Personally, I am not convinced proportional representation offers more stability than our current arrangement. Any system, certainly including FPTP is imperfect (yes, I am aware if the mathematical analyses etc. but ultimately PR has proven unpopular in several referenda and tradition carries weight, even if it is largely inertia). I think it is a good thing the popular parties are essentially central and moderate by global standards, and really agree on more than they disagree (regardless of their electoral yammerings). There do need to be more changes. One of our allies is demonstrating some changes can be imprudent.
They didn’t feel they when they last formed government. No gov’t ever does, even the Libs, despite their talk of election reform. That’s because the only people that Proportional Representation benefits are the minority parties. It does not benefit the governing party, who must share its wins with the opposition. You would likely never see a majority gov’t again under PR. I’m not sure that’s what people really want.
Couldn’t the person who was sending their ballot just have checked out the wrong postal code on the envelope, crossed it out, wrote in the right one, and initialled the change? Seems to me this mistake was also partly the responsibility of the voter when sending in their ballot.
Not really reasonable to expect a voter to second-guess the pre-printed address on the return envelope.
Maybe not, but mistakes do happen. If the voter didn’t check, that’s at least partly on the voter.
Yes, there’s two different types of applications to the courts.
The first is a judicial recount. That’s exactly what it means. A judge supervises the recounting of the ballots and that’s the final vote tally. It’s not appealable, because it doesn’t involve questions of law or disputed facts. It’s just the final vote count, under careful judicial supervision.
The other court remedy is an application for a contested election, involving allegations like fraud, vote-rigging, non-voter being allowed to vote, etc. That is a judicial process, because it can involve questions of law and facts, such as errors in the voting process. A party who wishes to dispute the election must bring an application to the provincial superior court having jurisdiction over the riding where the election occurred. It’s meant to be an expeditious process, but is a type of trial, with evidence and legal arguments.
That’s what the Bloc is planning to do in the Terrebonne riding.
An appeal lies directly from the superior court to the Supreme Court of Canada.
As I understand it, Elections Canada is involved in the judicial recount process, because that’s the final stage of the vote-count, which is their responsibility. It’s purely procedural in nature, to count the ballots.
Elections Canada is not involved in the contested election process, except as witnesses, because they do not take sides in the dispute.
When it gets to a contested election challenge, there are always some irregularities in the process. There’s no way to eliminate human error. However, the test for a contested election isn’t perfection. The question is whether the irregularities (eg non-citizen voting; citizen voting in the wrong riding) are greater than the difference in the final vote count. So if the final vote count is a 20 vote difference, and the challenger can only show 15 errors, the vote stands. If the vote count is 20 vote difference and the challenger shows 25 errors, then the court voids the election and orders a new election. (At least that’s how it works in provincial election law I’m familiar with. I assume it’s the same at the federal level. )
Here, the final vote tally is one vote difference, so very low margin for error.
I’m puzzled by the statement on Elections Canada’s webpage that says no contested election challenge has ever succeeded in Canada. I can think of a few that have succeeded, but they were back in the 19th century. Maybe Elections Canada has forgotten about them.
I feel that’s a great summary and wholeheartedly agree with it!
As do I, but I would add another few things:
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We have a separation between federal parties and provincial parties, such that it is entirely possible for Ontario voters (for example) to vote Conservative in provincial elections, and Liberal in federal elections. And indeed, it is not allowed for Federal parties to interfere/intercede/say or do anything to influence a provincial election.
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Ridings (for our American friends, “districts”) are entirely up to Elections Canada, or the equivalent provincial body (e.g. Elections Alberta or Elections Ontario). The government of the day, federally or provincially, cannot gerrymander ridings to favour itself, because it has no say in such things.
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Lobbying, as our American friends know it, is largely non-existent. For example, Big Pharma, looking out for Conservative interests, is not going to get a Liberal MP to cross the floor because it promises to build a big new drug plant in his or her riding. MPs always vote the party line, regardless of lobbyists’ promises.
