High School.
ETA: I went to grad school in another country and to work in another province.
They stayed behind and whined about how unfair it was that everyone else got the good jobs.
It is simply the case, though, that Canada almost never has coalitions.
The NDP is completely broke. They cannot afford another election, and will be forced to prop the Grits up for 18 months, maybe longer.
Agree with RickJay. Canada has had one and only one coalition at the federal level, in WWI, to push through conscription. That’s the level of crisis you need to have a coalition federally.
Plus, the pattern in Canada at the provincial level, and in the UK, is that the smaller party tends to lose out by being in a coalition, with the larger party often winning a majority in the next general, and the second party losing seats. See for a recent example the Lib-Dems in Britain.
What’s in it for the NDP to form a coalition, when they’re struggling already? Why would they take a chance on losing seats?
Thanks for your detailed answer, HJ!
Right, this week’s vote gave me an actual example that illustrates what I was thinking of, although the numbers are a bit lower than in my hypothetical.
The BQ got 7.7% of the popular vote, nation-wide, but because that vote was concentrated in Quebec, the BQ gets 32 seats.
The Greens got 6.5% nation-wide, but because their vote was dispersed across the country, they got 3 seats.
Should those two parties get roughly equal numbers of seats instead? But how would you do that, without ignoring provincial boundaries and seat allocation?
That’s why it’s not really accurate to focus on the national popular vote and assume a nation-wide PR system can work. Any alternative voting system has to take the allocation of provincial seats into account. Which isn’t to say there aren’t options fir reforms, but just looking at the national popular vote of each party is misleading, in my opinion. Not intentionally misleading, but not giving a clear picture of the issue.
(And then of course there’s the NDP, who got more votes nation-wide than the Bloc and Greens combined, but fewer seats than the Bloc: 15.9% NDP, but only 24 seats.)
ETA: And it’s somehow appropriate that I’m eating slices of St Hubert chicken pot pie as I mull over the implications of the Bloc votes. 
There is also a rather straightforward question no one ever asks: Why is allocating seats based on political party better than allocating it based on FPTP?
Observing that the Green Party got almost as many votes as the BQ but got one tenth the seats, and assuming that is unfair, operates on the assumption that fairness is defined by the relationship between national votes and seats held, but why would we assume that? We don’t vote on a national basis. It is indisputably the case that an election was held in 338 ridings and that in 335 of them, the voters chose at least one candidate more than the Green Party’s candidate. Why is THAT not fair? If your problem with fairness is that FPTP isn’t as good as other riding-level choices, fine… but the Green Party still wasn’t gonna win many more than 3 seats. Maybe they’d have won fewer.
The problem with FPTP is, arguably, not that the voting system is unfair, but that the principle of riding representation is then torpedoed by Canada’s remarkable level of party discipline, which few other democracies have. If your local MP had more freedom, FPTP might not seem as man, because the fact that you are voting for someone to represent Upper Butthump would mean more. As it is, my new MP, Anita Anand (Oakville) is basically a Liberal drone; she will do and say nothing except to do and say whatever Justin Trudeau’s henchmen tell her to. Had she been defeated by the Conservative candidate, Terence Young, he would have said and done whatever Andrew Scheer told him to (and I can prove it; Young previously served as both MPP and MP and distinguished himself by being little more than an android.)
We are often reminded “ooooh, you’re not voting for the PM, you’re voting for the MP,” and in a legal sense that is true, but in a realistic sense it’s not. In Canada you are almost always voting for someone who will blindly obey the party leader and their inner circle. I have no illusions whatever that the unique perspective of my riding will be heard in Ottawa, and so, really, I was voting for Trudeau, Scheer, or Singh. That is why FPTP is blasted; the lack of meaningful local representation means that the very concept of local representation is usually pointless.
Consider Jane Philpott, who resigned in disgust over SNC Lavalin. Philpott ran as an independent and lost by a mile, way behind a Liberal and a Conservative, neither of whom anyone has ever heard of before or likely ever will. Philpott is a smart, principled woman with name recognition; if the voters were just voting for their MP she’d have won easily. But voters are rational, and knew damn well their decision had little to do with their MP and a lot to do with the party and the PM.
THAT is the problem with FPTP. From the perspective of public choice theory, it’s just as good a system as any other, and arguably BETTER in a huge, geographically dispersed country. But the way our Parliament and political parties work - which was not the original intent - then wrecks it as a concept.
That would be more of a clincher argument if Jody Wilson-Raybould hadn’t won her seat as an independent this same election.
But your whole point is wrong headed. Yes, party discipline and party labels make something of a farce of “I vote for my MP not the party” idea but that is not what critics of FPTP are complaining about. FPTP allows someone with a bare plurality to be the winner when a majority of voters may despise that candidate/party.
I don’t think comparing the results of this election to proportional representation is very useful. People vote based on the rules of the system and if you change the rules many people will vote differently.
For example a Green or a PPC vote is currently a wasted vote in almost every riding across the country. It is entirely possible that many more people would vote for them if it wasn’t a wasted vote. Additionally there may be many more people would didn’t vote at all who would come out if they knew their vote had real meaning. Under proportional representation I personally could totally see the Green vote share going way over the 6.5% they got in this election.
I know full well what FPTP critics are complaining about. That wasn’t the point at all. The reason FPTP critics have a point at all is BECAUSE of Canada’s inflexible party discipline. Party discipline defeats the purpose of riding-level representation.
