party usually runs second to the Conservatives -- the Liberals tend to run third -- so the NDP are best-positioned to take down Tory candidates.