Canada – a democracy of sorts?

by Alec Adams Orillia

Canada’s First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system might reflect voter intentions most of the time – if there were only two political parties; but with several significant parties, voter intentions are poorly reflected in most elections.

Millions of Canadians have MPs they didn’t vote for and the votes they cast didn’t contribute to electing anyone.

A candidate under FPTP does not need a majority of votes in order to be elected – only more than any other candidate in their constituency. This feature gives electoral advantage to parties with concentrated regional support over those whose voters are less geographically concentrated.

In the October election the Bloc received 1.2 times the Green vote but 10 times the seats (32 vs 3), and Liberals received 5 times the Green vote but 52 times as many seats (157 vs 3). NDP and Green Party leaders were frequently asked by media to explain why their parties had not performed up to expectations. Jagmeet Singh was asked how the NDP dropped from 44 seats to only 24. Neither Singh or May was invited to discuss the obvious deficiencies of First-Past-the-Post.

Another negative consequence of FPTP is strategic voting. Instead of voting for a party that reflects their values, and has policies that they endorse, voters who think that “their” party candidate is unlikely to win, are tempted to vote “strategically” in the hope of preventing the election of the party that they fear most by voting for a party they fear less – but which could win. This defect suppresses voter enthusiasm and breeds cynicism, with the result that only 60% of Canadians usually vote, which ranks us 130th in voter participation globally. 2019 was higher at 65.95%

Some form of proportional system is used in lower house elections in 94 countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, South Africa and New Zealand. Plurality (FPTP) systems are used primarily in England and former British colonies, including Canada, India and the USA. Plurality systems are used in local and/or national elections in 43 countries. Voting systems can have consequences! In recent US presidential elections, Al Gore lost to George W Bush, in spite of receiving half a million more votes and Hilary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump although she received 3 million more votes.

Many Conservatives and Liberals persuade themselves that the First-Past-the-Post voting system is just fine because it misrepresents voter intent to their advantage half the time, and when it does, it gives them 100% power to reverse policies that the other guys spent their term putting in place. If however, you believe that every person’s vote should count equally, no matter where they live, or what party they support, you are no doubt again disappointed by the 2019 results.

                    2019 Seats           Votes                Votes per         Seat allocation               FPTP

                   per party             received            seat won        (if proportional)         distortion

Liberal               157                5,915,950                37,681                      112                            + 45

Conservative     121                6,155,662                 50,873                       116                             + 5

NDP                     24                2,849,214                118,717                         54                           – 30   

Green                     3                1,162,361                387,454                        22                            – 19  

Bloc                      32                1,376,135                43,004                         26                             + 6

People’s Party      0                  292,703                                                        6                              – 6

Independent        1                       71,854           71, 854                               1