Democraphobia Runs Rampant in North America

The fear of democracy has a long history.  Plato was mistrustful of the demos, believing it would be subject to bullies and to tyrants. In England, the storming of the Bastille in France by the sans-culottes during the French Revolution was dismissed as a regrettable manifestation of "mobocracy". According to Thomas Jefferson, one of the most influential framers of the American constitution: "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where the fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Really? I guess as a slave-owner, he had cause for concern if ever the "mob" had taken over and moved to take away his "right" to own slaves.

This denigration of the demos into the unruly mob is a tendency that we have not shaken through out the Anglo-American countries of the Northern Hemisphere.  Somehow down under, the Aussies and the Kiwis have been able to overcome the fear of the rule by the many and have adopted more modern democratic institutions, namely electoral systems in which the electoral results reflect the will and the desire of the masses in the representation found in their elected assemblies.

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This has not yet happened in Canada, the UK and the USA, which still cling to their outdated electoral systems that regularly distort electoral outcomes, where the results are often far from what the people intended.  In North America, this is particularly the case.

Here in Canada, the last two federal elections have produced "majority" governments in which a single party has found itself with a majority of seats in Parliament despite the fact that each of the two political parties that won the subsequent elections actually received less than 40% of the popular vote.  In effect, Canada is ruled by a minority that systemically receives the benefit of an electoral distortion in its favor and rules as if it had the support of the majority.

To the south of us, the Americans just staged a Presidential election in which according to the popular vote, the loser, Donald Trump, has become the President-elect despite the fact that his opponent Hillary Clinton received approximately two million more votes.  In this case, the election was decided by the infamous Electoral College which uses an antiquated method to decide the election: the winner of the popular vote in each state gets all of that state's electoral votes, and the winning candidate that goes on to become the President is the candidate who garners the majority of the College's electoral votes, not the overall popular vote.  At last count, Trump was awarded 20% more electoral college votes despite having received less votes overall than his opponent.

What's up with that?

Obviously, both Canada and the US pay only lip service to democratic principles.  For instance, the most fundamental feature of democracy is that it is the rule of the majority.  Yet, in both countries, electoral procedures are allowed to deviate from the democratic norm, which lead to the formation of governments that although created as a result of a popular election, do not reflect this most fundamental feature of democracy, the rule of the majority.  As is often the case, the Devil is in the details and in both countries the Devil manifests itself in each country's use of single member, winner-take-all, plurality electoral districts.  To the winner go the spoils of victory.  To the other candidates nothing.  Hence all the ballots for the other candidates, which often constitute the majority of the votes cast in the electoral district, do not bring about any effective representation for the electors who cast them.

Put another way, we do not hold democratic elections in North America.  What we do is stage electoral popularity contests guided by slightly different rules than in democratic elections. The winner of the popular election appears to have the legitimacy of a democratic result, but in reality the winning candidate or political party has won according to the rules governing the popular elections in each country, not by the rules governing democratic elections of which the most important is that each vote counts and counts equally.

This masquerade has been going on for quite some time.  At the heart of the problem is the fear of what the "many" might want and what the "many" might do.  Fear of an unruly mob taking over is far-fetched since the rule of law, backed by a substantial police and military presence, is well-entrenched in both countries.  However, the well-off few have reason to fear that the many, if given the reigns of power, would move to better redistribute the nation's wealth and to pass environmental and social legislation that would make the accumulation of great wealth of the few more difficult.  Heaven forbid! 

In reality, elections in North America are for the most part and with few exceptions little more than popularity contests conducted by the ruling elite that allows the population at large to participate in a public spectacle in which the public chooses between the two options provided to them by an electoral process designed and maintained by the wealthy.  For example, although there are considerable differences between Trump and Clinton at the level of outward appearance, neither represent a significant departure of the way wealth is acquired and maintained in the US.  Similarly, in Canada, with regard to social issues there are considerable differences between the Conservatives and the Liberals; however, both parties are the flip sides of the same coin when it comes to financial and economic matters.

