This isn't the one thing to fix it. Strategic voting under the current approach doesn't work; it only promotes irrational voting habits. Voting only to remove the Conservatives is no more rational than voting only out of party loyalty. You will not easily covert a person from one form of irrational party fixated vote to another form of irrational party fixated vote. So you're largely left having to sway the undecideds, the policy voters, and those who don't affiliate strongly with a specific party. Some of them may be willing to cast their vote against the Conservatives with few other concerns, but not all can or will. Instead of asking them to vote strategically against the Conservatives, why not give them reasons to vote for the party favoured to best compete with the Conservatives?
But it's not like problems begin and end there. The closest contested riding in 2011 was Nipissing—Timiskaming. It's easy to say "if just a handful of people would have voted Liberal instead of NDP the Conservatives would have lost the seat", but the reality is the Liberals previously held that seat and their popularity declined. You cannot simply look at the numbers after the polls and ignore the reasons the Liberals saw a decline in support from the previous election. You cannot simply go to that riding and expect the trend to reverse because the Liberals were oh-so-close last election, but neither can you assume the NDP continued their upward momentum. You'd need accurate polling data, and you'd need a clear line of communication to voters from a unified strategic voting organization to pull it off, and neither of those things actually exist in reality.
This riding is even trickier because -- despite the common conception that the Liberals and NDP split the left -- the Liberals are centrist and at times gain and lose votes on the left and right, which was likely the case in 2011. So part of why the Liberals lost the seat in the first place is quite likely because Liberals lost votes to the Conservatives, in which case making an argument if favour of the Liberals based on taking down the Conservatives really doesn't seem as compelling.
Strategic voting initiatives will shift the votes of some targeted voters, but it won't shit them all. Truthfully, in a close riding which has seen some substantial changes over the last eight years, would favouring the Liberals secure a Liberal victory, or would it merely seal an NDP defeat (swap the parties if you like)? I personally do not believe those pushing strategic voting have strong enough resources and answers to give assurances. I think they merely undermine the voting process and stir the pot a little, but for better or worse, it's not clear. The track record on federal elections does not hint it's been for the better, which is not to suggest strategic voting is inherently impractical, but that the approaches seen to date have been at best ineffectual. Even if I could support it ideologically, I don't see much pragmatism in it. I think it is more likely to add confusion to voting than clarity and direction, and the more elections we keep trying for it the longer we're promoting voting based on party-fixations above policy or issues.
