Anywhere else this might portend disaster for the governing party, yet our first-past-the-post electoral system somehow makes this good news: Tories' lead solid as Ignatieff slips: poll. Good news for Stephen Harper, no? Well, not exactly. The public favours him to the tune of 31.9 percent, which is rather less than overwhelming. Stated otherwise, a substantial majority of 68.1 percent of Canadians dislikes Harper. Yet he stays in office.
Perhaps one day we will have the presence of mind to recognize that elections are about, not winning and losing, but just representation in parliament. May such groups as Fair Vote Canada hasten that day.
"The public favours him to the tune of 31.9 percent, which is rather less than overwhelming. Stated otherwise, a substantial majority of 68.1 percent of Canadians dislikes Harper. Yet he stays in office."
ReplyDeleteSaying that 68.1 percent of Canadians dislike Harper is stretching the truth a bit, don't you think? Voting for one party only means that I like that party more than the others. It doesn't necessarily follow that I dislike the others.
Just came acroos your blog. It's been loaded since 2003! God bless and keep up the God work!
ReplyDeleteI hate when (usually Leftists) make this argument. Using this logic 73.4% of Canadians do not want Ignatieff as there PM, and 82.4% don't want Layton. The Liberals and the NDP are NOT the same party - they are radically different! Not to mention the Greens and the Bloc.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think the British Parliamentary system, which has had centuries to develop, is by far the best system there is. It is designed to create stable governments. It causes all the fringe parties, right, left, or moderate to gather together under one collective banner. That is MUCH better than having a bunch of little parties having to fight for a coalition after the fact (if our minority is this bad with 4 parties, imagine with 40!)
I am a Conservative, but I am so sick of this dumb minority I would take any other party in government as long as they had a majority. At least then we would have a solid opposition as opposed to the idiocracy we have now.