Presently, in Canada there has been a Parliamentary Committee created to examine how to change the voting system as a result of the promise made by our new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, during the last federal election.  This is the fourth time such a committee has been struck in about one hundred years.  Will this time be any different? 

Indeed, a promise made during an electoral campaign is often much different than the promise kept once the government is in power.  In this instance, it is the fear of the unknown that prevents the newly elected government from changing the electoral system because by changing the rules by which governments are formed, notwithstanding the possibility of making the government more democratic, there lies a very real possibility that the ruling party might lose its lock on political power that the present system has conferred upon it.  Better the devil we know than to risk an uncertain future.

In my mind, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  In Canada, we spend billions to educate the public.  Consequently, we are not any less intelligent collectively than the people who govern us, although we are probably less concerned with the accumulation of wealth of the few than the well-being of the many.  To me, democracy is not such a scary proposition.

Get on with it!       

Congratulations Ontario For Having Successfully Outsourced the Governance Function

Way to go Ontario!  When it comes to thwarting democratic rule in Canada, you continue to lead the way.

Not only did Ontarians peviously vote in a province-wide referendum against the notion of changing the anarchistic voting system (first-past-the-post) that allows a political party to form a majority government with less than 50% of the popular vote, they were able to elect a new government with the participation of about half the eligible voters in last week's general election.

Talk about efficiency!

In Ontario, depending on how the vote is distributed, a political party can go on to rule the province as if it had the support of the majority of the citizens with as little as the support of 20% of the electorate.

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For example, the Liberals garnered 38.65% of the votes cast by the 52.1% of the eligible voters that bothered to show up and vote on election day.  That works out to be the support of 20.14% of all of the eligible supporters.

Fuck democratic legitimacy.  Democracy is way too complicated and requires sustained effort in order to participate meaningfully.

Ontarians, as their recent history clearly demonstrates, would rather outsource the responsibility of governing the province to a single political party for four years and then decide whether or not to renew the contract at the end of its legislative mandate, unless, of course, the political party decides to force the issue earlier by calling another general election.

That way everyone can go on with their pursuit of the cheaper version of the American dream and leave the important decisions to be made by someone else.

After all, why devote any energy to a collective project where the benefits will be distributed widely to the entire population, when you can concentrate your efforts to endeavours where you as the individual will be the principle beneficiary.

Just make sure the trains run on time.

In the End, Quebecers Are Not All That Different From the Vast Majority of Canadians: They Prefer To Be Governed Than To Govern

Mercifully, this sorry spectacle of a general election in Quebec is over.  I can't remember a campaign so empty of any real debate as it came down to a choice between an extremely lame Charter of Values that would have banned the overly overt display of religious affiliation in the public service and the dubious notion that the new government will somehow better THE economy.

More importantly, this collective decision was made in the context of a pause in the deliberations of the Charbonneau Commission, which will now turn its focus on how the alleged criminal behaviour surrounding the awarding of public works contracts and the illegal financing of Quebec's two major political parties, the Liberal Party of Quebec and the Parti Quebecois.

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Only 18 months ago, the electorate ousted the ruling Liberals, just weeks before the Commission began its work.  Last night, the same electorate re-elected the disgraced Liberals to a new four year term.

What's up with that?

At first glance, it may appear that Quebecers have rather short memories, but it goes deeper than that.

Essentially, Quebecers would rather offload the responsibility of running their own affairs to a small group of politicians that they can always get rid of later rather than being engaged in the messy business of democratic self rule.

That's why when Radio Canada declares a Liberal majority government with only 41% of the popular vote that, other than the two deputies from the leftist Quebec Solidaire who unabashedly contested the legitimacy of a majority government elected with less than 50% of the popular vote, everyone else goes along for the ride.

Whew, glad that's over.  Now we can get on with the important business of piling up more personal and public debt as we pursue a quality of life that we can no longer afford.

