Federal election result: it just doesn't make any sense!

[overdone]

I think the current parliamentary system is correct but it is Senate reform that can make the difference.
If the Senate was voted in by proportional voting then you would have two separate means of democracy to represent the people. Policies and laws would still be created by Parliament and the party system but the now elected Senate would be there to vet out the political machinations that don't pass the test.

you think this is correct democracy?

1 Alberta — 34 seats
2 British Columbia — 42 seats
3 Manitoba — 14 seats
4 New Brunswick — 10 seats
5 Newfoundland and Labrador — 7 seats
6 Northwest Territories - 1 seat
7 Nova Scotia — 11 seats
8 Nunavut — 1 seat
9 Ontario — 121 seats
10 Prince Edward Island — 4 seats
11 Quebec — 78 seats
12 Saskatchewan — 14 seats
13 Yukon — 1 seat

PEI, 4 seats, barely 160,000 people

somewhere around 2.5 million in those 4 provinces

you think the East coast with 32 seats should have almost the same as AB, almost 4 million or even close to BC with almost double the pop

A Canadian is a Canadian

yeah right

unless it comes to voting

 

[clu]

I think the current parliamentary system is correct but it is Senate reform that can make the difference.
If the Senate was voted in by proportional voting then you would have two separate means of democracy to represent the people. Policies and laws would still be created by Parliament and the party system but the now elected Senate would be there to vet out the political machinations that don't pass the test.

The Senate is a time averaged reflection of our changing governments, since each government will appoint a few senators. So in a way it does average out to be more representative of the middle ground.

 

[Robert Upndown]

What you probably mean is that 'the Liberals are SUPPOSED TO BE at the center of the political spectrum'. But after 15 years of the 'Liberal' rule in BC I'm 100% sure they are extremists: they are more of a fraud ring than a political party. If they manage to downgrade the whole country to BC level that's gonna be the real disaster. So far baby Trudeau made quite a few idiotic and extremist statements, so I don't expect anything good out of it.

Don't try to speculate if it would be different in case of fair elections. Even if you believe results wouldn't be much different in this particular case, this is not an excuse to dump 60% of votes into the garbage bin. If Trudeau really wants to change the unfair election system, he should do it ASAP and announce new election right after that. Right now 60% of voters have clearly told him 'We don't want you and your party!' This we know for sure. Time to respect the opinion of the majority.

Comparing the Provincial and Federal Liberals? I am not an expert by any means, but really?? The only thing they share is the name. Other than that apples and hand grenades (Oranges)

 

[sdw]

Comparing the Provincial and Federal Liberals? I am not an expert by any means, but really?? The only thing they share is the name. Other than that apples and hand grenades (Oranges)

The only reason it is called the BC Liberal Party is that it was named that by Gordon Wilson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Wilson_(Canadian_politician)

In 1987, Wilson took over as leader of the BC Liberal Party, a moribund party that had not elected a member in over a decade. In the 1991 general election, Wilson's profile skyrocketed after his highly successful performance in the campaign's televised leaders debate. During a nasty squabble between BC Socred leader and Premier Rita Johnston and BC NDP leader Mike Harcourt, Wilson famously said, "Here's a classic example of why nothing ever gets done in the province of British Columbia."[3] It would become the campaign's most successful sound bite.

As a consequence, he led the Liberal Party to win 17 seats, its highest total since 1949. He was largely helped by moderate Socreds crossing over to vote Liberal. The Liberals vaulted from no seats to the Official Opposition in the legislature, relegating the ruling Social Credit Party to a distant third with seven seats. Wilson won his own seat in Powell River-Sunshine Coast.

In 1993, Wilson's leadership of the Liberals was challenged after it came to light that he was having an extramarital affair with fellow Liberal MLA Judi Tyabji, whom he had recently named as the party's House Leader.[4] [5] In a Liberal Party leadership review that had been called soon afterward, Wilson was defeated by Vancouver mayor Gordon Campbell. Within weeks, he and Tyabji left the Liberal caucus and formed a new party, the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA).

Gordon Campbell could have taken the name of the BC Conservative party which would have matched what he was federally, but the BC Conservatives hadn't kept their status up to date and the BC Liberals had kept their status up to date. The coalition that Gordon Campbell created under the name of the BC Liberal Party was made up of what remained of the BC Social Credit Party, the BC Liberal Party and the BC Reform Party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_of_British_Columbia

Reform BC was formed in the early 1980s and registered its name with the B.C. Corporations Branch in 1983, before the creation of the Reform Party of Canada. The party's first candidates ran in the 1991 provincial election, when four candidates stood in the 75 ridings, receiving 2,673 votes, or 0.18% of the popular vote. That election saw the collapse of the British Columbia Social Credit Party, which was reduced to seven Members of the Legislative Assembly, four of these seven defected to Reform BC. This was done in part to capitalize on the popularity of the Reform Party of Canada. Despite attempts to take over Social Credit, Reform BC was unable to absorb it and lay claim to the right of the political spectrum.

