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An Ottawa Couple Says A Conservative Politician Urged Them To Vote NDP

Two Ottawa residents say they had a very strange interaction with a Conservative election candidate this weekend.

Paul McLeod
by Paul McLeod

BuzzFeed Political Editor, Canada

Two Ottawa residents say they were left staring at each other in confusion after a visit from a Conservative politician.

Conservative.ca

They said Ottawa-Vanier Conservative candidate David Piccini knocked on their door Sunday, the last campaign day before the election. After Piccini asked how they planned to vote, they mentioned they were both civil servants (because of their jobs, they asked not to be identified for this story.)

The Harper government has frequently sparred with the civil service and recently took out a full page ad in the Ottawa Citizen to try to win bureaucrats over.

Alex Boutilier @alexboutilier

Today's @OttawaCitizen features a full page ad from the PM appealing to public servants. #elxn42 #cdnpoli

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Piccini seemed to take this as a sign that the couple weren't likely to vote Conservative.

"He said, 'well ok I'm not going to pretend everything is rosy. You guys should really take a look at the NDP platform, I think it looks pretty reasonable," said the husband.

Piccini then apparently said: "I understand maybe you don't want to go with the Conservative Party... But as a Canadian I just can't justify voting for Trudeau."

The couple didn't know what to say to that.

"After we closed the door we both looked at each other and were like, what just happened?" said the husband.

How does this make any sense? Why would a Conservative politician promote the NDP?

Nanos Research / Via nanosresearch.com

If the polls are correct, the Harper government is about to lose a lot of seats to the Liberals, especially in Ontario. The NDP are polling in third place in the province.

The best-case scenario for the Conservatives is vote splitting between the Liberals and NDP allowing the government to come up the middle.

So in many ridings, a vote for the NDP could help the Conservatives (in others it would be the opposite, with the Liberals siphoning support from the NDP).

Afterward, the husband posted the story on Facebook. "Apparently the new #cpc talking points now include a plug for both income AND vote splitting," he wrote.