No matter.  We'll just pass on the mountain of debt to subsequent generations.

So, deep down Quebecers are not all that different from the rest of the vast majority of Canadians.  We'll gladly defer to authority as long as we can periodically change who exercises that authority over us.

Democratic self rule?

Nah, leave that to the Scandinavians.  I wonder what is the Swedish word for democracy.

Thanks But No Thanks Quebec: Take My Ballot And Shove It

Well, I have decided not to vote in this charade of an election.  My principle reason is that my vote does not count -- it is totally ineffective -- because I live in a region where the same political party, the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), has taken all of the region's seats for the last forty years.

Last election, I "lent" my vote to my wife and dutifully went down to the polls and voted strategically for the party that had the best chance of defeating the outgoing Liberal Member of the Quebec National Assembly, which at the time was the Parti Quebecois (PQ).

But even that didn't work out since the Liberal candidate won the riding.

As a last resort, I would go out and vote if I knew that the manner I voted controlled how the state subsidy for each vote was awarded.  I would make the trip to the polls if the Quebec Green Party and only the Quebec Green Party would receive an extra dollar fifty each year because I had voted for them.

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But the greedy bastards that run this province, the PLQ and the PQ, changed what was previously in the electoral law so that they would be the principal beneficiaries of my right to vote.

In the recently adopted amendment to the law, each name the appears on the electoral list is worth $1.50 and goes into a pot to be split up on the basis of percentage of the vote each party receives during the general election.

WTF?

That means that the lion's share of the state subsidy will go to the two political parties I detest.  If the PLQ gets 40% of the vote, they will get 60 cents each year because my name appears on the electoral list. 

The same goes for the PQ.  If they get 30% of the vote, they will receive 45 cents each year.

In total, the two political parties that refuse to change the voting system so that my vote might be effective in determining who gets to sit in Quebec's National Assembly by introducing a proportional voting system into the electoral process, actually use the principle of proportionality to fund themselves, and thereby keep the voting system from changing as they have done for the last forty years.

As a former candidate for the Quebec Green Party and a plaintiff in an unsuccessful suit against the Quebec Government to have the present voting system declared unconstitutional because it does not respect my right to participate meaningfully in the electoral process, a right supposedly protected by Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I think you can understand that right about now I am feeling that I have been royally fucked over.

In short, in Quebec we have two political parties that control the province and have funded their campaigns largely on the basis of illegal donations and then rewrite the electoral laws for their benefit while systemically discriminating against the smaller political parties.

So much for any semblance of democracy.

I guess the only meaningful gesture left to me is to vote with my feet and get the fuck out of here.

WTF! In Quebec, Even If I Don't Vote I Still Get Screwed!

You have to admit that when it comes to maintaining their stranglehold on political power in Quebec, the two major parties, the PLQ (the Quebec Liberal Party) and the PQ (the Parti Québécois) can be very ingenious.

They need to be.  Revelations at the Charbonneau Commission indicate that both parties have benefited enormously from illegal financial contributions from private companies in the construction industry.  Estimates have it that about 80% of the donations to the PLQ and the PQ were illegal.

Too bad the extent of the illegal funding has yet to be established, which explains why we are having a second general election since the Commission was convened, and also explains why the law that established elections on a fixed date was totally ignored by the PQ, the governing party that introduced the motion.

Suspecting that the results of Quebec's general elections have been rigged for the last thirty years, Quebecers have been far less generous making donations to Quebec's political parties, especially when the donations are now limited to $100 and can only be made directly to Quebec's Director General of Elections.

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Never fear, the PQ has been incredibly ingenious in turning to the public purse to fund Quebec's general elections.  Indeed, the new funding formula takes the major mechanism of proportional representation, a voting system that gives fair and equitable results, and applies it to elections determined by the traditional idiotic voting method called first-past-the-post.