In the May 28, 1996 election, the party nominated candidates in all of the province’s 75 ridings, and collected 146,734 votes (9.27% of the popular vote). Two party members were elected to office, but they won no further seats in subsequent elections.

Gordon Campbell purged the MLAs that were federal Liberals prior to his second provincial election, leaving a party that is dominated by Conservative and Reform ideals.

 

[Classic]

Late to this thread but a couple thoughts.

Firstly, minority governments don't actually exist any more around the world. In those countries where multiple parties exist whether they use first past the post or proportional representation, parties team up as blocks prior to the election.

So you get a centre/right block of 2-3 parties and a centre/left block of 2-3 parties. Even happens in the UK now.

Proportional rep is not the full answer but a partial one. Big cities would dictate to smaller ones and rural areas and that is not fair either. A mixed system where half are based on percent and half are from local ridings (first past the post) could be a possibility. That way local or regional issues are better represented.

Democracy is where two wolves and one sheep decide on what to have for dinner. It gets ugly. The problem is our government runs too much of our lives so the stakes are too high. Yes, 51% can screw 49% and that is just stupid. Reduce government involvement in our lives and that in my opinion solves many of the problems we see with respect to corruption, excessive nanny state etc.

And lastly, it is interesting that even though it was an election promise (not on the platform though) the Liberals have unilateraly made a military decision to withdraw combat troops from the ISIS fight in Syria. Not commenting on if this is wrong or right - but didn't the Liberals and most Canadians hate that kind of top down decision making from Harper.

Did Trudeau consult a caucus, cabinet or parliament. Well, no because none exist yet. Did he consult with the Military? Nope. Is he on the wrong side of Liberal supporters - yes (67% of Liberals want to keep the mission alive including F-18s and all). Anyway just hypocritical and lack of change.

I'm out. Peace all.

 

[mercyshooter]

In conclusion, if you go vote, then you hardly are unbiased in politics.

 

[Lee Marvin]

More like, if you didn't vote it's unlikely that people will take you seriously.

 

[mercyshooter]

More like, if you didn't vote it's unlikely that people will take you seriously.

you think they won't do any riots?! hahahaha!

 

[vancity_cowboy]

What you probably mean is that 'the Liberals are SUPPOSED TO BE at the center of the political spectrum'. But after 15 years of the 'Liberal' rule in BC I'm 100% sure they are extremists: they are more of a fraud ring than a political party. If they manage to downgrade the whole country to BC level that's gonna be the real disaster. So far baby Trudeau made quite a few idiotic and extremist statements, so I don't expect anything good out of it.

Don't try to speculate if it would be different in case of fair elections. Even if you believe results wouldn't be much different in this particular case, this is not an excuse to dump 60% of votes into the garbage bin. If Trudeau really wants to change the unfair election system, he should do it ASAP and announce new election right after that. Right now 60% of voters have clearly told him 'We don't want you and your party!' This we know for sure. Time to respect the opinion of the majority.

logically, your position holds together until the last sentence, 'Time to respect the opinion of the majority.'

you see, that remaining 60% don't have 'an opinion', they have at least three opinions, all of which individually usually amount to much less than the winning party's percentage of the vote. they aren't saying they don't want the winning party, they are saying they would prefer that their party got in instead. there's a big difference in the two positions

secondly, to equate the liberal party in b.c. to the liberal party in federal elections is just plain wrong - from both an ideological point of view as well as a historical point of view. you're just going to have to do some homework to see my point

 

[Tugela]

you think this is correct democracy?

1 Alberta — 34 seats
2 British Columbia — 42 seats
3 Manitoba — 14 seats
4 New Brunswick — 10 seats
5 Newfoundland and Labrador — 7 seats
6 Northwest Territories - 1 seat
7 Nova Scotia — 11 seats
8 Nunavut — 1 seat
9 Ontario — 121 seats
10 Prince Edward Island — 4 seats
11 Quebec — 78 seats
12 Saskatchewan — 14 seats
13 Yukon — 1 seat

PEI, 4 seats, barely 160,000 people

somewhere around 2.5 million in those 4 provinces

you think the East coast with 32 seats should have almost the same as AB, almost 4 million or even close to BC with almost double the pop

A Canadian is a Canadian

yeah right

unless it comes to voting

The reason for that is because the constitution has provisions that guarantees (A) that every province will have at least as many seats in parliament as they have in the senate, and (B) no province will have less seats than it had in 1985.