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There is a limit on how much can be contributed to a political party. Elon Musk cannot provide $50M to the Conservatives. I haven’t checked, but the most I believe he or his companies can contribute is $1500. Musk does hold Canadian citizenship, so he can contribute, but we do not allow non-Canadian interests to contribute at all.
How soon we forget things like SNC-Lavalin.
While I agree that we likely have less lobbying than the US, I really have no way of knowing. The investigation above was hampered by lack of disclosure and essentially had no teeth. The PM can effectively misdirect and avoid consequences which he did.
What makes me wonder is how much it actually goes on and we don’t know about it? A question is why go to all the effort to protect that company? I seriously doubt that Trudeau decided on his own so someone had to have put pressure on him somehow. What was that pressure? Probably pictures of him in blackface or someone topping up his trust fund, but who knows.
You just can’t help yourself…trash any cred you might have with a single pointless right wing slur. Gets old. 
So are you saying I’m wrong? Most likely it was to ensure that his government didn’t bring down a major company in a location where his party got many votes. That make it a better reason to fiddle with the law?
There should be a drinking game whenever PP gets in front of a mic, everyone has to take a shot every time he says “Trudeau”. Two shots for ‘Trudeau decade’!
Let me fix that for you:
Most likely it was to ensure that his government didn’t bring down a major company in a location where his party got many votes.
That’s not corruption. That’s not lobbying. It has no relationship whatsoever to the way powerful lobby groups in the US literally own politicians.
Do we have anything like the NRA vehemently lobbying against even a semblance of gun control? No, we have strong gun control. Do we have anything like AHIP lobbying against even a semblance of universal health care? No, we have universal health care. And we have it despite American lobby groups like the health insurers and the AMA coming to Saskatchewan to fight against universal health care being introduced there, which served as the model for the rest of Canada.
Your right-wing talking points aren’t gonna fly here.
Yep. The most ridiculous part of that ‘scandal’ was the idea that the CPC, the most ‘pro business’ party in Canada, would have let them fail.
To be fair, let’s not pretend that SNC Lavalin didn’t engage in corrupt activity at more or less any opportunity. I mean, the whole thing was about bribes in Libya to begin with.
It is pretty funny to hear Alberta conservatives go on about Quebec politicians being in bed with big Quebec corporations, though, when the UCP is owned lock, stock and barrel by the oil patch.
An independent board of a elections sounds like a great idea, but how do you select them? At some point, some sort of political process has to occur, and hence there’s some opportunity for politicians to meddle.
Canada has a habit of disembowling its champion corporation - letting their patents etc go for too low sums. Nortel comes to mind - Avro another.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/canada-dream-supersonic-bomber-avro-arrow#:~:text=Another%20model%2C%20made%20of%20aircraft,to%20the%20skies%20by%202026.
As it happens, I saw Coyne’s new book on display and briefly thumbed through it. He also makes the argument the percentage of voters is decreasing, but I presume he wrote the book before the recent election. It has a lot of international charts showing Canada in the middle of the pack on this or that. Coyne isn’t wrong, and lots of things could be better. But he minimizes the points I made above (which he recognizes), which I feel are pretty significant, and especially now. Canada is still way more democratic than most places.
Canada does have a history of “corporate welfare” often based on regional influence. This is hardly unique to Canada. We could do better, but we do do better than most. Canadian corporate governance policies could be stricter, and wrongdoers should often be less coddled.
We’re pretty good about that. I bet you 90+% of Canadians couldn’t name a Supreme Court of Canada Judge because they are non-political. There are no Conservative or Liberal judges, they just do their job and interpret the laws. Very few of them are known to have accepted motor homes or vacations.
For one thing, no confirmation hearings where the party opposed to the government will do its best to rip the nominee apart to make the government look bad.
Confirmation hearings ensure the judiciary is politicized.
No elections of the people running the elections, which guarantees that the administration of elections will be a partisan issue.