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> Is there a more comprehensive definition of a "mandate" than a federal election? Governments chosen by a first-past-the-post system can barely be considered

> Is there a more comprehensive definition of a "mandate" than a federal election? Governments chosen by a first-past-the-post system can barely be considered democratically legitimate, if at all.

dubcanada 5y ago
Well that’s a silly thing to say. I don’t like governments elected on Tuesday. I’d prefer Wednesday. See that’s another silly thing said. Your opinions of FPTP voting have absolutely nothing to do with anything. The government was elected as per the defined rules.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  North Korea's government was also elected as per the defined rules. It would be absurd to claim that that means it's democratically legitimate. > I don’t like governments elected on Tuesday. I’d prefer Wednesday. FPTP vs. good election systems is not a trivial distinction like this, so your analogy is invalid.
  - geenew 5y ago
    And yet somehow there is regular turnover of the governing party approximately every 10 years, and the dominant parties have almost to a one been centrist. Not a terrible system.
    - saila 5y ago
      Centrist by definition or by some objective measure? In the U.S. for example, the "center" is quite conservative compared to some other western nations. If people could vote as they truly wanted without fear of throwing away their votes, the center would almost certainly move. As to the back and forth between two major parties, that's hardly surprising. I'm not sure that indicates much in terms of what people actually want.
      - geenew 5y ago
        The idea is that parties have to appeal to a various groups in society in order to win elections, preventing them from taking any position that is too obnoxious to any one group. Thus, centrism. Systems with ranked choice or similar measures to encourage smaller parties end up with a similar situation, but with less stability. Since those parties appeal to narrower bands of society, they are unable to form a government. Eventually they are forced into coalition, which brings them to the same place as the major parties in FPTP: compromise. Yet, since coalitions are inherently more fragile than parties, you get less stability, and less institutional pressure on individuals in government and cabinet to represent wider interests.
  - afarrell 5y ago
    FPTP is really quite common in the western world. Going so far as to say it makes the government “barely legitimate” is a strong claim. Without other evidence, this claim relies entirely on how much we trust your sense of proportion. Your comparison to North Korea casts doubt on your sense of proportion.
    - School-Cotton 5y ago
      > FPTP is really quite common in the western world. I don’t think this is true outside the English-speaking countries. Most “Western” countries are in Europe and have systems with some degree of proportionality where coalition governments are the norm. > Your comparison to North Korea casts doubt on your sense of proportion. It was an intentionally extreme comparison to show that “operates according to the rules” is not sufficient for a system to count as democratic. Of course Canada is much closer to counting as a liberal democracy than North Korea is, but for reasons other than “it operates according to its own internal rules”. Perhaps a better analogy would have been Hong Kong a few years ago (before the situation there became worse and things became more directly controlled by the central Chinese state). Hong Kong has never been a democracy by any reasonable definition, but did have robust rule of law and liberal rights, despite elections being basically rigged due to the functional constituencies system.
jsjsbdkj 5y ago
If we had ranked choice you'd have a Liberal/NDP supermajority. Vote splitting on the left is the only way the CPC has held on.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  > If we had ranked choice you'd have a Liberal/NDP supermajority. That's unlikely to be true, because there would be way more viable parties. Maybe you would indeed have a supermajority of left-of-center parties but you can't conclude that they'd all have the same Covid restriction policies as the current ones.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > That's unlikely to be true, because there would be way more viable parties Ranked choice (any form, not just IRV) voting systems without proportional allocation (whether multimember districts with STV, mixed member proportional, or party-list proportional, or something else) do not significantly increase the number of viable parties.
- armagon 5y ago
  That's intriguing. On the other hand, I'm amazed that 5% of the population voted for the People's Party of Canada -- a party which had no hope of winning. This absolutely split the vote on the right enough to make the CPC lose seats.
  - swader999 5y ago
    I did as a protest to both left and right malaise. In Canada a party gets a certain level of funding based on their popular vote which is another reason I voted for them.
  - SECProto 5y ago
    There are decent arguments that that wasn't the case - that rather the PPC drew out a lot of anti-institution voters who would've voted not just for the CPC, but also the Greens, and those who would've spoiled their ballots or not voted at all. https://globalnews.ca/news/8212872/canada-election-conservative-vote-splitting/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8212872/canada-election-conservat...
fineIllregister 5y ago
I agree with your criticism of first past the post. The the proposal of the convoy occupiers is that their organization picks a committee to run the country. That's a significantly less legitimate government with absolutely no claim at a mandate.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  Indeed, I don’t think such a government would be democratically legitimate either. The point is that we simply can’t rely on the composition of the parliament to determine what most Canadians believe about any particular issue. The best we can do is look at opinion polls, which suggest that most people want to get rid of most Covid restrictions, but also don’t support the trucker protest.

