In most constituencies and especially in Quebec, this is true. The Bloc will never form a government and will never be able to provide the same kind of representation that the Liberals can. If you do not want the Tories in power for another four years, voting Liberal is the best option.
As NDP support continues to rise in the polls, will the left-wing vote splitting phenomenon be a serious game changer and prove to be a boon for the Tories in their quest for a majority?
While it's not unusual for the New Democrats to experience a surge during a campaign — Jack Layton often outperforms his competitors in the English-language debate, resulting in a spike — experts say it usually peters out come election day.Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/decision-canada/Divided+Harper+stands+left+wing+split+could+return+Conservatives+power/4637362/story.html#ixzz1JwV74ojw
That unfair voting system allowed the Libs to win 3 majorities. their best result was 40% and in one case it was just over 36%. Harper in the last election had a higher percentage of the vote than Chretien did in his last campaign.
ReplyDeleteThat unfair voting system allowed the Libs to win 3 majorities. their best result was 40% and in one case it was just over 36%.
ReplyDeleteYou might have something on whether this is fair or not... but in the three elections, where the Liberals won majorities -- 1993, 1997, and 2000 -- they scored over 36% and their best result was over 41%.
On-line, here are the results for the three elections.
1993: Liberals: 41.24%
1997: Liberals: 38.46%
2000: Liberals: 40.85%
Conservatives 2008: 37.65%
I think the Australian's way of voting is better..and everyone there HAS to vote.
ReplyDeleteI did the math using the riding results from last election. If the Federalist Left vote (Liberal/NDP/Green) had been combined the results would have been:
ReplyDeleteLiberals 178
Cons 89
BQ 41
i.e. a Majority Liberal government and no more Harper.
But I do agree, IRV is the right way to go. true PR will result in permanent minorities and wacco fringe parties wielding way too much power. If there was a way to allocate "power" instead of "seats" I'd be all for it, but as we saw with Chuck Cadman in the right situation even 1 seat in Parliament can wield a lot of power.
Only in Canada, a vote against a party becomes a vote for that party. The majority of the popular vote is usually for a party on the left of the political spectrum but thanks to our unfair voting system, the governing party is the one that actually got the smaller proportion of the popular votes and pretends to speak for the entire country. Makes me so angry that my vote meant worse than nothing: it just meant I helped the party that doesn't represent me become the governing party. Support Fair Vote Canada please!
ReplyDelete