Canada

It is a travesty, but no party who gains enough power to lead a government in Canada has any incentive to change the system. The party currently in power always has the most to lose from it.

that’s exactly why we’ve been stuck on an endless cycle of Liberal/Conservative governments for the last handful of decades

Genuinely I can't see how this follows and I've tried.

Keep in mind when I say ABC, I don't mean anything like campaigning for the LPC instead of the NDP "to defeat" the CPC. ABC in my world is just about strategy of voting on election day (or early voting), not about doing what you should do to get more people to vote for the candidates you want to win. If I prefer the NDP (I do), I'd donate and talk to friends and family about voting NDP, especially in the ridings where NDP candidates can win. For example in Parkdale—High Park, but not in Fort Mac.

By voting ABC I mean specifically looking at the numbers for the local riding on the day I vote, checking which one of these cases they resemble:

• CPC: 34, NDP: 33, LPC: 33
• CPC: 44, NDP: 44, LPC: 12
• CPC: 44, LPC: 44, NDP: 12
• CPC: 12, LPC: 44, NDP: 44
• CPC: 12, LPC: 48, NDP: 40

Then vote like this respectively:

• CPC: 34, NDP: 33, LPC: 33
  • Vote NDP since either has a chance of beating CPC and I prefer NDP
• CPC: 44, NDP: 44, LPC: 12
  • Vote NDP since they're the only ones that have a chance of beating CPC. Voting LPC likely won't get the LPC to win this riding but is depriving the NDP from a vote that can tip it over the CPC, therefore increasing the chance of the CPC winning
• CPC: 44, LPC: 44, NDP: 12
  • Vote LPC since they're the only ones that have a reasonable chance of beating CPC. Voting NDP likely won't get the NDP to win this riding but is depriving the LPC from a vote that can tip it over the CPC, therefore increasing the chance of the CPC winning
• CPC: 12, LPC: 44, NDP: 44
  • Vote NDP since the CPC has no chance of winning this riding and I prefer NDP
• CPC: 12, LPC: 48, NDP: 40
  • Vote NDP since the CPC has no chance of winning this riding and I prefer NDP and hopefully we can close the gap and defeat the LPC candidate

There are other cases, but these are good enough to illustrate my reasoning. I just can't see how this strategy can lead to more wins for CPC and LPC and fewer for NDP. ABC as described here should lead to fewer CPC MPs and more other MPs proportional to their vote share. Under these conditions, how much that vote share is depends on who people prefer more.

I think the reason why we've had CPC/LPC swings for decades has more to do with Canadian society as a whole eating up the neolib propaganda fed to the world since the 80s.

I think it's a workaround that increases the democratic representation within FPTP. I prefer an LPC MP than a CPC MP because the LPC MP represents me more closely than the CPC MP, even if I'd ultimately prefer an NDP MP. As I've mentioned in another comment - ABC doesn't mean vote LPC if you don't want CPC. It means vote for whoever not CPC can win in you riding, NDP, LPC, Green, etc. It sucks but I think that is in fact more democratic within the not-so-democratic system we have than producing vote splits which elect people who represent us even less.

Check your riding polling close to election day, or during early voting. There's usually info coming out per-riding that shows who has an edge.

I’ve never not wanted to vote for any party before.

BTW I get this feeling too.

Hey buddy, we don't live in a PR country. Voting ABC means getting whoever can win in our local riding win. In my riding, over the last few elections the NDP has finished with abysmal numbers compared to LPC and CPC. A voter going NDP instead of LPC in this riding is a boost to the CPC candidate. Conversely in ridings where NDP has better chance of winning, a voter going LPC gives a boost to the CPC candidate. If all voters were informed ABC voters we'd have more LPC and NDP MPs and fewer CPC ones, likely resulting in more supply-and-confidence governments. I'll go a step further. If Jagmeet had his head out of his ass, he'd have began being strategic about this and explicitly run candidates only where he's got a reasonable chance to win and where he's got a chance to flip a lib, and not run candidates where he doesn't. The latter giving more seats to the CPC. If the LPC falls behind or is just as diminished as the NDP, I'd say the same thing about them. They should only run where they can win, and not run where the NDP has good chances to win against the CPC. We saw this play out in the recent French election where the NFP and Macron's party withdrew candidates in order to win more seats altogether than NR.

I think you might be confusing what ABC means. ABC doesn't mean vote LPC if you don't want CPC to win.