Getting rid of FPTP might not fix this. It might make it worse in other ways.
Again you should get better friends as the average salary in Alberta is almost $6000 more than the next closest province.
https://careers.workopolis.com/advice/how-much-money-are-we-earning-the-average-canadian-wages-right-now/
I see the Conservatives are caucusing to discuss their future, and that of Scheer.
If they want to win, they need to:
- Stop the predictable sniping and get behind one leader, with no comments until after the next election.
- Stop complaining they need to abandon Conservative values to win. They need to amplify supporting legal immigration, express sympathy for refugees and condemn illegal immigration. This is an important distinction.
- Identify “star” candidates popular in the GTA or key tidings. Raitt was experienced and smart; people like Olympic athletes, etc.
- Stick to their guns with the tough and unpopular choices needed to balance budgets. People will complain about union issues, class sizes, administration, taxes and delicate medical issues. These issues need to be picked more wisely and addressed early - cutting foreign aid is mean-spirited, looks terrible and doesn’t help investment.
- Come up with a sensible environmental policy. A majority support pipelines and realize oil will be here for many years. But the patch will vote Conservative; make sensible compromises to win average moderates.
- Talk more about expanding transportation access from rural areas to big cities to the benefit of both urban and rural areas.
- Reduce red tape.
- Channel compassionate conservatives from 2000s Britain and the US. That could work here.
- Meaningful support to the military and their families. Better health care, services, less politicization of the brass, destigmatize service by making it more attractive, better procurement.
- A more coherent foreign policy.
- Drawing lines to separate private social views from future policy to reduce avenues of attack.
- Declare zero-tolerance for racism and screen candidates better.
- Introduce popular innovative policies. Give money to the police to meaningfully fight organized crime and establish a bureau to help people and small business to fight cybercrime. Enhance consumer and privacy protections, but give intelligence both more powers and more meaningful oversight.
- Allow police to search Canada Post mailings to fight the opiate problem. Consider viewing issues like drug injection sites, abortion and marijuana through a more libertarian lens to reconcile Canadians viewpoints with conservative values. It can be done.
- Canvass Canadian views on equalization, Senare reform, etc. and improve these systems in a way consistent with regional views, to the extent this is possible.
- Avoid a Trumpian candidate. Americans may worship money, but Canadians won’t elect someone who thinks they are better’n them.
- Don’t have the candidate make personal attacks. This should be done by others on issues which have been badly handled.
- Come out in support of rule of law, but by offering reform, better access and real security on issues like cyberbullying, gangs, corruption and stalking to help businesses and children.
- Support the workforce by expanding child care and leaning toward “workfare” to get people back to work, modernize skills and being able to leave the house and raise families.
- Realize business needs solid infrastructure and country-wide affordable Internet access. See this in terms of providing opportunities to business with appropriate incentives and competition. Allow smaller businesses to compete. Don’t see providing better service in terms of expanding government; keep government smaller and let the private sector provide, and profit, but not profiteer.
- By expanding services, provide jobs to smaller Canadian companies. Minimize expansion of government bureaucracy to address child care, better rural bandwidth, providing safety — but provide incentives, structure executive pay and profits sensibly in advance, with minimal corruption and cronyism
- Give foreign businesses confidence they can invest wisely in Canada and compete fairly. But ensure jobs and benefits go largely to Canadians.
- Avoid losing focus - don’t get derailed by discussing job loss (talk about new jobs from these investments), social issues (make personal views known but provide assurances to restore confidence), regional issues (talk about a new deal that will benefit all Canadians, most of whom would welcome better services, legal reform and better security).
- Don’t seem mean spirited — make required cuts more carefully. Target tax cuts in a more focused way.
- Support better access to foreign markets through free trade, come up with ways to address interprovincial free trade more fairly, making compromises with provincial monopolies when needed.
I’ll just be sitting here, holding my breath. Give me a reason to vote Conservative.
Frankly if the Tories want to win all they need to do is wait; our system is such that they really don’t NEED to do much else. Canadians will get tired of the Liberals (and we kinda are). However they would do good to take a look at your list.
Ha! Thanks for this, and I have to agree with you. The amount of whining I hear is getting tiresome. (I have stopped following a few on facebook, as I get tired of hearing how everything is Trudeau’s fault)
Some very good points on your list.
I would add:
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Admit that climate change is real, it is here, it is caused by burning fossil fuels, and we need to do something about it. (sort of #5 on your list). Conservatives won’t get elected by the oil companies.
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Don’t run a campaign on “We hate Trudeau and so should you”. This kind of campaign obviously worked down south with the Hillary hate, but simply does not work in Canada. Campaign on the issues. Give people a reason to vote FOR you.
Sorry, it should be pointed out that the only reason that this twit is PM is because of who his father was. The level of hypocrisy is outstanding around his antics. It is exactly the same with Trump. The idiots who support him won’t admit that the Emporer has no clothes and are in it for the power they themselves derive from supporting and defending him.
You will also find few people in Canada who deny that man-made climate change is real (yes some are louder than others and make it seem like they have more support than they do). Don’t confuse that with determining how we should do something about it. I’m a firm believer that technology got us into this mess and it can also get it out of it without beggaring us in the process or leaving billions in the ground while other countries, a lot less caring about the environment and human rights, make the money in our stead.