Dunno what it is with the Boards, but I haven’t been able to either PM or email you. What does your username mean? Is there a story behind it?
I hope this isn’t too much of a hijack…
In the US, swing voters on a national level tend to be less politically engaged.
What about Canada, where you have 4-5 political parties to choose from? Do many informed people shift their support around? (How big are Canada’s electoral districts in their Parliamentary system? Why hasn’t Canada switched to PR? [1] )
Judging from the itc’s issue page, I could see myself cycling between the conservative and liberal parties over a given 20 year period. If the stars aligned properly, I might even plonk green, though the NDP seems less likely. Not to diss Party Quebecois, but I seriously doubt whether I would vote for a regional independence party.
[1] Canada–United States relations - Wikipedia
On the Canadian leadership debate:
What miserable scheduling. IME, most Canadian political junkies are American political junkies as well. So the Canadian debate goes head to head with the American Vice-Presidential debate, arguably the most entertaining political event of the year.
Meh.
First off you have to understand that there isn’t the same degree of party loyalty there is in the US. Since elections are federal, provincial or municipal and they’re all held at differing times there isn’t the opportunity to vote a party ticket. Liberal voters one election might vote Conservative or NDP (or now Green) the next.
But understand that the Bloc only runs candidates in Quebec. So regardless of your affections for secessionists if you live in Vancouver you can’t vote for them. And there are lots more than 4 federal parties but they tend to be small and localized.
The ridings are defined by Elections Canada. They’re an independent agency that reports to Parliament (not the government). Ridings (or electoral districts) are distributed by province/population with various provisions taken into account (the province can’t have fewer MPs than senators; Quebec gets 25% of the seats etc.). They tend to range in size from small urban to large rural depending on where exactly they sit.
As to why we haven’t moved to PR…the system has provided 141 years of stable government while incorporating 2 historically antagonistic linguistic groups and accommodating an ever increasing number of multifaceted religious and ethnic members. In short it works fine and there’s no pressing need aside from the breathless desire of some to change it.
How big are Canada’s electoral districts: Grey answered the question about electoral districts geographically; in terms of POPULATION, the average electoral district represents just over one hundred thousand people. However, there are extreme cases. The less populated provinces are a bit overrepresented; each territory is its own electoral district even though they have nowhere near 100,000 people each, Price Edward Island gets 4 MPs despite having about 130,000 people, and the other Atlantic provinces are a little bit overrepresented. Most of this comes at Ontario’s expense, which is significantly underrepresented by population, though still has the most electoral districts.
Obviously, geographically, they vary from a few city blocks (the City of Toronto has about two dozen districts) to Nunavut, which is one electoral district the size of France, Germany, Spain, and Italy combined.
Electoral borders are determined by an independent body and so aren’t gerrymandered. The lines of demarcation are generally pretty logical.
Why Canada hasn’t switched to PR: There are a lot of reasons for this, but the main reason is that it would require amending the Constitution. I don’t want to get into a full modern history of our Constitutional squabbles over the last couple of decades, but try to think of the worst, nastiest, most grudge-filled family dispute you have ever encountered in your entire life, and imagine how much fun it would be to bring it up in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. Now imagine it ten times worse. Got that in your head? Okay, that’s what Canadians feel when you raise the idea of amending the Constitution.
Do informed Canadians shift their support around? Well, obviously, they must or else the same party would always win 
Seriously, there seems to be a bit more movement here, but only two parties (assuming we count the various Conservative incarnations as one party, which is a fair assumption) have ever won a federal election. Whether this is due to informed voters or uninformed ones I don’t know and that would be the sort of thing you could probably argue either way.
Deleted due to the stupidity of the remark…
Quebec gets 75 seats. They don’t currently have 25%.
75 of 308 is 24% - but I think I’m remembering a now out of date arrangement of seating distribution. Which led me to this - it’s a fascinating read on how the seat allocation has evolved over time. Elections Canada.
This is of the things I love about our parliamentary system - it’s a continuing evolution or discussion on how we govern ourselves. It is one of the reasons why I’m cautious about the Charter moving our system to a (from my outside view) more American fixation on original intent in a founding document.
Whole hearted agreement with Grey and RickJay. Ontario was offered a Mixed Member Proportional system of representation as a referendum during our last Provincial election. It would have allowed the various parties to appoint members based on the overall percentages of the popular vote, as well as having your local Member of the Provincial Parliament directly elected. I am possibly doing its supporters a great disservice in my summation of its features, but it made me cross-eyed trying to sort through the pamphlets for it, and all I could think of was the parties would be free to appoint any hack they cared to find to the legislature.
My Dad explained our current system to me like this - you vote for the strongest candidate in your riding whose party platform you agree with most closely. All sorts of challenges come up in making your choice - what if the candidate for your favourite party is a total bonehead? What if the best candidate is from a party you completely disagree with? All difficult questions, and in the riding I grew up in, the federal MP for 31 years was the Conservative candidate. My Dad was not a conservative, but (to the best of my knowledge - voting was a very private matter to my parents, so I’m surmising from our table conversations), he voted for Walter Dinsdale (the Progressive Conservative) every time he ran, based on how strong a candidate he was.
My Father also described the first past the post system as being like the NHL standings - just because a team has a higher percentage of wins to losses doesn’t mean it’s unfair they don’t make the playoffs. Considering they play more games within their division than outside, if they’re in a weaker division, they’ll win more games. A higher percentage doesn’t necessarily mean the third place team in the East plays better than the second place team in the West.
By the same token, if the Liberals have the strongest candidate in one riding in the province, and weak candidates in all the others, the popular vote for that one candidate may make it look like the Liberals should have won more seats in the province.