In a pure proportional voting system, all votes cast are aggregated in one single electoral district and representation is given to each political party based on the percentage of the popular vote it obtained. For example, a party that obtained 40% of the popular vote would get 40% of the available seats in the legislature, a party that obtained 30% of the popular vote would get 30% of the seats, and so on.

In the eyes of many, this is the fairest way to run an election since each vote counts and carries an equal weight relative to other votes.  A majority government comprised of more than 50% of the seats in the legislature can only be formed if the party in question had actually received more than 50% of the votes cast.

This is not the case when using the first-past-the-post method (FPTP).  In fact, FPTP regularly distorts electoral results that contradict the popular will as expressed by the popular vote.  In general, 40% of the popular vote translates to 60% of the available seats, thereby forming what is referred to as a false majority.  Worse yet, the party that finished second in the popular vote has gone on to form a "majority" government three times in Quebec, and in one instance in New New Brunswick, a party that received about 55% of the popular vote took all the seats in the legislature, idiotic results to say the least. To learn more about the vagaries of FPTP, I suggest that you consult the Fair Vote Canada website.

Having been steadfast in its refusal of adopting proportional representation as the voting method in Quebec, despite the wishes of the PQ's founder, Rene Leveque, the PQ has simply used the principle of proportionality as a means of increasing the available funds to fight an election under the rules of first-past-the-post.  In the new formula, the total number of electors on the electoral list is multiplied by $1.50 to establish the total amount to be divided, which is a sleight of hand since nearly 40% of these electors don't vote at all.  The total amount (approximately $ 9 million) is then divided among the parties based on the number of votes each party received during the previous general election.  In other words, 40% of the popular votes translates into 40% of 9 million or $3.6 million, 30% of the popular vote translates into 30% of 9 million or $2.7 million, and so on.

So, the question that begs to be asked is why the fuck is the principle of proportionality is invoked to establish the funding of the political parties but is not used to establish the representation of the popular will in Quebec's National Assembly?  What's up with that?

I'll tell you what.  Such a turn events gives the facade of democratic reform, something badly needed in Quebec, like the law that established general elections on fixed dates, but at that same time gives the PQ the possibility of forming a false majority government, something that would never happen if the principle of proportionality was applied to the question of representation in the National Assembly.  Moreover, this is done on the basis of an electoral system that is gerrymandered on linguistic and ethnic lines.

At the moment, the PQ and the PLQ are tied within the margin of statistical error with regard to the popular vote, but the PQ is way ahead, by more than 20%, in the francophone vote.  This is extremely important since 80 of the 125 electoral districts are comprised by an electorate where more than 90% of the electorate is francophone.  As a result, less than 40% of the popular vote, as long as the francophone electors vote predominantly for the PQ, will translate into a "majority" PQ government.

This explains the introduction of the controversial Quebec's Charter of Values that would discriminate against predominantly against immigrants, a law that even Quebec's Human Rights Commission has denounced but remains popular among francophones.

If you haven't figured it out, a PQ majority government inevitably means yet a third referendum on the question of Quebec independence.  This will be the last kick at the can for the PQ, a party made up primarily of aging baby boomers.

Ironically, the referendum on Quebec's independence must be held in a single, province-wide electoral district where each vote counts and is accorded equal weight.  The mandate to hold such a referendum is not.  Instead, it stems from a profoundly flawed voting system run by idiots.

Where does this leave me, an elector who tried to have his vote count in the last general election by voting strategically for the candidate who had the best chance of defeating the incumbent, a strategy that did not work?

I thought of boycotting this election, but then it dawned on me: since my name appears on the electoral list, staying at home on Election Day actually would give more money (I know the amount is small) to the political parties that conspire to prevent me from having the political representation I desire.

At least -- and this feature of the present electoral system in Quebec is absolutely the smallest incentive for voting that I can think of -- if I vote for the small party that best appeals to me, I give that party a bit of small change that would have otherwise gone to the PQ and the PLQ.  In reality, that works out to be about an extra 3 cents for my vote.  Previously, the entire subsidy for my vote would have gone to the party of my choice.  Now, it's so paltry it almost removes all incentives to vote for a small party at all.

