[Breakthesilence]

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 may possibly have even given us the wrong government. Find out the results of the election if we had proportional representation.

VOTING SYSTEM REWARDS SEPARATISTS,
PUNISHES WESTERN LIBERALS, URBAN CONSERVATIVES, NEW DEMOCRATS, AND GREENS

SEE THE FULL RESULTS IF WE HAD A PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SYSTEM:
FULL RESULTS

[bootlegga]

Hey, you're preaching to the choir. As a Liberal/NDP supporter in Alberta, my vote is totally irrelevant...

[hwacker]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Hey, you're preaching to the choir. As a Liberal/NDP supporter in Alberta, my vote is totally irrelevant...

You should move to the Utopia of Toronto.

[Tricks]

Breakthesilence Breakthesilence:

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 may possibly have even given us the wrong government. Find out the results of the election if we had proportional representation.

VOTING SYSTEM REWARDS SEPARATISTS,
PUNISHES WESTERN LIBERALS, URBAN CONSERVATIVES, NEW DEMOCRATS, AND GREENS

SEE THE FULL RESULTS IF WE HAD A PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SYSTEM:
FULL RESULTS

Great propotional representation bull shit. Go away

[Blue_Nose]

How would Andre Arthur feel about this idea?

[Patrick_Ross]

Proportional representation has a number of serious problems. First off, it virtually eliminates any possibility of consituents forming a relationship with their representatives, because of a simple question: who decides who, specifically, makes up parliament when all the votes are divvied up following the election.
Furthermore, it completely eliminates any possibility of Independant MPs getting elected, delivering the system into an insurmountable dependance on (often petty) partisan politics.
The first-past-the-post system at least guarantees that those elected by individual ridings will at least benefit from the support of a majority of voters.

[ThePolitician]

Isn't Iraq's new democratic process being based on proportional representation?

While blunt proportional representation may not work I think what I would like to see is that the electoral districts are calculated fairly in direct relation to the population of the age of majority they have.

P.E.I. gets four MP's with a population of 138,100 yet Hamilton Mountain electoral distric gets one with a population of about 120,000.

If the population of Canada is 33 million and there are 308 seats then it should be about 107,000 people per seat. To keep regional representation, which is also important, you just slice up the electoral districts into sections of 107,000 people or as close as possible to it.

That way you get a balanced representation that is also regional.

[twister]

only problem is you are taking it on a national level yes the Bloc only had 10% but they only run candidates in 1 province. they have 51 seats becuase those people were Elected to serve thier constituents.

[TheGup]

hwacker hwacker:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Hey, you're preaching to the choir. As a Liberal/NDP supporter in Alberta, my vote is totally irrelevant...

You should move to the Utopia of Toronto.

We've got more than we can handle, thanks.

[Motorcycleboy]

Patrick Ross is right on this one. Proportional Rep is stupid. They have it many European countries and Australia and it's a disaster.

Firstly, it virtually guarantees an unbroken string of shakey minority governments. Although an occasional minority government can be a good thing, when it goes on for too long it just leads to long term political instability, as we've seen in Italy for the last 50 years or so. Nothing gets done, and the government is constantly teetering on the verge of collapse. That's not good for the business climate and virtually guarantees that tough, controversial decisions are never made.

In Australia, the introduction of Rep by Pop led to the emergence of a number of single issue, lunatic fringe parties, like the Shooters Party, Australians Against Further Immigration Party, One Nation, etc. The shakey parliaments that can result end up occasionally giving one or two members from those parties the balance of power on serious issues.

We don't need that in Canada. Our system has it's flaws, but you can't argue Canadians don't have a wide range of electoral choice and that all the main voices are already heard.

[ThePolitician]

ThePolitician ThePolitician:

Isn't Iraq's new democratic process being based on proportional representation?

While blunt proportional representation may not work I think what I would like to see is that the electoral districts are calculated fairly in direct relation to the population of the age of majority they have.

P.E.I. gets four MP's with a population of 138,100 yet Hamilton Mountain electoral distric gets one with a population of about 120,000.

If the population of Canada is 33 million and there are 308 seats then it should be about 107,000 people per seat. To keep regional representation, which is also important, you just slice up the electoral districts into sections of 107,000 people or as close as possible to it.

That way you get a balanced representation that is also regional.

Also, the Territories get three seats when they have only about 90,000 people. That's out to lunch as well, but a little easier to swallow in that each territory would like to have a singular voice in Ottawa.

[BartSimpson]

Breakthesilence Breakthesilence:

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 may possibly have even given us the wrong government. Find out the results of the election if we had proportional representation.

VOTING SYSTEM REWARDS SEPARATISTS,
PUNISHES WESTERN LIBERALS, URBAN CONSERVATIVES, NEW DEMOCRATS, AND GREENS

SEE THE FULL RESULTS IF WE HAD A PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SYSTEM:
FULL RESULTS

The ridings mean to give localities a voice in who represents them - it is not about proportionality. In a proportional election the local districts are not at all represented - parliamentary seats are awarded to the parties and the parties parcel them out to cronies and party hacks.

The big advantage of the current system is that it keeps the Communists (Greens) out of power altogether.

[SireJoe]

Hmmmm.... people seem to keep saying that minority governments are bad, but I have a tendacy to disagree. I mean with minority governments you have the ability to at least make sure that a party cannot do whatever it likes with the country and has to answer to everyone, not just a (at times) small majority of the country. Is that not a better way to govern than to allow one party to run lose?

I find it hard to decide what would be a better voting system....I personally dont really have a relationship with my MP so I could care less about that fact. But I suppose it would be a good idea to have that voice be heard from that level. Is there only two voting systems out there to choose from? Can a combination of those or another voting system not be used?

[dgthe3]

There must be some third way...because of the problems with each system. The problem with proportional government is that 1/3 of the votes come from esentially 3 cities and their surounding area -Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. They don't accurately represent the views of all Canadians but for the people in those cities, all of their views don't nessacarily get recognition.

Hmm, just thinking of some sort of hybrid...
Have the election as a popular vote to determin the number of seats each party gets. Now, here's where it gets tricky. The MP's are selected according to who got the highest difference in percentage of votes and taking the top ones, according to how many seats they are aloted, starting with the party that got the most votes. For example if a party were to get 100 seats, then those who won a landslide victory in their riding would become MP's, then just trickling down untill all the positiions were filled. Once a representative has been selected from a particular riding, another MP cannot be selected from another party.

I think that may work, but it's confusing as hell to me and i thought of it! And it probably does just as bad a job at representing the country as the other two posibilities.

[Rev_Blair]

There are plenty of mixed systems available. They should go with something that keeps the present formula, then tops up in underrepresented areas to achieve proportionality.

You still get your local MP, but the popular vote is represented, as are Conservatives in Toronto, NDP in Saskatchewan, and Liberals in Alberta.

Let's face it, there is a huge difference between any of those examples and the people elected in their parties from other regions. I mean, I like Jack Layton and all, but I'm pretty sure that he has no idea how to drive a tractor.

Given the Conservatives record and the complaints from the west that they never have a voice in Ottawa, I'm surprised that they aren't fully supporting mixed PR. Do they think they'll suddenly get a majority and rule forever?