Comments on: The Canadian election: Déjà vu all over again

By: Stone Henge! Where A Man Is A Man!

Stone Henge! Where A Man Is A Man! — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:27:45 +0000

So… how did it turn out? Did the Cababians vote for the hockey player, the irritating leftist, or the moose?

By: Stone Henge! Where A Man Is A Man!

Stone Henge! Where A Man Is A Man! — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:18:13 +0000

There was an election in Cababa?

By: Darryl Rosin

Darryl Rosin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:01:19 +0000

ZOMG It’s on! The Libs, NDP and Le Bloc have signed a coalition agreement and written to the GG. Harper is recommending parliament be prorogued until the New Year or failing that, new elections.

The game is, as they say, on.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/546315

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 12:33:09 +0000

I was actually in the country for 9 days while the election happened. I recall one article pointing out that the Greens should really give up, because all their vote did was to ensure that the party with the worst environmental policies prevailed. What surprised me was that I heard nothing about the antiquated, anti-democratic first-past-the-post voting system. Then there was this article by John Robson (which I read in The Vancouver Sun - btw I notice that Harper has scrapped the proposal to end public subsidies for political parties which was snuck in as part of his fiscal defence proposals) which suggests that the policies of all parties other than the Conservatives are leftish and they really ought to get together. Certainly with a combined vote of 61% there seems to be no prospect at all of unseating the Conservatives who did quite nicely in gaining 46% of the seats with 38% of the votes. I did run into the opinion that no politician should have too much power, so it was best if you always had a minority government. If that opinion was widespread maybe Canadians are getting the government that suits them.

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:11:16 +0000

Couldn’t happen to a nastier bunch of bastards, uless it was the Cheney-American Imbecile mob.

By: Zarquon

Zarquon — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:55:41 +0000

Harper minority government may fall

By: tim hollo

tim hollo — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 03:56:34 +0000

As is usual the Greens failed to garner much support on a percentage basis let alone win a seat

Jeez, Phil – 7% up from 4.5%, garnered in a single member first past the post system where many potential Greens voters cannot bring themselves to do so (because the Greens cannot win the seat) is a pretty tremendous result, I would have thought!

It’s no coincidence that the Australian Greens do best in places like Tasmania, the ACT, the Federal Senate, NZ and Germany where the electoral systems make it more achievable for Greens to win seats. People don’t like to feel they are ‘wasting’ their vote, so they won’t cast a vote for a candidate who has no chance of winning, most particularly not when there is no flow of preferences.

By: feral sparrowhawk

feral sparrowhawk — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:00:16 +0000

Actually I believe there was a very limited agreement between the Libs and the Greens, where each didn’t run in one seat and encouraged people to vote for the other. I suspect the reason this wasn’t more widespread was that at least as many Green voters would prefer the NDP as the Libs. So for the Greens to be seen getting too close to the Libs would be damaging to them amongst swinging Green/NDP voters.

What is needed is for the Greens, Libs and NDP to cut a three-way deal. If they could do so they’d romp it in. But the Lib/NDP hostility makes this unlikely, and doing simultaneous deals with the NDP and the Libs would theoretically work for the Greens, but might involve more organisation than the Canadian Greens can muster.

By: christine

christine — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:30:40 +0000

Well, first past the post strikes again. To answer Sam’s question: no, Libs don’t have any agreement with NDP and/or Greens, although the Libs and Greens agreed not to run candidates in the seat of the other’s leader (not that this helped Elizabeth May, Greens leader, who I gather lots of people came to admire, nor improved Dion’s chances since he was in a very safe Quebec seat).

The first past the post thing and consequent vote splitting is what led to the merger between Reform and Conservatives. While Lib vote dropped a lot, most of it went to Greens/NDP, and would probably have ended back with the Libs in a preferential system.

I wonder if this might lead to Liberal support for voting reform.

By: Idiot/Savant

Idiot/Savant — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:04:28 +0000

Liberals 76 (26%), Conservatives 143 (38%), NDP 37 (18%), BQ 50 (10%), Greens 0 (7%), Other 2 (1%)

Which simply shows that Canadians need MMP, or some other form of proportional representation.