So, it appears that if I truly want to protest this idiotic charade of an election, I would be better off by asking the Director General of Elections to remove my name from the list of electors.  That way, no public money in my name would go the political parties that refuse to make the electoral system truly democratic.

The Quebec General Election 2014 Is A Game For Idiots

Yesterday, the outgoing Premier of Quebec, Pauline Marios, requested that the provincial legislature be dissolved, thereby sending Quebecers to the urns for a general election on April 7.

Hey wait a minute.  Didn't the Quebec legislature unanimously adopt a law that would have general elections held on fixed dates every four years?  It sure did.  So, what's up with having a general election only 18 months after the last one?

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Was the government defeated on a non-confidence bill, like the budget?

No, but Marois claims that the opposition, which actually has the majority of seats and represents the majority of votes, is repeatedly blocking her legislative agenda.  Isn't that the role of her majesty's opposition?  Regardless, she decided to sidestep the law and use her royal prerogative derived from the British parliamentary system to dissolve the legislature.

Somewhat ironic for someone who wants to cut the ties with the monarchy don't you think?

Forget the symbolic gesture of placing limits on her own personal power as the Premier.  Statutory law is for the common folk.  Constitutional power is where it's at despite the fact that Quebec has never signed the 1982 Constitutional Accord.

In the words of Shakespeare, "the Lady doth protest too much methinks."

So what could possibly motivate the premier to ignore the law that her government adopted?

A false majority you say.  Doesn't get anymore British than that.

Looking at the latest polls that were released today, despite the fact that the PQ and Liberals have, within the margin of error, the same level of support of the popular vote, (37% v. 35%) it appears that the PQ could form a majority government (50% plus one of the seats in the legislature) because of the distorting effect of the tried and true first-past-the-post voting system still in place in the UK and the English settler states (Canada, the USA, and Australia).  More importantly, the PQ has more than a twenty point lead in the all important Francophone vote in the 80 electoral districts in which Francophones comprise more than 90% of the electorate.

Talk about gerrymandering along ethnic and linguistic lines.

Democracy . . . Shamrocracy, this is pure power politics at its finest, a game best played by idiots.

In using the word "idiot", I am not saying that Madame Marois is lacking intelligence.  She's not.  I am using the word in its ancient Greek origin, which refers to a person disinterested in participating in democracy.

And she is not alone.  Both the Liberals and the PQ have refused to make any qualitative changes to Quebec's outdated political system that is a vestige of the British Empire.  They both prefer to maintain an institutional arrangement that limits real political power to the supporters of either party at the expense of the population at large, the demos.

I would also throw in the Quebec media that go along for the ride during the campaign and cover this and every other election as if there was nothing seriously amiss.

I guess it makes for good entertainment for the idiots that have to pick up the bill for this pathetic charade.

Given Today's Technology, Why Do We Continue To Elect Representatives From Political Parties?

Canada's political institutions have not evolved significantly from their conception nearly 150 years ago. We still regularly go to the polls and choose between the candidates from various political parties to represent us in Parliament and in the provincial legislatures.

Effectively, we transfer our popular sovereignty to a few individuals, who in turn vote according to the dictates of their political leaders.  Importantly, once the votes are counted and the seats distributed, almost the entire population is shut out of the political process that governs us.  We are left standing as spectators, hoping that are elected officials will be able to provide us with peace, order, and good government.

However, the political process, which should be in keeping with the values of a free and democratic society, is many things, but democratic is not one of them.

Political parties are corporate bodies that compete for market share in what I refer to as contested vote exchange.  In short by casting a vote for any candidate in this exchange, the citizen renounces his or her right to what the Greeks referred to as isigoria, the right to equal voice in the deliberations that lead to the formulation of policy and the adoption of laws.

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It might be argued that 150 years ago, given Canada's vast geography, sparse population, low levels of literacy in the population at large, and snail-paced communications, this institutional arrangement made a great deal of sense.

