Canadian Politics: Tories getting thumped in Ontario

[St Leo]

It's a risk I am willing to take.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon
Then I suggest you look at previous polls and show me how many times a majority of voters have voted for a conservative party. The FPP system favours conservative parties - that's not my opinion, but is simply supported by the facts.

Under PR the right would be screwed since the Liberals and NDP would be natural coalition partners.

Nor has a majority of Canadians ever voted for a left wing party. What's the point?

If we went PR, I would suppose something like... The CA and some others organised on the right. The NDP, Marxists, et al organised on the left. The Tories would end up slightly right of centre (right economically) and the Liberals slightly left of centre.

I can well imagine that the Tories and Liberals would trade support on many issues, while sometimes the Tories would govern and sometimes the Liberals.

Let me put it this way, I have considered some of the things I have heard about PR and am at a point that I would be willing to listen to arguments for it being brought to Canada. But then maybe I am just looking for relief from a single party governing system that we are finding ourselves in.

What has been somewhat of a hinderence to Alberta at times... one party rule for extreme lengths of time, is now being visited on us nationally with the Liberals. Alberta has been blessed in some ways, and the way Getty screwed up did not put us in too bad a position. Canada as a whole is not going to have the same sort of slack.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

There have been way more Liberal governments under first past the post than conservatives, at least here in Canada. I fail to see the evidence that first past the post favours one ideology over another.

Canada is different in this respect than the UK, Australia and New Zealand (which had the same sort of system). Regionalism is a much bigger deal here, and conservative soclal policies matter a lot more. You also have a bunch of Frenchmen to contend with.

What used to happen in these countries is that the Labour Party would win urban electorates by 90% of the vote but lose most of the the rural electorates by a much smaller margin. So you would get a lot of situations in which the party with 45% of the total vote would lose out to the party that got 33% of the total vote. Conservative goverments would win again and again despite getting less votes than the opposition Centre Left party.

And you do realise that Alliance support would rise under PP?

Yes, and rightly so because they get a lot of votes. Same goes for the PC and NDP. The only party that would suffer would be the Liberals. On the other hand, the Liberals and NDP would still form a majority and the parties of the right would have to moderate their policies to capture the centre.

Look, it works really well. Apart from the supporters of old style conservatism, most people in NZ are happy with our system, because everyone but the extreme lunatics (there is a 5% threshold) gets represented in parliament. It has also allowed an economically conservative but socially libertarian party to flourish.

Another benefit is that bad parties can be destroyed by the voters. Under the FPP system we are basically stuck with two alternatives. This discourages people from voting for third parties and ossifies inefficient and cronyist political structures. In New Zealand the former party of the right is being eaten up by a new party which is better organised and has managed to extend its foothold in parliament - this would not have happened under the old system.

Another benefit is that pluralistic societies like Canada, New Zealand, the UK and Australia are no longer best served by a two party system which tries to cram everyone's views into one of two unappetizing packages. PR allows you to vote for your own flavour of conservatism, liberalism or centrism.

[notyoueither]

Are you trying to discourage us?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither

Nor has a majority of Canadians ever voted for a left wing party. What's the point?

Do you have the stats? I'd be willing to state that the Bloc, Liberal and NDP vote combined is usually over 50%.

If we went PR, I would suppose something like... The CA and some others organised on the right. The NDP, Marxists, et al organised on the left. The Tories would end up slightly right of centre (right economically) and the Liberals slightly left of centre.

Exactly. This is what happened to us - except we have Greens instead of Marxists. There is a 5% threshold to prevent ridiculously small parties (like the legalise pot people) from getting in. Having said that, if they manage the 5%, they're in (that's a lot of votes).

I can well imagine that the Tories and Liberals would trade support on many issues, while sometimes the Tories would govern and sometimes the Liberals.

They might, but the NDP is closer to the Liberals, who are a left leaning centrist party. That makes them natural coalition partners. If the PC party were run by someone like Joe Clark (who is a reasonable man) your situation would be quite likely, and frankly I would applaud it since the compromise policies would represent the votes of a lot more Canadians.

Let me put it this way, I have considered some of the things I have heard about PR and am at a point that I would be willing to listen to arguments for it being brought to Canada. But then maybe I am just looking for relief from a single party governing system that we are finding ourselves in.

What has been somewhat of a hinderence to Alberta at times... one party rule for extreme lengths of time, is now being visited on us nationally with the Liberals. Alberta has been blessed in some ways, and the way Getty screwed up did not put us in too bad a position. Canada as a whole is not going to have the same sort of slack.

I agree. But the Liberals will still win unless the Alliance stops its American like brand of conservatism and comes back towards the Canadian consensus. Too many people in Ontario and Quebec see the Alliance as existing to persecute immigrants, homosexuals, women and the poor.

Changing to PR will make it harder for the Liberals to run Canada by fiat, since they will have to do at least one deal to remain in government.

I'm glad to see we more or less agree on something for a change.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Are you trying to discourage us?

No.

I thought you wanted to see Liberal power curtailed and the Liberals made more accountable.

[blackice]

The only reason they did so poorly was that all the strategic voting scumbags voted against the Tories instead of for the NDP.