 

[Tugela]

Late to this thread but a couple thoughts.

Firstly, minority governments don't actually exist any more around the world. In those countries where multiple parties exist whether they use first past the post or proportional representation, parties team up as blocks prior to the election.

So you get a centre/right block of 2-3 parties and a centre/left block of 2-3 parties. Even happens in the UK now.

Proportional rep is not the full answer but a partial one. Big cities would dictate to smaller ones and rural areas and that is not fair either. A mixed system where half are based on percent and half are from local ridings (first past the post) could be a possibility. That way local or regional issues are better represented.

Democracy is where two wolves and one sheep decide on what to have for dinner. It gets ugly. The problem is our government runs too much of our lives so the stakes are too high. Yes, 51% can screw 49% and that is just stupid. Reduce government involvement in our lives and that in my opinion solves many of the problems we see with respect to corruption, excessive nanny state etc.

And lastly, it is interesting that even though it was an election promise (not on the platform though) the Liberals have unilateraly made a military decision to withdraw combat troops from the ISIS fight in Syria. Not commenting on if this is wrong or right - but didn't the Liberals and most Canadians hate that kind of top down decision making from Harper.

Did Trudeau consult a caucus, cabinet or parliament. Well, no because none exist yet. Did he consult with the Military? Nope. Is he on the wrong side of Liberal supporters - yes (67% of Liberals want to keep the mission alive including F-18s and all). Anyway just hypocritical and lack of change.

I'm out. Peace all.

Those sorts of decisions are usually made by the prime minister, that's his job. There is nothing odd or unusual about it.

While there may not be a caucus, cabinet or parliament yet, the party does have an organization. Obviously they would have discussed positions internally prior to this, Trudeau would not be making unilateral decisions or he wouldn't be prime minister for very long.

 

[pokemon]

The Canadian system is really based on 338 mini elections and whoever gets the most wins out of that 338 is the winner. This is not a system where there is one election for a leader. Even the US actually doesn't use a system where you are voting between leaders. They use the electoral system and voters in each state pick pick electoral candidates who then vote for president. That's why Al Gore had more popular votes than George Bush but still lost - because Gore did not have enough electoral votes. The fact that the majority in Canada did not vote for the Liberals makes no difference in our system.

 

[Ray]

60.5% of voters said 'NO' to Liberals, and Trudeau is still the Prime Minister of the MAJORITY government. Why does the system disrespect and totally ignore the opinion of 60.5% of voters? Trudeau/Liberals have no mandate to rule this country.

At the last election, 60% of the population indicated they didn't want Harper as their PM, but he was the PM anyways, because that's how our system works.

 

[sdw]

And one can fix this disparity by increasing the number pf MPs in the other provinces to a ratio to population that is close to the average ratio of the over-represented provinces and cut their pay to $40-50,000 / year. You get rid of a lot of the professional politicians and add so many MPs that the PM cannot whip them with the hope of a cabinet or committee position. The power of the PM to control policy and the legislative agenda is diminished, the MPS, having little hope for the power of a seat on cabinet or committee works harder on the issues of their individual ridings.

Smart people that truly want to serve their country will still come forward, as will idiots. But with the trough far less lucrative and the chances of actually moulding legislation and policy to suit an individual's ideology being quite slim, the parties themselves will become more diverse with the return of red Tories as well as blue Liberals and green Tories and Liberals. Leaders will need to compromise to get the support of their diverse members to gain and hold the leadership.

If you really want to shake things up, do a constitutional amendment that sets MP's salaries to be a percentage of gross national product less national debt. See if that can control their proclivity to spend money we don't have.

To really shake things up - go to a Preferential Ballot for the 338 MPs and Direct Election by Preferential Ballot of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers. That way, none of the 338 MPs will ever be a Cabinet Minister. Canadians will directly choose their Prime Minister and Canadians will directly choose the Cabinet Minister for each portfolio. The Prime Minister and Cabinet Minister report to the House of Commons but are not members of the House of Commons. Eliminate the Senate, the House of Commons provides the "Sober Second Thought" of the proposals put before them by the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

 

[Tugela]

And one can fix this disparity by increasing the number pf MPs in the other provinces to a ratio to population that is close to the average ratio of the over-represented provinces and cut their pay to $40-50,000 / year. You get rid of a lot of the professional politicians and add so many MPs that the PM cannot whip them with the hope of a cabinet or committee position. The power of the PM to control policy and the legislative agenda is diminished, the MPS, having little hope for the power of a seat on cabinet or committee works harder on the issues of their individual ridings.