But what about today?

A well educated population and advances in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) seriously call into question the necessity of political parties co-opting the political process in order to provide what is supposed to be responsible government.

The logistics of representation no longer apply.  People living in an electoral district no longer need to suspend their right to equal voice in deliberations in favor of aggregating all of their voices and transferring this sovereign power to a single individual.

Historically, other than electing their military leaders, the Athenians did no such thing.  In fact, in order to prevent any faction from holding sway over their assembly, they rotated membership to the executive council on an annual basis, and the members were drawn randomly from a qualified pool of approximately 20,000 citizens.  Importantly, this institutional practice did not lead to "mob rule".  Far from it.  In fact, democratic practices like the right of every citizen to address the assembly were at the core of Athenian society, a golden age which saw an unparalleled flowering of human civilization, so captivating that their political innovation, democracy, rule by the demos (the Greek word for the people) remains as the sole basis of political legitimacy today, some 2500 years after its inception.

Today, people no longer congregate in a single venue at the same time to be heard.  Web casting, face-to-face communications applications like Skype, Google plus, and Face Time, combined with various social media like Twitter and Facebook, empower people from distant geographic locations to engage in meaningful dialogue without the need for intermediaries.  Moreover, supporting documents can be easily made available to everyone concerned and electronic voting can place the power of making the political decisions that affect the quality of their lives squarely in the hands of the people.

Rather than transferring their sovereignty to political candidates from a professional political class, citizens could instead form permanent citizens assemblies and keep their power to make political decisions close to home where they have the possibility of participating meaningfully in the political process.

Imagine a Parliament in which each and every seat represents the will of a citizens assembly in which every citizen has the right to be a member.  In this imaginary world, a network of electronically empowered citizens assemblies would govern Canada's affairs and political parties would be cast into history's dust bin.  Instead of celebrating the political victories of individuals, honour would be bestowed to those who served as stewards of democracy, those individuals that served to protect the democratic process from being appropriated by individual interests.

Maybe this is a project that could be undertaken when Canada commemorates its 150th anniversary and to be completed before it celebrates its 200 birthday.

In Canada's Contested Vote Exchange the Biggest Losers Are Democrats

Although Canadians like to think of themselves governed by a modern democratic state, in reality, we are still governed by a colonial form of government that is a vestige of the British Empire.

Our Head of State is a foreign monarch, Queen Elizabeth II; the Prime Minister is chosen by the Crown's representative, the Governor General -- although tradition has is that this title is bestowed upon the winner of the contested vote exchange that takes place during a general election -- and the laws adopted by Parliament do not become law until they are given the Royal Assent from the Governor General.

In theory and in practice, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. This means that Canada has both a written and unwritten constitution that allows for the Prime Minister to exercise, for all intents and purposes, the powers of the ruling monarch.

In fact, within his or her Royal Prerogatives, the Prime Minister has the privilege to form a cabinet of ministers, name the Supreme Court justices, and to place, at his or her discretion, the people who will represent the provinces in the Senate.  Moreover, the Prime Minister Of Canada can even declare war without the consent of Parliament.

Without doubt, this institutional arrangement is authoritarian by design.  When going to the polls, Canadians are effectively tasked with deciding to whom they are going to transfer their collective sovereignty, in other words, the leader of the political party who will rule on their behalf.

This is a far cry from democratic governance in which the people exercise their power to rule themselves.

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Essentially, elections in Canada are all about participating in a contest to determine which political party will win the most seats in Parliament.  The total number of votes cast for each party does not enter into the equation.  An absolute majority of votes is not required.  In fact, it is rare that a political party will receive more than 50% of the popular vote.

A majority government in Canada means that the ruling party has the majority of seats in Parliament.  In practice, each seat goes to the candidate that gathered the most votes in an electoral district.  Considering that we have multi-party elections, more often than not there are more electors who voted against the winning candidate than those who voted for. 