> Is there a more comprehensive definition of a "mandate" than a federal election? Governments chosen by a first-past-the-post system can barely be considered democratically legitimate, if at all.

dubcanada 5y ago

Well that’s a silly thing to say. I don’t like governments elected on Tuesday. I’d prefer Wednesday. See that’s another silly thing said. Your opinions of FPTP voting have absolutely nothing to do with anything. The government was elected as per the defined rules.

School-Cotton 5y ago
North Korea's government was also elected as per the defined rules. It would be absurd to claim that that means it's democratically legitimate. > I don’t like governments elected on Tuesday. I’d prefer Wednesday. FPTP vs. good election systems is not a trivial distinction like this, so your analogy is invalid.
- geenew 5y ago
  And yet somehow there is regular turnover of the governing party approximately every 10 years, and the dominant parties have almost to a one been centrist. Not a terrible system.
  - saila 5y ago
    Centrist by definition or by some objective measure? In the U.S. for example, the "center" is quite conservative compared to some other western nations. If people could vote as they truly wanted without fear of throwing away their votes, the center would almost certainly move. As to the back and forth between two major parties, that's hardly surprising. I'm not sure that indicates much in terms of what people actually want.
    - geenew 5y ago
      The idea is that parties have to appeal to a various groups in society in order to win elections, preventing them from taking any position that is too obnoxious to any one group. Thus, centrism. Systems with ranked choice or similar measures to encourage smaller parties end up with a similar situation, but with less stability. Since those parties appeal to narrower bands of society, they are unable to form a government. Eventually they are forced into coalition, which brings them to the same place as the major parties in FPTP: compromise. Yet, since coalitions are inherently more fragile than parties, you get less stability, and less institutional pressure on individuals in government and cabinet to represent wider interests.
- afarrell 5y ago
  FPTP is really quite common in the western world. Going so far as to say it makes the government “barely legitimate” is a strong claim. Without other evidence, this claim relies entirely on how much we trust your sense of proportion. Your comparison to North Korea casts doubt on your sense of proportion.
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    > FPTP is really quite common in the western world. I don’t think this is true outside the English-speaking countries. Most “Western” countries are in Europe and have systems with some degree of proportionality where coalition governments are the norm. > Your comparison to North Korea casts doubt on your sense of proportion. It was an intentionally extreme comparison to show that “operates according to the rules” is not sufficient for a system to count as democratic. Of course Canada is much closer to counting as a liberal democracy than North Korea is, but for reasons other than “it operates according to its own internal rules”. Perhaps a better analogy would have been Hong Kong a few years ago (before the situation there became worse and things became more directly controlled by the central Chinese state). Hong Kong has never been a democracy by any reasonable definition, but did have robust rule of law and liberal rights, despite elections being basically rigged due to the functional constituencies system.

jsjsbdkj 5y ago

If we had ranked choice you'd have a Liberal/NDP supermajority. Vote splitting on the left is the only way the CPC has held on.

School-Cotton 5y ago
> If we had ranked choice you'd have a Liberal/NDP supermajority. That's unlikely to be true, because there would be way more viable parties. Maybe you would indeed have a supermajority of left-of-center parties but you can't conclude that they'd all have the same Covid restriction policies as the current ones.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > That's unlikely to be true, because there would be way more viable parties Ranked choice (any form, not just IRV) voting systems without proportional allocation (whether multimember districts with STV, mixed member proportional, or party-list proportional, or something else) do not significantly increase the number of viable parties.
armagon 5y ago
That's intriguing. On the other hand, I'm amazed that 5% of the population voted for the People's Party of Canada -- a party which had no hope of winning. This absolutely split the vote on the right enough to make the CPC lose seats.
- swader999 5y ago
  I did as a protest to both left and right malaise. In Canada a party gets a certain level of funding based on their popular vote which is another reason I voted for them.
- SECProto 5y ago
  There are decent arguments that that wasn't the case - that rather the PPC drew out a lot of anti-institution voters who would've voted not just for the CPC, but also the Greens, and those who would've spoiled their ballots or not voted at all. https://globalnews.ca/news/8212872/canada-election-conservative-vote-splitting/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8212872/canada-election-conservat...

fineIllregister 5y ago

I agree with your criticism of first past the post. The the proposal of the convoy occupiers is that their organization picks a committee to run the country. That's a significantly less legitimate government with absolutely no claim at a mandate.

School-Cotton 5y ago
Indeed, I don’t think such a government would be democratically legitimate either. The point is that we simply can’t rely on the composition of the parliament to determine what most Canadians believe about any particular issue. The best we can do is look at opinion polls, which suggest that most people want to get rid of most Covid restrictions, but also don’t support the trucker protest.