A look back at the election and some startling numbers

The recent national election produced the lowest turnout since confederation. The previous one produced the second lowest turnout. The reason may lie in how many votes our electoral system simply throws away

by Santo Barbieri

The recent federal election raised many issues which did not make headlines. For example, the Bloc Quebecois won 54 seats and the NDP 19, but the NDP got nearly half a million more votes than the Bloc did nationally.

In the province of Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois got 72% of the seats with 42% of the vote. Nearly half the population of Quebec lives in and around Montreal, but they don't have nearly half the number of seats.

This leads to the next gross misrepresentation, that of voters in large urban centers and those in rural areas. The city of Hamilton has a population of 491,000 and has 4 seats in parliament. PEI has a population of 136,000 and also has 4 seats in parliament. The average riding in BC has a population of 108,548 and in PEI 33,824.

Therefore, places with large and growing populations are under-represented and those with shrinking and small populations over-represented. Most rural ridings tend to vote for one of the two "old" parties while NDP support is strongest in large urban areas, where the NDP won twelve of its nineteen seats. Since urban ridings often have twice the population of rural ridings, it is easy to see why the NDP got 15.7% of the vote but only 6% of the seats.

Here are some more interesting results: the Conservatives got 30% of the vote in PEI but no seats. In Alberta, the Conservatives picked u p 61.5% of the vote and won 94% of the seats, and the Liberals got 22% of the vote and 6% of the seats. In BC, the NDP got 26.5% of the vote, but less than 15% of the seats. In Nova Scotia, the NDP got more votes than the Conservatives, but the Conservatives won more seats.

Such results occur because of vote splitting, both a symptom and strategy of our electoral system. This phenomenon forced the shotgun marriage of the Alliance Party and the Progressive Conservative Party. The left hasn't learned this lesson yet.

Before this election, most Green party voters voted NDP. The Green Party leader was a former Progressive Conservative and works for many large corporations as an inspirational speaker and consultant. A higher tax for corporate polluters is part of the Green platform.

The Green Party leader ran in Jack Layton's riding. The NDP leader almost lost the riding. Two political party leaders running in the same riding? Across the country the NDP lost 12 seats by narrow margins, in which the combined vote of the NDP and Green party would have meant victory for the NDP, and in three ridings the NDP won by narrow margins due to this split.

In Toronto and Hamilton, the Liberals won four seats due to the split vote. In the west, the Conservatives won seven seats by this split vote (two in Saskatchewan and six in BC). The final results were that the Greens got 4.3% of the vote (580,816 votes) and continue to be shut out of any political decision-making, and the power of the party with similar views on the environment and social justice was reduced.

Over half a million Green votes were discarded since those voters won't have any representation under the current system. The combined vote of the Greens and NDP is 20% of the vote. In other words, the current system makes for a lose-lose situation for both parties and any other smaller parties. That 4.3% will give the Greens some money for research and development because they surpassed the 2% needed to be entitled to these funds. Unfortunately, the party accumulated a debt during the election. In the last week, the party leader was traveling on a rented private jet. Not very "Green" of him—party members may have been a different kind of green after choosing this guy.

Yes, the party's percentage of the vote went up 458% from the 2000 election and the NDP's percentage of the vote went up by 93.6%, but together these voters could have made an enormous impact. If the Green's priorities lie in getting their issues addressed, the practical thing to do is have a temporary merger with the NDP to address their common concerns, like proportional representation (PR). Once some form of PR is established then all smaller parties will have a chance to be represented.

Most democracies use some form of PR except Canada, Great Britain, India and the USA. In the July 19th issue of MacLean's magazine, a list shows those four countries to have the worst voter turnouts in a list of 18 western democracies, with the exception of Switzerland. This election had the worst voter turnout since the 1867 and the 2000 election had the second worst voter turnout. That's headline news, but why isn't anyone asking the obvious questions?

In a recent report to the federal government, the Law Commission of Canada said the present system produces "exaggerated majorities" and "contributes to regional disparity." Unfortunately, the only two parties that always get elected federally have little interest in changing the system since it favors them. A week before the election, Paul Martin was rationalizing with NDP voters to vote Liberal, since an NDP vote may produce a Conservative government. The sad state of our "democracy" often has people voting against rather than voting for a party.

Those who oppose proportional representation point to Italy and Israel as examples of governments whose instability is due to PR, but these critics ignore the remainder of Western democracies that use it. Why not look at Germany or New Zealand?

Unfortunately, some people prefer consistency to democracy. During the last Argentine military government, a common expression about the military coup was, "at least we now have order and stability." A recent Internet poll by MacLean's Magazine shows that 70% of those that participated think that we need some form of proportional representation. If we continue with tradition, the minority will rule. Regardless of what political party you support, fair is fair, and our current electoral system is far from that.

If you are interested in finding out more about this issue and want to sign a petition for proportional representation visit www.fairvotecanada.org/fvc/

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