Aggregating the results of the simultaneously-held, electoral district contests produces the over all winner, the political party with the most seats, whose leader will receive the Royal Prerogatives. Generally, 40% of the popular vote will garner 60% of the seats in Parliament, and with this goes 100% of the political power.

Sometimes, the contest produces bizarre results like when a political party that wins 60% of the popular vote obtains all of the available seats, or when the party that wins the most seats received fewer overall votes than the runner up, or when approximately a million people vote for one party but are shut out of Parliament because their candidates did not win any of the plurality contests in the individual electoral districts.

But that's the way is game is played in Canada.  Democratic sensibilities do arise from time to time -- especially after one of the abnormal results comes about -- but the dissatisfaction with the process has never gained enough strength so that the rules of the game are changed.

Indeed lately, fewer and fewer people are participating in the game.  The idea of giving one's vote to any candidate has lost its appeal because most of the votes cast have no effect on the final result.

This makes the game much easier to play from the political parties point of view. 

Instead of spreading their resources over the entire electoral map, they can concentrate their efforts where they are most likely to be rewarded.  Instead of trying to convince undecided voters, they can concentrate of getting the voters who have been identified to vote for their party out to the polls.  Instead of putting forward reasoned arguments for the positions, they can simply slag their opponents, hoping to convince their supporters to stay home and not to exercise their right to vote.

In short, the winning strategy for political parties is to mobilize the vote that can be counted upon and to decrease the probability of opposing votes being cast.  Reducing the number of voters reduces the uncertainty of the results.

Of course, the biggest losers in these regularly staged electoral contests are those who would like to live in a democracy.  Not only are we aware of how the game is played, we are powerless to change it because we are out numbered and are unable to mobilize a critical mass of disaffected voters, who one day soon will become the absolute majority of Canadians.

Canada's Chief Electoral Officer: A Disgruntled Democrat?

In reaction to a government bill that would prevent Canada's Chief Electoral Officer, Marc Mayrand, from speaking publicly about the quality of Canada's Electoral System, he went on record to state:

"I'm not aware of any electoral bodies around the world who can not talk about democracy" and that "my reading of the act is that I can no longer speak about democracy in this country."

In other words, it seems that Mr. Mayrand is about to have his administrative balls removed with surgical precision.

I guess I would also be feeling pretty disgruntled if I were about to have my balls lopped off in the guise of making Canada's elections fairer.

But then again, I can't remember ever hearing Mr. Mayrand speak about democracy in Canada, which isn't all that surprising since Canada is not a democratic country by any stretch of the imagination.

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Connecting the Dots from the Electoral System to Income Inequality

In theory and in practice, Canada is a constitutional monarchy.  This means that Canada has both a written and unwritten constitution that allows for the Prime Minister to exercise, for all intents and purposes, the powers of the monarch, Canada's Head of State, Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

Indeed, the Prime Minister is chosen by the Governor General, and the office usually goes to the leader of the political party that wins the most seats during the general election, not to the leader of the party that garners the most votes.

In fact, within his or her Royal Prerogatives, the Prime Minister has the privilege to form a cabinet of ministers, name the Supreme Court justices, and to place, at his or her discretion, the people who will represent the provinces in the Senate.

Moreover, the Prime Minister Of Canada can even declare war without the consent of Parliament.

Honestly now, do you think any democratic nation would delegate the power to declare war to any one person?

NFW!!!

Yet, Canada, for all its insistence on being a democratic state, has never gotten around to correcting this anomaly.

Again, this isn't all that surprising because the vast majority of Canadians are quite comfortable with our system of "responsible" government and couldn't give a rat's ass for the principles of democracy.

In my opinion, given our electoral system, the primary function of the Chief Electoral Officer is to run what a constitutional monarchy really desires: a contested vote exchange that gives to the winner of the electoral contest the spoils of victory, the powers of the monarch.

Democracy is what some people aspire to and are vigilant to protect.

