On average, about 60% of Canadians DID NOT vote for the Conservatives, but you won't read this headline, or hear this spin, from the corporate media. Their advertisers have them by the balls, and they tell us what their bosses tell them to. Car manufacturers continue to build and advertise SUVs, and 'mainstream' political focus continues to favour the corporate politicians.
More incredible, perhaps, than the numbers of Canadians who don't pay attention to alternative media, are the thousands of people who voted for a man in Saanich/Gulf Islands who withdrew from the race. Party loyalty is one thing, but at least pay enough attention to know if someone is actually running or not.
And, because Canada is one of the only nations in the world (along with the USA and one other) which don't have a representative vote counting system, we're stuck with four more years of cuts to women's and other social programs, cuts to artists, increased numbers of homeless and poor as a consequence plus blatent disregard for the fate of our earth. They're younger than me in years but they're so much older in thought and lifestyle - they think they can live in a 'Leave it to Beaver' world that only ever existed in someone's imagination. We're stuck with Conservative politicians who think that signing a 'Security and Prosperity Partnership' with a bankrupt nation is a good idea. They hate government, and pay themselves to dismantle it ..... slowly and painfully.
Here's what Fair Vote Canada has to say about it:
Fair Vote Canada - October 15, 2008
contact:
Barbara Odenwald at 819-921-6037 (Ottawa)
Larry Gordon at 647-519-7585 (Toronto)
Electoral dysfunction, yet again Greens deserved more than 20 seats - voting system also punished New Democrats, western Liberals and urban Conservatives
Once again, Canada’s antiquated first-past-the-post system wasted millions of votes, distorted results, severely punished large blocks of voters, exaggerated regional differences, created an unrepresentative Parliament and contributed to a record low voter turnout.
[Note: The following commentary is based on returns at 2am ET.]
The chief victims of the October 14 federal election were:
- Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.
- Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.
- Urban Conservatives: Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.
- New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.
“How can anyone consider this democratic representation?” asked Barbara Odenwald, President of Fair Vote Canada.
Had the votes on October 14 been cast under a fair and proportional voting system, Fair Vote Canada projected that the seats allocation would have been approximately as follows:
Conservatives - 38% of the popular vote: 117 seats (not 143)
Liberals - 26% of the popular vote: 81 seats (not 76)
NDP - 18% of the popular vote: 57 seats (not 37)
Bloc - 10% of the popular vote: 28 seats (not 50)
Greens - 7% of the popular vote: 23 seats (not 0)
Fair Vote Canada also has data for each province on the number of seats won and number of seats actually deserved by each party.
Odenwald emphasized that any projection on the use of other voting systems must be qualified, as specific system features would affect the exact seat allocations.
“With a different voting system, people would also have voted differently,” said Larry Gordon, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada. “There would have been no need for strategic voting. We would likely have seen higher voter turnout. We would have had different candidates - more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We would have had more real choices.”
Fair Vote Canada (FVC) is a national multi-partisan citizens’ campaign to promote voting system reform. FVC was founded in 2001 and has a National Advisory Board of distinguished Canadians from all points on the political spectrum
Fair Vote Canada
26 Maryland Blvd.
Toronto, ON M4C 5C9
www.fairvote.ca
phone: 416-410-4034
cell: 647-519-7585