Smart people that truly want to serve their country will still come forward, as will idiots. But with the trough far less lucrative and the chances of actually moulding legislation and policy to suit an individual's ideology being quite slim, the parties themselves will become more diverse with the return of red Tories as well as blue Liberals and green Tories and Liberals. Leaders will need to compromise to get the support of their diverse members to gain and hold the leadership.

If you really want to shake things up, do a constitutional amendment that sets MP's salaries to be a percentage of gross national product less national debt. See if that can control their proclivity to spend money we don't have.

Adding more MPs is pointless. Remember, you pay not only for the MPs salary, but also the overhead associated with their position as well as the salaries of staff to support them.

Some provinces are over represented, and others under represented. The only province that has representation equal to its share of the population is Quebec, which I think is by design.

The representation ratios are provide below. Numbers above one are over represented (and by how much), those below one are under represented.

AB 0.859
BC 0.951
MB 1.148
NB 1.407
NL 1.408
NT 2.405
NS 1.237
NU 2.874
ON 0.931
PE 2.898
QC 1.001
SK 1.310
YK 2.859

The territories have high numbers because they only have one seat. The high numbers for the smaller provinces is due to the number of senate seats they have, as well as the fact that their populations are more or less flat whereas the populations of BC, AB, QC and ON are growing. The ratios change every year as population numbers change.

In order to make the seat distribution representative, the following adjustments would have to be made (rounding up or down to an integer):

AB +6 seats
BC +2 seats
MB -2 seats
NB -3 seats
NL -2 seats
NT no change
NS -2 seats
NU no change
ON +9 seats
PE -3 seats
QC no change
SK -3 seats
YK no change

In addition, rural ridings tend to have fewer voters than urban ridings, in part because it is designed that way, and in part because of population growth rate differences. In other words a fairer distribution would also change things within provinces, with cities getting more of a provinces seats and rural areas fewer.

 

[clu]

Accurate seat representation by province isn't really our biggest issue. When's the last time there was an uproar because New Brunswick was getting preferential treatment?

 

[overdone]

Accurate seat representation by province isn't really our biggest issue. When's the last time there was an uproar because New Brunswick was getting preferential treatment?

it's the basic fundamental of democracy

one person, one vote

when one person's vote is worth more than another's, you don't have democracy

it's called having ethics

 

[pokemon]

it's the basic fundamental of democracy

one person, one vote

when one person's vote is worth more than another's, you don't have democracy



it's called having ethics

The issue with such a system is whether we want Ontario and Quebec to decide who governs the country each election. There are no ethics involved. Just selecting the right system.

 

[clu]

it's the basic fundamental of democracy

one person, one vote

when one person's vote is worth more than another's, you don't have democracy

it's called having ethics

I call it rounding error. With 338 seats I'm really not that worried about an Atlantic province having an extra seat. This is on par with worrying about the mercury in vaccines when there's more mercury in tuna.

Seriously when this is the biggest problem left with our democracy we'll be in a pretty good place. When 39% of the people elected the power that rules our country (be it Conservative before or Liberal now) it seems an odd priority to worry about a source of imbalance that accounts for a 1.8% error in per capita representation.

The only true democracy by this argument is that we have 35,000,000 seats in Parliment.

 

[Tugela]

The cost of operating the house of commons and the MP's offices is a very small part of a very large budget. Something more equitable is highly desirable, true. But equalizing the people's representation by shuffling around the number of sock puppets really will have zero effect on how the government actually operates and how its priorities are set.

How can the electoral system be changed to reduce the power of the PMO and put that power back into the hands of the MPs? Right now the PM can whip his MPs into line because there are a enough cabinet seats and committee seats that offer additional money and a modicum of power that a large percentage of the caucus has a shot at getting one. The PM cannot kick too many recalcitrant MPs out of caucus without endangering the party's hold on power so he has to use the carrot more often than the stick to keep them in line. Reduce the ratio of carrots to caucus members and the PM has little chance of getting too far from the caucus consensus without possibly facing a revolt that pushes him out as leader.

Fix both problems at the same time. From your ratios, one could roughly double the representation from each province except the territories, Nunavut, PEI, Nova Scotia New Brunswick and Newfound Land. Add about a third to NB & NL and add about a half to NS, leaving the last three as they are. There is no need to change the constitution (as taking seats away from PEI would require), which is really not a politically viable possibility.

sdw's suggestion for direct election off the PM and cabinet would also require substantial changes to our constitution and thus will never be a viable option.

There is no compelling reason to increase the number of seats to 600+ to accommodate what are numerically minor variations either. The cost of doing that is not insignificant.