The “straight talk”
October 15th, 2008 at 12.07am (Misc, News)
Allow me, if you will, to take a brief break from the usual subject matter to talk about politics. Canada has just had a general election and the results are, from my point of view, dismal.
For those of you who are unaware, Canada elects our prime minister indirectly. The country is divided into electoral districts, or ridings, based on population; the residents of the riding elect a representative, who is affiliated with a political party (note: there are independent candidates as well, but the majority of those running for office are party-based). Whichever political party has the most representatives forms the government, and the leader of that party becomes the prime minister.
There are 308 seats in Canadian Parliament; 155 are needed to form a majority government. If the ruling party has less than 155 seats, but has more than any one of the other parties, it is a minority government (this is incredibly confusing if you haven’t encountered it before, but the numbers following will help, I hope). This means it’s kind of unstable and could fall at any time due to a non-confidence vote, which essentially means that the electorate has lost faith in their government and an election will be called.
Our previous government was a minority, and our Conservative prime minister called an election (breaking his own fixed date law in the process, I might add) in the hopes that he would win a majority. Not so, my hero. Let’s check it out.
The data
Unofficial numbers of the 40th Parliament, as of just before midnight Eastern:
Conservative 143
Liberal 76
Bloc 49
NDP 38
Other 2
All right, let’s have a look at this. Here are the numbers of the 39th Parliament upon its election in 2006:
Conservative 124
Liberal 103
Bloc 51
NDP 29
Other (Independent) 1
The tally
Okay. So that means a net gain for Harper’s Conservatives of just under twenty seats. This is a pretty strong showing — especially considering that the Liberals lost nearly thirty seats, and many of those probably went blue. This is a colossal disappointment for Dion and company, and means there will definitely be some shakeups there fairly soon.
Layton and Duceppe, however, are doing pretty well; the New Democrats picked up nine seats, including a key spot in Québec, and the Bloc managed to hover around their previous numbers (they do have a majority over the Conservatives in their province). Unfortunately, the Greens yet again did not pick up a single seat despite party leader Elizabeth May’s bold predictions of up to eight elected MPs; indeed, even May lost her race against Central Nova incumbent Peter MacKay, Conservative.
The grumbling
The only other prime minister in Canadian history to win back-to-back minority governments was Lester B. Pearson, in 1963 and 1965. This is more of a point of interest than anything else. Pearson was also a Liberal.
Stephen Harper essentially wasted $300 million of Canadians’ money on this election, and he didn’t get what he wanted. In the latter days of the campaign, he was quoted as saying he would be happy with another minority — but he won’t be entirely happy about it. He called this election to win a majority, and he didn’t. Still, he gets to keep his job … which is more than some people can say.
Liberal leader Stéphane Dion is in for some major trials, which will likely cost him his job. The Liberals have posted one of the worst showings in history, losing almost thirty seats between elections. Dion was a long shot to win the leadership in the first place, and took far too long to prove himself an effective leader; he did excellently in the final weeks of the campaign, but by then it was too late. For the record, I really like Dion and I think he could be a terrific leader, but unfortunately, it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards. The party will likely be expecting him to step down in the coming weeks to avoid a costly leadership convention, and candidates like Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff will step up to battle for his job.
I’d also like to address the problem of the Bloc Québécois. Here they are calling themselves a federal party, yet they only run candidates in one province, and their mandate only covers that province. I understand that there are separatists out there, but — if you’ll pardon me — in terms of being a national party, I think they can stuff it. If you’re running in a federal election, you cover the entire country. Case closed. It should be illegal to do what the Bloc is doing, and unfortunately, it is not. I don’t agree with their inclusion in the general election, and I think those candidates would be better served in the Liberal party.
That being said, Gilles Duceppe is totally awesome and should be our prime minister (provided he drops the Québec-first business).
On Québec being recognized as a separate nation, etc: I read an editorial the other day that said mothers with more than one kid might have a favourite, but if they put that in writing or even just say it, it’s total disaster. The same goes for putting one province’s interest above all the rest so blatantly. What about the aboriginal culture in the north, or the hodgepodge of influences in the Atlantic provinces? What about the Acadian and French heritage in New Brunswick (very similar to Québec’s)? The Québec thing implies that the other provinces are less important, and that’s the last kind of division we need.
In short, I hope at least one country does something right.
(These views are mine, I’m not trying to offend anyone, yes you are welcome to debate or challenge my views — or, heaven forbid, agree with me — and no, those tallies are not official numbers. And no, I don’t officially endorse Stéphane Dion, Gilles Duceppe, Barack Obama or anyone else I mentioned in a faintly positive light.)
Tags: canada, editorial, politics
Gareth said,
October 15, 2008 at 12.21am
Elizabeth May was running in Peter MacKay’s riding? Shit, if there was ever a time to be a carpetbagger, that’d be it. MacKay has to be the conservative I hate the least.
