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I studied Federal and Provincial Canadian Politics for four years in University to achieve my major. It was interesting and fascinating to learn about our constitution, past political achievements, blunders, progression and regression. The more I learned, the more I realized that we as a nation have not really changed all that much since Confederation, no matter how many times we claim that we have. We adopted the Australian Secret Ballot to secure Political Privacy and the First Past the Post Voting System which many would argue that it suits our nation and in this regard, I agree.
For some people who are not Politically aware of these two concepts, I will briefly explain what they mean. Before we adopted the Australian Secret Ballot electoral system the party who you voted for wasn't all that secret. Each party would have their own ballots. You would wait in line and when your turn came, you would walk over, select a ballot from the party that you were voting for and place it in the ballot box. Some of you may ask "Who cares?" - Well, if you lived in this era, then you very well might care. In these times small municipalities and such were usually lead by one person and that one person was usually a mill owner, or someone who ran a general store (in smaller towns). So, this one person was in charge of the town, more or less, politically and economically. If they were supporting party A and you decided to vote for party B, it wasn't uncommon for you to no longer be able to purchase groceries on credit at the General Store, or possibly have a hard time at work/obtaining a job because of voting against this person. Now that our ballots secure political privacy, this is not an issue. However, long ago in our history, when you picked up that ballot, it could mean a lot more than just a simple vote.
Incase someone brings it up, Gerrymandering (drawing electoral district boundaries to suit your voters to ensure you win an election) was also a problem, as well as violence at the polls. There was a case in Newcastle/Chatham, New Brunswick in which someone voted "the wrong way" according to the mob and was stoned to death. Progression in our electoral rules and system have made for a much easier time at the polls than our ancestors had.
The First Past the Post system (FPTP) got its name in reference to horse racing, some also may know it as Plurality Voting or Single Member District Plurality (SMDP). The advantages of this system are:
Fewer Parties
1. Quicker decision making by government and less need for back and forth negotiation.
2. Parties need to appeal to a wider spectrum of voters, which decreases the chance of extremist parties.
Simplicity
The first past the post system is probably the most simple and easy to administer which leads to advantages such as:
1. Elections are quicker and cost less to run (Canadian election 30 day duration vs. American election 18 month duration?).
2. Stable governments: FPTP usually results in a majority government, a stable government.
The disadvantages for this system are:
Fewer Parties
1. Fewer choices are offered to the voter in this system and that the dominant parties may not incorporate a wide variety of values and ideals that encompass the needs/wants/values of the people in the country.
Regionalism
1. FPTP encourages regionalism, where one party might be dominant in one part of the country (Tories and the West / Quebec and the Bloc) and this changes from region to region.
Clean Sweep Results
1. The opposition can be left with very few seats, which lends to a "Winner takes all" approach.
With that aside, we have most of the framework to how our system works. There is more that can be discussed, such as "Safe Seats" and "Tactical Voting" but then again it's Politics, I can talk about it all day and this entry will never be finished. Let’s look at how people vote today. I believe that only within the last five years is Canada changing in how they vote, more people are expressing their opinions and the old party over candidate favoring is slowly coming to an end.
When I was doing research as an undergraduate and asked many people in my city (small, one resource dependent town) how they would vote, the results were not all that surprising. The older generation and what I would say skew the votes tend to vote for a specific party, despite the candidate that is running. The reason for this is because “my family has always been <insert party name here> so I guess I will vote for them. This can be attributed to many things, a lack of information on candidates, a lack of thought that elections and voters need to make or plain stubbornness.
It is of my opinion, and most likely the reason why voting trends are changing is because the youth are now more politically aware. Younger people are voting more and becoming more involved in our system. Politics is no longer just an “Old boys club”, it’s a club that every member of our nation should take part in to voice their opinions and concerns. In my opinion, the biggest tragedy is not voting at all. It’s something that too many people feel that they have no control over and shouldn’t bother to vote and that couldn’t be more of a lie. We control this country; our voices are the ones that matter. Not voting in protest isn’t really protesting at all, it’s more like rolling over and giving your power up. The least you can do is spoil your ballot.
Little over two months after our last federal election, there is talk again that the opposition parties want to overthrow the federal government and form a coalition government (hopefully this works better than it does/did for Italy). This announcement was made me cringe, just the way it was presented – it came off as being parties that were bitter about losing and wanted to undermine the system to get power in their hands. Poor Tommy Douglas, who is credited much for founding the NDP party would likely be rolling over in his grave if he knew that his party was trying to achieve the status of government when the whole idea behind the NDP was to be an opposition and pressure party to keep a balance between the Liberal Party and Conservative Party.
**** on’t flame, discuss. I will finish this later, have to go to work now*****
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Canada3685 Posts
On December 04 2008 02:22 GiTM.Dante wrote:It is of my opinion, and most likely the reason why voting trends are changing is because the youth are now more politically aware. Younger people are voting more and becoming more involved in our system.