I like the system exactly as it is, and I don’t even agree with the fixed date legislation. I have the same problems with various parties’ constitutional position - I think there’s maybe a hundred people in the country who fully understand how the system is set up now, and I don’t think we have any politicians of any stripe who are smart enough to improve it. Dumb enough to tinker with it, yes - we got plenty of those.
Enough ranting, Le Ministre - time to get some work done.
With respect to the various questions and comments on the role of the Queen. While she is Queen of the United Kingdom, her role as Queen of Canada is legally separate - what Canada does concerning the Queen should have no effect on Canadian-British relations. The GG is the Queen’s representative in Canada, when the Queen drops in for a visit the GG basically reverts to a private citizen until HM slopes off home again. (Parliament usually saves up a few bills in anticipation of any royal visit, so that HM can sign them personally for the royal assent.)
With respect to support of the military, while I believe that they need, and should have, more support, and the Conservatives are certainly talking support more than the Liberals (who frequently seemed to be embarrassed to admit that our troops were doing anything but spreading peace and goodwill while wearing blue berets), I don’t see that they are actually doing all that much walking the walk. Their funding increases don’t even cover the increased costs due to the Afghan mission, much less pay for required replacement of all the worn-out or obsolete equipment, they have cancelled or screwed up a number of critical procurements, or have made stupid micro-management decisions such as approving new grenade launchers only on condition that the army scrap the existing 60mm mortars (the troops on the ground need both, and the mortars are already bought and paid for, so the ongoing cost of the mortars is largely just in ammo supplies). They have purchased the C-17 transports and Leopard tanks, however, which were badly needed and which the Liberals might not have done (although admittedly it was the shortcomings exposed by Afghanistan and observing the problems in Iraq that emphasized the need for these, so the Liberals might have come round as well.)
Personally, I see Harper as the party leader who would be the most effective PM. However, I would not vote for the current Conservatives at all, as I also see him as the party leader most likely to take effective action in directions I do not agree with. While I see Dion as less capable as a PM, I feel that he is also less likely to do something that I strongly disagree with. I am mostly a Liberal supporter but have voted for the old PCs in the past (as well as twice for the Rhinos), but the new Conservative party is too far to the right, with too much influence from a small fundamentalist Christian base for me to be comfortable with it.
(Having said all this, it’s not likely that my vote will make much of a difference, as my riding seems to be a McGuinty family fief (David federally, Dalton provincially) and the Conservatives seem to be running a “show” candidate rather than seriously contesting the seat.
The Greens are in the debate. Jack Layton caved after the public pressure, and left Harper with no leg to stand on. This may placate some of the disaffected NDPers who had moved to the Greens, but it may also be seen as backpedalling. It will also give the Green party a national platform to air their views.
I’m still undecided on who I’ll vote for, since I have this fantastic candidate running in my riding. I certainly want to see him in Parliament. :dubious: But he’s running against this guy so I doubt my vote will make any difference at all.
Every vote for the Green Party is more money they can spend in the next campaign. And the more votes a party gets the better it looks the day after - even the votes they get in blowouts count.
It’s getting pretty crowded over there on the left now.
Which makes you wonder just what the NDP are thinking.
“Unite the Left” isn’t quite as catchy. We’ll have to work on that.
“The right is wrong!” would be my first suggestion.
More money - what $2? So they can blow it on coming in a distant 5th again next time? If you really want to help ‘green’ policies than you need to elect whoever has a chance to keep it from being another conservative government.
Seriously, unless the green candidate in your riding has a real genuine chance of winning why waste your vote? I can’t understand why the left has to split their vote between the Lib’s, NDP and Green (and Bloc in Quebec). Until the left can reunite into at one or two parties there will not be ‘green’ policies unless the conservative decide to go that way (not likely for the foreseeable future). Year ago there were just the Lib’s, NDP and PC’s. It worked. Canada is left enough for 2 left of center parties. But are we really socialist for 3 or 4 of them. The right of center will always have a lock on 35 to 40 % of the vote - how many times can you split up the remaining 60% and come out ahead???
Harper doesn’t need to worry about standing up. It is his advantage to have the green’s do well. The more the left splits up their vote the weaker they become and the less Harper has to worry about even bothering to pick up undecided voters.
Think about it. Someone voting Green usually isn’t contemplating switching to the Conservatives. They probably vote Lib or NDP if not green. So all they do is split there votes so they wind up winning fewer ridings.
If I started a party call ‘reform’ and made it a party for redneck cowboys - than Harper would try blocking me from the debates.
One point my esteemed colleagues from the east have not mentioned in the discussion of ridings is the concentration of ridings in Ontario and Quebec - 181 of 308 seats are in these two provinces, leaving 127 for the rest of Canada. In our representation by population system, there are more votes in these two provinces, so they are the votes curried by federal politicians.
Calling the Conservatives a regional party for the west is erroneous; the Conservatives got 50 seats in Ontario and Quebec in the last election. The Conservatives are the party with interests across all regions, because they have to be to get the votes they need. The Liberals are concerned only with Ontario and Quebec votes because they know the rest of Canada isn’t their homebase.
An interesting aside - Stephen Harper has a Master’s Degree in economics. I can’t help but think that is a very good thing for a leader right about now.
Their supporters and core voters are getting older, and most of them probably still believe green= voodoo science. Newer generations that are up and coming in the voting world, would have at least given the NDP a glance over , are moving to the green party because its more in sync with what they believe.
It probably would have helped if the NDP had at least won a minority , but they have developed a reputation as the party of concience, rather than a true contender. If anything , your probably going to see the green party (they should change the name) poaching more of the NDP’s remaining core platforms and people.
Declan