Once Again Huge Distortions of the Popular Vote Mire Canadian Election Results

Four years ago I wrote a similar blog about how the voting system distorts the popular vote and produces a government that the people did not vote for.  As is quite often the case with the first-past-the-post method, 40% of the vote produces 60% of the seats in Parliament, thereby giving 100% of the political power to a political party that does not have the support of the majority of those who voted, and no where near the majority of registered electors of which 40% did not bother to vote. 

The only thing that really changed in the 2015 general election is that the distortion shifted from favoring the Conservative Party to the Liberal Party.

Related Post

Huge Distortions of the Popular Vote Mire Canadian Election Results

In 2011, the Conservative formed a majority government largely due to the extra 27 seats they were awarded in Ontario because of the vagaries of the winner-take-all representation that plurality voting entails. 

In Canada, as in other countries that use the first-past-the-post method, how the vote is distributed is as equally important as how many votes are won since representation is awarded to the candidate who garners the most votes in a single relatively small electoral district.  This is not the case in a proportional voting systems that employ relatively large electoral districts and where the number of seats awarded to each political party is proportional to the percentage of the popular vote obtained.  In other words, 20% of the vote allocates 20% of the available seats, 30% of the votes allocates 30% of the seats, 40% of the votes allocates 40% of the seats, and so on.

What is truly remarkable about the 2015 electoral results is what happened in the Maritimes region in Eastern Canada.  This time around 60% of the popular vote that the Liberals obtained gave them 100% or 32 of the 32 available seats in the region.  In fact, although 40% of the electors voted for the other parties, they have no representation whatsoever in Parliament.  In doing the electoral math, the Liberals received an extra 13 seats over and above what they would have received if the seats were allocated on the basis of the popular vote in the region.

This trend continues in Quebec where the Liberals received an additional 13 seats over and above a popular vote allocation and even more so in Ontario where they received an additional 26 seats due to the voting system distortion.

Simple addition tells us that in Eastern Canada, the Liberals received 52 bonus seats, two more than the national distortion of having 50 extra seats than what would have been awarded according to the popular vote across Canada.  So, the headlines could as easily read: "voting system produces yet another false majority" instead of lauding the Liberals victory.

During the electoral campaign Canada's newly elected Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, declared that if elected this would be the last general election in Canada using the first-past-the-post method.  What remains to be seen is what will be the new voting system.  Will it be a preferential voting system that uses a different method to add up the votes but produces similar distortions or a truly proportional system that gives Canadians the government that they voted for?

The devil is in the details.  Only time will tell, but don't hold your breath.

You Were Right Kim, An Election Is No Time To Discuss Serious Issues

Back in the 1993 Canadian General Election the then Prime Minister of Canada, Kim Campbell, in a moment of candor declared that "an election in no time to discuss serious issues," and judging by the manner in which the 2015 Canadian General Election has unfolded, she was right, at least with regard to how the traditional media has covered what has been an excruciatingly long electoral campaign.

For those who are serious about their politics, it is possible to visit each of the political party's websites and download each platform to see where the parties stand on various issues.  Moreover, an elector can seek out the candidates in their riding to seek out further information, but that's not how the vast majority of Canadians exercise their obligations as citizens to be well-informed.  In fact, most Canadians rely on the sound bytes and video clips proffered by the traditional media to determine how they will vote.  Consequently, complex issues are dumbed-down and image replaces substance during the campaign.

Related Blogs

Desperate Times Require Desperate Measures: Canada's Old Stock Political Parties Fan the Flames of Prejudice With Canada's Old Stock Voters

Hey Canada, Step Into the 21st Century: Stop Outsourcing Governance of the Nation

It Took A Photo of a Child Washed Up on a Beach To Get Canada's Political Class To Shut the Fuck Up About the Economy

The 2015 Ballot Box Question: Who Can I Trust To Do The Right Thing?

Canada Embraces Its Watergate Moment And The People Will Decide, Maybe.

When It Comes To Boring Nobody Does It Better Than Canada 

The Big Bumble: The 2015 Canadian General Election 

Don't get me wrong.  There are some very serious concerns that need to be discussed like how Canadians can position themselves in the fast-changing global economy, the sustainability of the health care system, and, of course, what to do about climate change, but that's not where the media focuses the electorate's attention.

For example, the Canadian Government has agreed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP), a trade agreement between twelve Pacific Rim countries that are responsible for 40% of global trade concerning a variety of economic policies and trade practices.  Problem is that no text has been released, so, as a result, Canadians are being kept in the dark about the details other than knowing that the federal government is already prepared to come to the rescue of dairy producers at a cost of four billion dollars and another one billion dollars for the auto sector.  Seeing a tight-fisted government throwing money at what have already identified as adversely-affected sectors gives me reason to think that people should be able to know the details of the agreement before they vote in a general election.

Boring!!!

Discussing the details of the TTP won't sell newspapers and won't get people to watch television commercials or click on Google ads. So, what do we get, a cheap mash up of various images strewn together in a maudlin five act play.  In Act I, we saw images of the participants of the Senator Mike Duffy criminal proceedings.  What did the Prime Minister know and when?  In Act II, the body of a small Syrian boy washed up on a beach started us to question if maybe the government had a part to play in the refugee crisis happening in Europe.  However, in Act III, we were shown the barbarians at the gate in the guise of a Muslim woman who had the audacity of wanting to wear the niqab during a citizenship ceremony to become a Canadian citizen.  Tensions were rising, racial slurs were being tossed, so fortunately during Act IV, attention was focused ever so briefly on the TTP, giving the entire electorate the opportunity to cool down and watch the Toronto Blue Jays play baseball in their quest to win the World Series.  This much needed break gave way to the final Act, which is essentially the call of the first-past-the-post electoral race: the Liberals have broken away from the pack, the NDP are fading, and Stephen Harper's Conservatives are whipping their old horse of tired, worn out ideas as hard as they can, but to no avail, they can't keep up with the guy with the nice hair.

That's it.  That's the 2015 Canadian General Election in a nutshell.  Like I said before, when it comes to politics nobody does boring better than Canada.

Now, how about them Blue Jays!!!