Wasn't this last election our lowest voter turnout? I'm not sure of the data on percentage of youth that voted but I still think that's pretty shocking. I totally agree that people need to get out and vote more. The American's had a fabulous election in that regard.
On December 04 2008 02:22 GiTM.Dante wrote:This announcement was made me cringe, just the way it was presented – it came off as being parties that were bitter about losing and wanted to undermine the system to get power in their hands.
I think it entirely caused by Stephen Harper being stupid. He brought it upon himself and I don't see it as a disgruntled losers trying to grab power. Sure, they do want power, but Harper's approach wasn't very tactful. He acted very arrogantly. I think we do need a fiscal stimulus package and hoping that a past tax cut will save us is silly.
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What did you think of the wrest of my blog? We did have low voter turnout, but the youth are more active and I'll see if I can find the statistics or a political survey that was done. Props to America, awesome turnout. ^^
I voted for Harper, but like anything, there are things that I disagree with.
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what are you talking about
38% of americans that were eligible to vote didn't.
By comparison, 32% voted for Barack Obama.
If this was a real majority system we wouldn't have a president hahaha
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55% is a rough voter turnout for our last Canadian election. I was personaly really excited when I found out about the no-confience motion. I fucking hate that Harper won without showing any sort of platform throughout the campaign (his platform was released the 28th I believe? 2 weeks after the election? awesome) and how he has been incredibly silent about the economic crisis. When you're a leader you need to fix your country and be open. He disregards the opposition parties that represent more Canadian's than his single party and is a shit leader imo.
Get him the fuck out.
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Anything involving money that he would do, would result in what we're seeing now. The 'coalition' members striking it down and making for a vote of non-confidence. Maybe he was trying to avoid hauling us through another period of shittyness. :S
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On December 04 2008 14:52 GiTM.Dante wrote:
Anything involving money that he would do, would result in what we're seeing now. The 'coalition' members striking it down and making for a vote of non-confidence. Maybe he was trying to avoid hauling us through another period of shittyness. :S
My belief is rather than he hauling us through this period, he set it up for the opposition to gang up and do it for him, that way when the next election comes around, conservative party waves it in their faces if they fail and walk into a majority.
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It's certainly a possibility.
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On December 04 2008 02:22 GiTM.Dante wrote:
The First Past the Post system (FPTP) got its name in reference to horse racing, some also may know it as Plurality Voting or Single Member District Plurality (SMDP). The advantages of this system are:
Fewer Parties
1. Quicker decision making by government and less need for back and forth negotiation.
2. Parties need to appeal to a wider spectrum of voters, which decreases the chance of extremist parties.
1. Decisions might be too much favored to one party who single handed made law or suggestion, multiple parties has nice agreement where its widely accepted.
2. Which means nobody is representing your view at politics (because both parties say no to your views and you have nobody to vote). Extremist parties isn't problem, you might look how, for example, Finland political parties been represented. Out of 200 seats, socialist parties (left side) has 62 places, 67 for right side, center has 51 and populist+greens has 19 spots. (1 reserved for autonomy MP spot). Now you have options to choose your political views and even if you are extremist you have some influence but not too much (as usually they are not chosen to government because their views).
Simplicity
The first past the post system is probably the most simple and easy to administer which leads to advantages such as:
1. Elections are quicker and cost less to run (Canadian election 30 day duration vs. American election 18 month duration?).
2. Stable governments: FPTP usually results in a majority government, a stable government.
1. Depends every country how they organize elections, not based on voting system.
2. This system promotes Two party system, which means one party rules whole country.
The disadvantages for this system are:
Fewer Parties
1. Fewer choices are offered to the voter in this system and that the dominant parties may not incorporate a wide variety of values and ideals that encompass the needs/wants/values of the people in the country.
Regionalism
1. FPTP encourages regionalism, where one party might be dominant in one part of the country (Tories and the West / Quebec and the Bloc) and this changes from region to region.
1. This happens every voting system.
Clean Sweep Results
1. The opposition can be left with very few seats, which lends to a "Winner takes all" approach.
1. Later on this might go for 1 party system, hello China / North Korea / Cuba :D
(wikipedia)
The Parliament has 200 members, elected for a four-year term by proportional representation in multi-seat constituencies. Finland has a multi-party system, with three strong parties (Social Democrats, Center, National Coalition), in which one party does not often have a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to form coalition governments.
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Everything Dante said is accurate OO
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I supported the opposition movement because of the arrogant and underhanded way that Harper won his re-election, as well as his lack of planning.
For months before he actually called the election, he basically campaigned to be re-elected and of course, the opposition didn't do anything because there was no election. Then BLAM, he calls an election, and places the election date to be.. right away. So the opposition has no time to even prepare or put together a campaign, everything goes wrong for them, and they end up getting smashed by voter indifference and the suddenness of the whole thing. Well, now they have their act together and they're fighting back.
The whole thing strikes me as sour. I want Cretian. As wrinkled and possibly corrupt as he could have been, he was a leader with vision and the means to get there, and right now, Harper is STILL benefiting from what Cretian did back then. It's too bad we can't find a real leader.
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EPT
