4 ms·

man, I wish Canada had this yesterday

by ehPReth 7y ago

umeshunni 7y ago
How would this have changed the Canadian results?
- Kylekramer 7y ago
  Would have given Liberals a more convincing victory given that the Canada left is split into three to four parties while right just has one.
  - vkou 7y ago
    Even if you're a Liberal supporter, the last thing that you wanted to see last night was another Liberal majority. [1] Their handling of scandals (Pre-black-face, which was a side-show) was absolutely atrocious, and they could absolutely get away with it, by closing ranks in Parliament. It's one of the big reasons for why the Cons gained 4 percentage points in the popular vote since 2015. Another four years of an untouchable majority, and they would have stolen everything not nailed down, completely destroyed their public image, only to waltz into the polls, and find to their dismay that this results in another Con government. Proportionate representation would give Canadian politics the kick in the direction it needs, but unfortunately, the Liberals went back on their promises of electoral reform, once they realized that it would cost them seats. [1] Edit: It should be noted that Canada has a track record of reasonably functioning minority governments - so government will continue to be able to reasonably... Govern. What it won't be able to continue with, is closing is eyes and ears, to all kinds of cabinet impropriety.
  - yifanl 7y ago
    It's more of a 3-2 split, no? Afaict, the Bloc are a right-leaning party. (Not familiar with Quebecois politics, so I could definitely be wrong)
    - Kylekramer 7y ago
      Bloc is harder to categorize given it is a party mostly to promote one province's preferred policies. In general, their positions are fairly left wing because Quebec itself is quite left, but has a few oddball positions that skew right. Platform (en francais, bien sur) is mostly leftish positions with an emphasis on making sure Quebec gets their cut: https://www.blocquebecois.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Plateforme_Bloc2019_web-1.pdf https://www.blocquebecois.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Pla...
- mFixman 7y ago
  There were a significant number of people who preferred the NDP, but voted Liberal to deny the Conservatives a seat.
- pjkundert 7y ago
  Huge numbers of Canadians, on both "sides" of the (false) spectrum, voted for a less preferred (or even undesirable) candidate, because otherwise their vote would have been "wasted". A vote for a preferred (but unlikely to win) candidate is effectively a vote against your 2nd-best strategic candidate (the one you'd prefer to win, if your ideal candidate can't achieve victory). Basically, every time a voter dislikes one of the 2 leading candidates -- they are forced to not vote for their preferred candidate. It is unacceptable and disrepectful to the voters -- but no "incumbent" party will ever propose or vote for "electoral reform" because it directly affects the likelihood that they will win re-election.
zjaffee 7y ago
The issue with the Canadian elections is simply the existence of districts. All this would do is make it safer to risk a vote for NDP, Greens, or Bloc, which would likely still result in worse results because Canada doesn't really have a coalition system the way other countries do.
pjkundert 7y ago
The utter contempt for Alberta (well, basically everything east of Ontario) was received loud and clear by western Canada yesterday. Instant Run-Off voting is an absolutely necessary next step, but wouldn't have helped in this election; the non-Liberal vote already achieved about 80% (80%!) of the vote. A new non-leftist party (People's Party of Canada) got essentially shut out due to strategic voting; it would have been interesting to see the actual interest in a more "libertarian" party, but we'll never know -- that data is lost when citizens are forced to either vote strategicially or throw away their vote to an undesirable opponent. #WEXIT is exploding; Alberta secession has a serious chance of being considered and voted on. Not a good time...
- icegreentea2 7y ago
  I can't comment on your statements regarding the attitude and feelings of western Canada (I am one of those Ontario peeps), but the numbers I saw put the non-Liberal vote at 67% (the liberals got 33% of the vote). Certainly we can do with a better voting system.
  - pjkundert 7y ago
    According to the current stats (all polls reporting) from https://enr.elections.ca/National.aspx?lang=e https://enr.elections.ca/National.aspx?lang=e: the vote split between the top 2 ranked candidates (conservative vs. most popular leftist) was only 77.53%; sorry, my mistake. That includes the one riding that was won by the NDP. Of course, popular vote percentages don't matter in elections; this illustrates, however, the level of generalizied disappointment with the powers-that-be making decisions against the best interests of the Alberta. Very interesting this morning, is the extreme levels of contempt and dismissiveness being heaped upon any Albertan who dares to support the idea of separation; see #WEXIT. It's both embarrassing and potentially explosive. Fortunately, Albertans have a long history of nodding quietly at derision and then going and doing something unexpected. We'll see what happens.
    - vkou 7y ago
      Alberta is ~12% of Canada's population, and has so far had an incredibly disproportionate impact on pulling national politics in its direction. No national economic decision seems to be made, without figuring out what kind of compensation Alberta needs to receive, to bring it onboard. BC, on the other hand, is the truly federally-ignored province. It's often not clear if it is considered to have any purpose, other then being a stopping point on the way to China. The secession of BC would probably be in its provincial interests. The secession of Alberta into a land-locked petro-state would be an unmitigated disaster.

man, I wish Canada had this yesterday

umeshunni 7y ago

How would this have changed the Canadian results?

