To the editor,
In the past 100 years there have been 30 federal elections in Canada. That’s almost amazing since the standard for the parliamentary system is a five-year term. One of the recent Conservative governments, in an effort to “Americanize” us, established a four-year term. Even that has made little difference.
Those 30 elections resulted in 16 majority governments, ones where the winning party had more seats than all the other parties together. That has always been the ideal for governing, have enough votes to pass whatever legislation the party wants.
Obviously then, there have been 14 minority governments; ones in which the governing party must make sure any legislation it wishes to have considered has to appeal to a broader group of parliamentarians than one party.
Something which I find challenging is that only four of the 16 majority governments received a majority of the votes cast. It’s called a plurality when you get the most votes while getting fewer than half of them.
Some countries hold run-off elections so that every elected representative is voted in by a majority of those who vote. If there are more than two candidates and someone gets more than half the votes cast, that person is elected. In other ridings where nobody gets the majority, the top two face each other in a run off, usually a week later so there is minimal extra campaigning.
There are also themes and variations of the concept of proportional representation. In the last election in Canada, for example, the Green Party got more than six per cent of the votes cast, showing people do care about the environment. Yet, with three members elected they have less than one per cent of the seats.
To me the topper to the last election is the Conservatives got 34 per cent of the vote and about 36 per cent of the seats. The Liberals got 33 per cent of the vote and 46 per cent of the seats.
There has to be a better way!
John Finlay
Walkerton
