Comments on: Canadian election minus four days

By: J-D

J-D — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:39:41 +0000

Oz, the UK has the same electoral system as Canada, and they have had minority governments on a number of occasions in the past. Papua New Guinea also has the same system, and they have coalition governments all the time. The electoral system does nothing directly to stop Canada from having coalition governments–for some reason the parties just won’t do it. Whether it’s primarily the Grits who don’t want a coalition with the NDP or the NDP that don’t want a coalition with the Grits or both, I don’t know.

Adam, I don’t know whether Anglo-Canadians (apart from politicians) do want Quebec to stay in Canada. I don’t know whether they’ve ever been asked. It’s only the Quebecers who have actually voted in referenda, and have always so far voted against secession (I say ‘always’, I think there have only actually been two referenda, but ‘No’ won both of them).

By: ltep

ltep — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:13:56 +0000

Has the Northern Ireland Assembly voted to separate from the United Kingdom?

I’m not particularly sure the Asian experiences can be transcribed onto Western countries. However, I remain doubtful that Quebec could that simply secede from Canada. If the fact that BQ refuses to support stable Government bothered the people of Quebec that much they’d have been gone years ago.

By: Oz

Oz — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:06:31 +0000

England, Northern Ireland?

Indonesia, West Papua?

Pakistan/India, Kashmir?

Of course if there referendums on certain issues, results would be different. But Government’s like power and they like having more power.

By: Adam in Canberra

Adam in Canberra — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:54:31 +0000

Because both Russia and China are run by aggressively nationalist dictatorships who use issues like Chechnya and Tibet to cement their hold on power. Canada is a highly civilised liberal democracy. If and when Quebec actually gives a clear vote for independence, I’m sure Canada will say “au revoir, bon chance and good riddance.”

By: Oz

Oz — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:26:09 +0000

Adam, you could say that about any country that has secession/autonomy movements. Why the hell does Russia want Chechnya? Why does China want Tibet or Taiwan?

By: Adam in Canberra

Adam in Canberra — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:15:28 +0000

The stability of the Canadian parliamentary system has been greatly weakened by the emergence of the BQ, which makes it very hard for any party to win a majority. It’s as if a Victorian Party won all the seats in Victoria and then refused to join or support any government. I don’t see why the Anglo-Canadians want Quebec to stay in Canada at all, they’d be much better off without it.

By: Oz

Oz — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:47:38 +0000

It’d be weird if they did. Minority governments and coalitions between a few parties are more common in countries with some form of PR. The fact that Canada has had minority government’s and different coalition possibilities with the least proportional system imaginable is quite strange. Though due a large part to voting based on regional differences.

By: J-D

J-D — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:21:50 +0000

If the Grits and the NDP were willing to form a coalition government, they could have done so in the last Parliament. Grits 103 plus NDP 29 equals 132 as against Tories 124, enough unless the BQ (51) deliberately voted with the Tories to put them out. So the problem (for anybody who thinks it is a problem) comes not only from the electoral system, but also from the long-standing unwillingness of Canadian parties to join in coalition governments.

By: Adam in Canberra

Adam in Canberra — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:09:24 +0000

FFP voting = FPP voting (first past the post)

By: Adam in Canberra

Adam in Canberra — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:07:55 +0000

It’s worth noting that the Liberals, NDP and Greens got 51% of the vote between them. So Canadians voted for a centre-left government but didn’t get one, because of Canada’s electoral system.

To get a notional MMP result, I divided the actual seat totals by two, then distributed 154 seats among the provinces proportionately. The result is:

Con 71 + 59 = 130
Lib 38+ 42 = 80
NDP 19 + 30 = 49
BQ 25 + 15 = 40
Green 0 + 8 = 8
Ind 1

Thus the Libs + NDP + Greens have 137 seats, probably enough to form a minority government depending on what the Bloc decided to do. They are still under-represented because of the bias inherent in FFP voting for the 154 single-member seats. A full national PR result would have been

Con 117
Lib 82
NDP 57
BQ 31
Grn 21

So Libs + NDP + Greens = 160, a majority government. The biggest winners from the distortions of the current system are actually the BQ.

MMP plus preferential voting for the single-member seats would probably have produced much the same result, but it’s not possible to demonstrate that except with seat-by-seat calculations, which I’m not going to do