The idea that a party can run and receive federal funding (I think, I didn’t check) while only campaigning and writing policy with one province in mind is repugnant to the federal concept. Plus, you know…fuck Quebec, they’re not that special. That being said, I don’t think there are any Conservatives who run for federal office in BC.
Which is why I say I’m from Vancouver.
Kevin said,
October 15, 2008 at 1.42am
Firstly,
Gareth is my hero.
Secondly, and I hate this so much,
The conservatives won 22 of 31 seats in BC.
This includes Vancouver.
Now you can be equally ashamed of Calgary and Vancouver, so you might as well start cheering for the flames (we won tonight, thanks to Todd).
Thirdly,
Ruhee, I have never heard the Bloc Quebecois problem stated so eloquently. However, federal parties exist elsewhere preaching region-specific values.
http://www.westernblockparty.com/
This example is a weak one, as they have no candidates in the West, let alone the rest of Canada.
One thing that you can give to Quebec is political activism. They’re passionate about issues close to them, and they go out and vote and get their leaders elected. And that is admirable.
Something that sits in the pit of my stomach is this. BQ has roughly 9.9% popular vote, they get 50 seats. Green has nearly 7% popular vote, they get 0 seats. I understand how and why this happens, but it certainly makes me wonder if Rep By Pop is serving us properly. Also, if we had proportional representation, I wouldn’t feel like I was tossing my vote into an incinerator living in ConservativeCountry.
I realize that any party that will win under RepByPop is not going to talk about electoral reform, but I think it’s an issue that needs to be addressed.
Kevin said,
October 15, 2008 at 1.46am
Oops. I said there were 31 ridings in BC. There’s 36. The Liberals took 5.
Ruh said,
October 15, 2008 at 9.37am
Gareth — Yeah, May picked a painful riding to run in, as MacKay has been the incumbent for eleven years, I think. It’s hard to go from Tory to Green when you’re accustomed to the Tories for that long.
Unfortunately, Kevin’s right. The Conservatives do run in BC, and what’s even more confusing is that they win. I don’t know what is happening to this country.
Kevin, I hadn’t realised the Conservative numbers in BC were quite that high. That’s depressing. I do know about these other ridiculous separatist or region-specific “national” parties, but I also don’t think that legitimizes the Bloc at all (not that you were saying that, of course). It’s a problem, I think, that these parties continue to exist and fracture the system as they do.
I do, however, completely agree that Québec is, after all the separation referenda and the whining about how special they are, a pretty admirable place. They do care about a lot of things, and they show it a whole lot more than much of the rest of Canada. I don’t think this means we should treat them like our favourite child at the expense of the rest of the country, but perhaps the rest of the country should make an example out of their convictions.
If Saskatchewan starts to whine like Wayne Gretzky, though, I’m moving to the States.
And oh boy, don’t even get me started on this first-past-the-post nonsense. There was a referendum in Ontario recently (last year?) to change the electoral system from first-past-the-post to proportional representation, and more than 60% of electors voted no. Why? Because they don’t understand the first system. Change is hard, but it’s harder when you don’t know what’s wrong with your own system.
If we told people flat out that right now, not voting for the winning candidate means your vote does not count (except for federal party funding), they might change their tune. But I’m with you: this needs to be addressed, and soon.
aviva the kidd said,
October 15, 2008 at 10.59am
i don’t love the Bloc (i was actually present at the referendum, mountie outfit and all) but i realized today they are the reason we have a minority so thank g-d for that.
also, thornhill is the only riding in vaughn to go blue?
what the hell! that sucks. i hate all the rich people that surround me who don’t care about anyone else.
i came to the conclusion that in the united states at least one side is happy with the outcome, but in canada, nobody is happy.
since harper gained some seats im sure he will call another election in the not too far future in hopes of gaining that majority, that’s why the liberals cannot sit back and do nothing for a while, they really need to find somebody right now. i wish dion could get another chance but i hope he steps down and doesn’t pull a hillary.
barbara said,
October 15, 2008 at 10.10pm
It makes very little sense that close to 1 million Canadians voted Green, yet they failed to get a single seat. And of course in Calgary, I can almost see why people don’t bother to vote.It really is disheartening when the Neocon incumbent in my riding beat the next candidate by almost 34,000 votes.
Gareth said,
October 19, 2008 at 2.15pm
Shoot…well, I’m sure running in BC is a fairly recent development for the Conservatives, because I don’t think they used to. And that is a ridiculously high number, too. I figured all they’d get is the wanna-be Albertan towns, but if they got in Vancouver, I don’t know what to think.
Barbara: If you look at the popular vote, the Greens and the Bloc were separated by 3 percent. And yet the Bloc took 50 seats, and the Greens didn’t get a single one. There is something seriously wrong with that.
Ruh said,
October 21, 2008 at 9.19pm
The Bloc is so concentrated it’s almost inevitable they will take a million seats. It’s ridiculous, though — that’s no way to run a country, letting that stuff happen. It’s kind of a turnoff, in a way.