See this story about the Canadian election of May 2. The Green Party did win its first election for a seat, and the New Democratic Party gained the second largest number of seats of any party. The Conservative Party won 166 seats, New Democrats 104, Liberal 34, Bloc Quebecois 3, Green 1. See this story for more details about the Green Party’s victory.
Canada has a winner-take-all/first-past-the-post system. How much does public funding account for the fluidity of Canadian politics, relative to the U.S.A.? Party organization? The media?
The organization question is interesting because provincial and federal parties are pretty disconnected. I don’t know how this works.
I was wondering about regionalism playing a role. The Conservatives and Liberals have been national parties. The NDP, BQ and others have been regionally important. It looks like the NDP and Liberals have flipped places tonight. The NDP is in nearly every province and have totally dominated in Quebec.
Canada has equal and fairly easy ballot access, plus public funding for parties. Also there are no primaries; parties nominate by party meeting, and they are free to nominate anyone they wish, as long as that person meets the requirements to hold the office. Also there is no legal requirement that any party choose a nominee months and months before the election. All these factors make it possible for minor parties to win sometimes in Canada, even though, as #1 says, there is no proportional representation and not even Instant runoff voting in Canadian parliamentary elections.
I have to admit I totally forgot about this election, but the NDP taking over in Quebec over the Bloc is easily the most interesting turn of events! More so than the Conservatives gaining a majority from the Liberal’s expense.
I hope this leads to good things in the future for the NDP, as the Liberals seem far to fractured these days.
The Canada regime is a copy of the STONE AGE Brit regime.
Gerrymanders / plurality elections — gee also just like the U.S.A.
Cons — about 40 percent of the votes — won a majority of the gerrymander seats and claim a mandate for the Cons extremism.
How come the 60 percent majority are NOT marching in the streets in Canada ???
P.R. and App.V. — to END Stone Age BARBARIAN regimes.
Even without proportional representation Canada has a better electoral system then the United States. Must be nice.
68.8% of incumbents were re-elected – nearly 7% below average for Canadian Parliament. 64.3% of MP’s from the 40th Parliament will be returning to the 41st Parliament (1% above average).
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