The silliness of Canadian politics:

Right now, popular support (percentage-wise) for the various federal political parties is:

33% Liberals
30% Conservatives
19% NDP
12% Bloq Quebecois

The number of seats that they are projected to win?

117 Conservatives
112 Liberals
55 Bloq Quebecois
24 NDP

That means, in the House of Commons, there will actually be:

38% Conservatives
36% Liberals
18% Bloq
8% NDP

Anyone else see a problem with the first past the post system?

Hah! You think that's bad? I present to you the 1983 General Election!

Votes:

Conservative 42%
Labour 28%
Liberal Democrat 25%

Seats:

Conservative 61%
Labour 32%
Liberal Democract 4%

Yeah, well, we'll see how it turns out. Usually worse than the polls are predicting, anyway. Like in one of the last provincial elections for Quebec, it was something along the lines of 60% Liberal, 40% Parti Quebecois, and the Parti won something like 80% of the seats...

EDIT: Besides which, nationally, the Green Party has 5% ish of the popular vote, and will win no seats... unless they are very lucky. With that much popular vote, they should be getting at least 15 seats in the House of Commons.

I remember once in Scotland the Conservatives won 18% of the vote, and received no seats whatsoever.

First-past-the-post may be undemocratic, but by God! it's the best thing we've got!

Fine, I don't really believe that. I'd much rather have a more representative system, but the big parties never pass it. You Canadians have no excuse - I'd've thought that you'd've learnt from our and the Americans' mistakes by now.

If it weren't so serious I'd find it funny.

Actually, I find it funny anyway.

I don't know about the system, so I feel like a wee small child with hands clasped gazing up at something impossible.

(baby voice) That's stoooooopid.

Nope. We basically just copied your system and pretended it works.

Bleh, Canuck politics. I don't want to vote for the Liberals or Conservatives. I figure I'll vote green, especially now that they've started the money for votes thingie. I will be sad if the conservatives have a majority though. Very very very sad. I like women's rights, and suchlike.

It will be. Which brings up another point.

One of the major Liberal points right now is "Vote for us because it's either us or the Conservatives that will form power (which is true) and if you're at all interested in socialism, vote for us or lose abortion, same sex marriage, and other socialist rights and values."

There's some truth in what they say... it's either Conservatives or Liberals.

I'm still voting NDP even though I know how close a race it is. My vote might not count, but then again, I might help another NDPer get a seat, which could help lead to a Liberal - NDP coalition. Personally, I think it's the best we can hope for right now.

Thoughts/?

Yes. The whole Liberal vs. Conservative thing is kind of sad. I mean, with our system, it's *supposed* to be a multiparty system, but the liberals and conservatives have been dominating politics for so long now that it almost seems like a two party system.

Quite frankly, the idea of having the conservatives in power with a majority is very scary for me. I like women's rights, I like the right to choose, and I would like for homosexual marriage to be guarunteed (I can never spell that bloody word) in the charter, or at least be allowed in all of the provinces. The conservatives threaten these rights. But I don't want to vote for the liberals. I didn't mind Chretien, but I'm not at all sure that Martin will be a good PM. He seems to wishy-washy to me, and I'm not sure he can play the political game. Which, as sad as it is, is necessary for being an effective political leader.

My vote for the Green party is essentially a protest vote. I'm not going to eat my ballot, or not vote. I want to contribute to keeping the Canadian democratic system healthy. I don't want to be one of those people who doesn't vote, and then complains about the system. If you're going to complain about the system, I think you should at least be active in it. That, and the Green party fits most of my beliefs, although they seem slightly more left than I am. My only other option is to vote NDP, which I'm not too sure of either. I think they're could be a good party, but I don't know *anything* about the candidate in my ward, and whether or not he's likely to support the views of his constituents or simply blindly follow the party mandate.

Of course, since I live in Alberta, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that my ward will be electing a conservative.... Whee. I really worry about this province sometimes.

The Texas of Canada.

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Yes, yes, it really is. Although, since Klein has been doing more and more stupid things lately, hopefully we'll get more libs elected, or even a liberal majority. I don't know how much you've heard about Senor Klein's latest issues, but he seems to be making everyone upset lately. Heck, I'd even be happy if there was a conservative government, but with a leader who was a lot more moderate.

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The drunken bastage.

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