Kylekramer 7y ago
Would have given Liberals a more convincing victory given that the Canada left is split into three to four parties while right just has one.
- vkou 7y ago
  Even if you're a Liberal supporter, the last thing that you wanted to see last night was another Liberal majority. [1] Their handling of scandals (Pre-black-face, which was a side-show) was absolutely atrocious, and they could absolutely get away with it, by closing ranks in Parliament. It's one of the big reasons for why the Cons gained 4 percentage points in the popular vote since 2015. Another four years of an untouchable majority, and they would have stolen everything not nailed down, completely destroyed their public image, only to waltz into the polls, and find to their dismay that this results in another Con government. Proportionate representation would give Canadian politics the kick in the direction it needs, but unfortunately, the Liberals went back on their promises of electoral reform, once they realized that it would cost them seats. [1] Edit: It should be noted that Canada has a track record of reasonably functioning minority governments - so government will continue to be able to reasonably... Govern. What it won't be able to continue with, is closing is eyes and ears, to all kinds of cabinet impropriety.
- yifanl 7y ago
  It's more of a 3-2 split, no? Afaict, the Bloc are a right-leaning party. (Not familiar with Quebecois politics, so I could definitely be wrong)
  - Kylekramer 7y ago
    Bloc is harder to categorize given it is a party mostly to promote one province's preferred policies. In general, their positions are fairly left wing because Quebec itself is quite left, but has a few oddball positions that skew right. Platform (en francais, bien sur) is mostly leftish positions with an emphasis on making sure Quebec gets their cut: https://www.blocquebecois.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Plateforme_Bloc2019_web-1.pdf https://www.blocquebecois.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Pla...
mFixman 7y ago
There were a significant number of people who preferred the NDP, but voted Liberal to deny the Conservatives a seat.
pjkundert 7y ago
Huge numbers of Canadians, on both "sides" of the (false) spectrum, voted for a less preferred (or even undesirable) candidate, because otherwise their vote would have been "wasted". A vote for a preferred (but unlikely to win) candidate is effectively a vote against your 2nd-best strategic candidate (the one you'd prefer to win, if your ideal candidate can't achieve victory). Basically, every time a voter dislikes one of the 2 leading candidates -- they are forced to not vote for their preferred candidate. It is unacceptable and disrepectful to the voters -- but no "incumbent" party will ever propose or vote for "electoral reform" because it directly affects the likelihood that they will win re-election.

zjaffee 7y ago

The issue with the Canadian elections is simply the existence of districts. All this would do is make it safer to risk a vote for NDP, Greens, or Bloc, which would likely still result in worse results because Canada doesn't really have a coalition system the way other countries do.

pjkundert 7y ago

The utter contempt for Alberta (well, basically everything east of Ontario) was received loud and clear by western Canada yesterday. Instant Run-Off voting is an absolutely necessary next step, but wouldn't have helped in this election; the non-Liberal vote already achieved about 80% (80%!) of the vote. A new non-leftist party (People's Party of Canada) got essentially shut out due to strategic voting; it would have been interesting to see the actual interest in a more "libertarian" party, but we'll never know -- that data is lost when citizens are forced to either vote strategicially or throw away their vote to an undesirable opponent. #WEXIT is exploding; Alberta secession has a serious chance of being considered and voted on. Not a good time...

icegreentea2 7y ago
I can't comment on your statements regarding the attitude and feelings of western Canada (I am one of those Ontario peeps), but the numbers I saw put the non-Liberal vote at 67% (the liberals got 33% of the vote). Certainly we can do with a better voting system.
- pjkundert 7y ago
  According to the current stats (all polls reporting) from https://enr.elections.ca/National.aspx?lang=e https://enr.elections.ca/National.aspx?lang=e: the vote split between the top 2 ranked candidates (conservative vs. most popular leftist) was only 77.53%; sorry, my mistake. That includes the one riding that was won by the NDP. Of course, popular vote percentages don't matter in elections; this illustrates, however, the level of generalizied disappointment with the powers-that-be making decisions against the best interests of the Alberta. Very interesting this morning, is the extreme levels of contempt and dismissiveness being heaped upon any Albertan who dares to support the idea of separation; see #WEXIT. It's both embarrassing and potentially explosive. Fortunately, Albertans have a long history of nodding quietly at derision and then going and doing something unexpected. We'll see what happens.
  - vkou 7y ago
    Alberta is ~12% of Canada's population, and has so far had an incredibly disproportionate impact on pulling national politics in its direction. No national economic decision seems to be made, without figuring out what kind of compensation Alberta needs to receive, to bring it onboard. BC, on the other hand, is the truly federally-ignored province. It's often not clear if it is considered to have any purpose, other then being a stopping point on the way to China. The secession of BC would probably be in its provincial interests. The secession of Alberta into a land-locked petro-state would be an unmitigated disaster.