Humm I have to wonder that point, I think it is more like the PC'ers did not come out to vote for them. The NDP had more votes than in the last election, the Libs had the same... The no voters were most likely un happy PC'ers.

I also have to wonder why truck loads of paper shreading has been going on for days now at OUR provincial building.... Do the people not own the paper and the information? I mean we paid for it, elected it... Why would the outgoing party shead tons of documents? Why should they be allowed to do that.....
What are they shreading?

[Ben Kenobi]

So you would get a lot of situations in which the party with 45% of the total vote would lose out to the party that got 33% of the total vote.

Happened right here in BC.

The conservative party, the Liberals lost to the NDP party.

What happened the next set of elections is that the Liberals won all but 2 seats. The system corrected itself from one election to another.

My biggest problem with PR is that it encourages governmental instability. All governments would need to be coalitions, in Canada's example, giving the NDP vast power as the kingmakers by joining the Liberals.

Secondly, First-past-the-post allows for regional representation, similar to the British parliament. An MP would serve his riding, all constituents, regardless of party affiliation.

Now, with PR, where would be this regional representation? A MP would be elected with no responsibilities to his constituents.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon
No.

I thought you wanted to see Liberal power curtailed and the Liberals made more accountable.

s'OK. Just commenting on the shifting of the discussion in this thread.

As far as PR is concerned, I think it would be devastating to one party alright, and that party would be the Liberals. About 15 years after Confederation they caught on to what it takes to get elected federally and they have governed most of the time since.

They are the compromise party. They rip off everyone elses good ideas and package them as their own. Add strategic voting to the mix, and we get Liberal dynasties that are fondly remembered by our myth makers. On the one time the Tories got close to such a dynasty, the media and chattering classes went into a frenzy of libel and slander that saw the Tories reduced from majority government to 2 seats. Now, where was I...

Oh yeah. I am not saying I totally agree with PR, but I am willing to listen. I heard an NZ MP recently on the radio. He mentioned that PR had resulted in much more responsive and responsible government, and that the predicted descent into Italian style government by chaos had not occured. So, yes I am open to the idea.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

My biggest problem with PR is that it encourages governmental instability. All governments would need to be coalitions, in Canada's example, giving the NDP vast power as the kingmakers by joining the Liberals.

Canada's wild changes, like this thrashing the Tories took and the annihlation of what was left of the Mulroney goverment occur because there are a lot of swing voters here (far more than NZ). PR would moderate this effect.

Secondly, First-past-the-post allows for regional representation, similar to the British parliament. An MP would serve his riding, all constituents, regardless of party affiliation.

Now, with PR, where would be this regional representation? A MP would be elected with no responsibilities to his constituents.

In our system half the members are elected by an FPP system in particular ridings. The other half are used up to correct the proportions of the overall vote. Everyone gets two votes: an electorate vote and a party vote. So for example if in the 60 electorates Party A gets 40 seats and Party B 20, but the party vote is split 50/50, Party B gets an additional 40 members from its published list of candidates and Party A gets an additional 20 to make up the proportions.

This means that most electorates have 2 member's offices so you can complain to whichever one you like.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Happened right here in BC.

The conservative party, the Liberals lost to the NDP party.

What happened the next set of elections is that the Liberals won all but 2 seats. The system corrected itself from one election to another.

Evidently, people realised they had to speak louder.

My biggest problem with PR is that it encourages governmental instability. All governments would need to be coalitions, in Canada's example, giving the NDP vast power as the kingmakers by joining the Liberals.

The Liberals would get annihilated over the longer term if they enslaved themselves to the NDP.

Canadians will reward the party that does the best of finding the middle of the road. Eliminate strategic voting, and we might actually get a realistic picture of what the people of Canada really want.

Secondly, First-past-the-post allows for regional representation, similar to the British parliament. An MP would serve his riding, all constituents, regardless of party affiliation.

Now, with PR, where would be this regional representation? A MP would be elected with no responsibilities to his constituents.

Good questions.

[Ben Kenobi]

In our system half the members are elected by an FPP system in particular ridings.

The other half are used up to correct the proportions of the overall vote.

Why half and half? Canada's a huge country, unlike New Zealand, where the ridings would be small. The rural Canadian ridings are huge, and halving the number of ridings would just make things worse.

I see one half doing twice as much work, while the second half, the balancers would not have much to do at all.

[notyoueither]

Double the number of MPs?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

Why half and half? Canada's a huge country, unlike New Zealand, where the ridings would be small. The rural Canadian ridings are huge, and halving the number of ridings would just make things worse.

I see one half doing twice as much work, while the second half, the balancers would not have much to do at all.

It doesn't have to be half and half, that just works for us. The second half do much the same as the first half - they also represent wherever they live. It works just fine.

[Ben Kenobi]

NYE:

a frenzy of libel and slander that saw the Tories reduced from majority government to 2 seats.

Western Alienation / Female Prime minister.

A winning combination.

Oh, and Campbell did call the hearing impaired 'stupid.'

Double the number of MPs?

Now we pay them twice as much to do the same job as before.