{"id":1249,"date":"2015-10-14T18:25:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T18:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2019-10-10T03:19:55","modified_gmt":"2019-10-10T03:19:55","slug":"millions-of-canadian-votes-dont-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/millions-of-canadian-votes-dont-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Why millions of Canadian votes don&#8217;t matter"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"entry-content\"><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ninety-four countries use proportional representation, where votes translate directly to seats in parliament. Canada doesn\u2019t. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Canada\u2019s electoral system is known as first past the post. The candidate with the most votes in their riding wins a seat in the House of Commons. A candidate does not need a majority of votes to win; all she needs is more votes than the candidate who comes in second.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/231\/files\/2015\/10\/canada-votes.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1401 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/231\/files\/2015\/10\/canada-votes.gif\" alt=\"canada votes\" width=\"743\" height=\"607\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The status quo: first past the post<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Canada inherited the first-past-the-post system from the United Kingdom. Many people question whether it still suits the needs of our country. Past election results show the discrepancy between votes each party received, and the actual number of seats they won. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The May 2011 federal election in figures:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Conservatives: received <strong>39.6%<\/strong> of the vote and <strong>53.9%<\/strong> of the seats<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NDP: received <strong>30.6%<\/strong> of the vote and <strong>33.4%<\/strong> of the seats<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Liberals: received <strong>18.9%<\/strong> of the vote and <strong>11.0%<\/strong> of the seats<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bloc: received <strong>6.1%<\/strong> of the vote and <strong>1.3%<\/strong> of the seats<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Greens: received <strong>3.9%<\/strong> of the vote and <strong>0.3%<\/strong> of the seats<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1872 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/231\/files\/2015\/10\/votes-seats.gif\" width=\"1500\" height=\"933\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>The contender: proportional representation<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proportional representation means that the popular vote is proportionately represented in parliament. If a party gets 20 per cent of the vote, it gets 20 per cent of the seats.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is what the 2011 election results would have looked like if Canada were using proportional representation:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/231\/files\/2015\/10\/votes-seats-pr.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1479\" src=\"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/231\/files\/2015\/10\/votes-seats-pr.gif\" alt=\"votes seats pr\" width=\"1346\" height=\"778\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Why change?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many people blame the current electoral system for disengaged voters and a hyper-partisan, unresponsive government. On International Democracy Day this September, a large group of academics presented a letter to the federal parties pushing for a proportional election model, arguing that change is needed to engage the electorate. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><br \/>\nWhere Canadian parties stand:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Liberals:<\/strong> <\/span>Want to end the first-past-the-post system. They propose a Parliamentary Committee to advise on the best way to replace it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>NDP:<\/strong><\/span> Has been advocating for a more proportionally representative voting system since 2004.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"color: #339966;\"><strong>Greens:<\/strong><\/span> In favour of a proportional representation system for Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Conservatives:<\/strong><\/span> Want to keep the first-past-the-post system. They stand to lose the most seats from proportional representation, based on the 2011 federal election votes.<\/span><\/p>\n<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main \"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-large mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fthethunderbird.ca%2Felxn42%2Fmillions-of-canadian-votes-dont-matter%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-large mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/?p=1249\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-large mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n                    <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-toggle-container\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons made by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47-->\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ninety-four countries use proportional representation, where votes translate directly to seats in parliament. Canada doesn\u2019t. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Canada\u2019s electoral system is known as first past&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":504,"featured_media":1870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"coauthors":[11648,11711,11652,11684],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-projects","post-item","post-even"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/504"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1983,"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions\/1983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thethunderbird.ca\/elxn42\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}