Sad but true, Canadians are very content with their form of responsible government.













 

Maybe Canadians Don't Want to Live in a Democracy

In writing a scathing article that comes out and accuses the Conservative Government of having lied to Parliament and then to the Canadian people with regard to the costs of procuring the F-35 jet fighters, Andrew Coyne ends his piece with an interesting observation: "it is about whether we live in a functioning Parliamentary democracy, or want to."

Well, elsewhere people would be morally outraged that an election was first precipitated and then fought on the basis of the government willfully withholding information concerning the largest purchase ever.

Not so in Canada.

In fact, the support for the Conservatives in the polls has hardly budged, which indicates to me that Canadians are profoundly disinterested in the manner in which they are governed. They would rather watch hockey.

After all, democracy requires engaged citizens who keep themselves informed and are prepared to hold their elected representatives accountable for their actions.

But this requires concerted effort and Canadians are notoriously lazy.

As long as we are left alone to lead our little lives, we don't care about how we are governed.

Go Leafs Go!

In Canada It's All Part of the Game

The Canadian federal general election has come and gone and from what I can gather most Canadians are pretty well satisfied with the results: a majority government, the centre left in opposition, the blasted sovereignists almost swept completely off the electoral map, and Canada's first Green MP elected. Something for everyone.

You might object that once again the voting system generated significant distortions that left large swaths of the population under represented, in particular, the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois, and the Greens. But hey, that's the way the ball bounces. One election the voting system favors you and in another you are on the wrong side of the distortions.

You might think that given the history of the vagaries of the electoral system that Canadians would be apt to put into place a fairer voting system in which everyone's vote was given equitable treatment. But that's not the case. In fact, the vast majority of Canadians are not bothered at all with the fact that the voting system is inherently unfair.

Indeed, the vast majority of Canadians accept that an election is not a democratic exercise but a game played between rival clans. To them, it's the winner-take-all aspect of the game that makes interesting to play. Hell, it would be boring if we knew in advance that a party showing 35% of the vote would expect to receive 35% of the seats in Parliament.

Play the game, place your bets, take your chances.

The idea that an election is far too important to be framed with a gaming metaphor appropriately named first-past-the-post is beyond them. If the game entails the systemic elimination of millions of voices in Parliament, so be it. Only the sore losers complain about the rules.

Democracy? What's that?

Canada's Progressives Are About to Get Screwed by a Corrupt Electoral System

The sudden rise of the NDP in the polls gives reason to hope that the political landscape is about to change fundamentally.

Don't bet the farm on it.

What the pundits don't say is that the NDP is far from playing on an even playing field. As anybody who is even vaguely aware of the way our electoral system actually works, national or even provincial percentages of the popular vote do not produce a proportional number of seats. It all depends on how the vote is distributed.

Concentrated support in smaller regions pays off whereas moderate support over large regions provides disappointing results. Add to mixture the possibility of a relatively even distribution of votes among opposing parties that allows candidates to triumph with only 30% of the vote and an electoral map that is gerrymandered to give rural ridings more voting power than urban ridings and you find a recipe for a democratic debacle.

For instance, it is most probable that in Quebec despite gaining more of the popular vote than the Bloc Quebecois the NDP will find themselves with less seats than they deserve. The Bloc will win more seats because of their strength in the rural regions and because of vote splitting between the federalist parties.

Likewise, across Canada the Conservatives will benefit from the vote splitting between Liberals and the supporters of the NDP. In fact, it is quite foreseeable that the Conservatives will win more seats this time around with a slightly smaller share of the popular vote as compared to the 2008 election. So much so, they will go on to win a majority government with slightly more than just one third of the popular vote.

Perhaps some will find solace if the NDP forms the opposition, thinking that they are only one election away from forming a progressive government. So close and yet so far from real power.

My advice for any of my progressive readers is to watch the results on election evening in a bar. You're going to need a stiff drink when reality sets it and you realize that the country is still ruled by a minority with whom you have little in common.