On May 2, 2011, Canadians went to the polls and elected our first majority government since the 2000 election. We re-elected the most right-wing Prime Minister in living memory with essentially unlimited power. Way to go us.
That we did this provides an illustration of the absurdities of the electoral system called, alternatively, first past the post (FPTP) and single-member plurality (SMP). Why it does that I will get to in a second, but the first thing to know is that whatever you want to call it, it’s the same system as in use in the United States and in the U.K.
FPTP/SMP works very, very, well in a political environment in which there are only two parties. Which is why it emerged first in the U.K., where the two parties were the Whigs and the Tories – the Whigs being generally in favour of moving power from the Crown to Parliament, and the Tories being generally in favour of continuing the concentration of power in the Crown. Because politics revolved so strongly around this issue, there developed only these two political parties. It thus made sense to have a system of elections which reflected that fact – which ever way the majority of the electors leaned on the issue is the kind of representation they would get. This system worked very well for the U.K., and thus when the American colonies were founded, that was the system given to their colonial legislatures and it was the system adopted when the thirteen colonies broke away from the British Crown and declared their independence.
Except in countries which remain essentially two-party systems, which is really only the United States any more, this way of doing things does not work so well. Once you get into three or more parties, it begins to be rather absurd.
I should probably drop the subject now. I’ve been known to rant for hours about how ludicrous the Canadian electoral system is. Anyhow, this is a good jumping off point for talking about the actual election.
On May 2, the popular vote was roughly as follows. Conservative Party of Canada – 40%, New Democratic Party – 30%, Liberal Party of Canada – 18%, Bloc Quebecois-4%, Green Party – 4%. Independents got the rest of the vote pretty well. In most rational electoral systems, you would expect this kind of vote pattern to result in the Conservatives, New Democrats and Liberals being represented in Parliament, with the Conservatives having roughly 45% of the seats, the NDP having roughly 33% of the seats and the Liberals with roughly 20% of the seats. The BQ and the Greens would not have passed a 5% threshold and would not be represented. Instead, what we got is that out of 308 seats, the Conservatives got 166 or 54%, the NDP got 103 or 33%, the Liberals got 34 or 11% and the Greens got 1, or just about 0.3%.
Given the rigidity of party discipline in Canada, a party with a majority in the House has all the power. The only check is the judiciary. So with 40% of the vote, the Conservatives have got pretty much 100% of the power, especially since two judges of the Supreme Court of Canada just resigned so the Conservatives will get to appoint their replacements. This 40% level of support has been pretty much the threshold for a majority of the seats in the Commons since the emergence of meaningful third parties in the 1920s.
This is a concerning result, because it seems like 40% of the population has been living under a rock and missed the devastating impact that conservative government has had across the world. Whether it was the legacy of economic devastation left behind by Bush II, the fact that the Greek conservatives lied about the extent of the Greek debt and deficit and thereby created the world’s foremost economic basket case or the legacy of conservative parties in Canada of inheriting budgets that were balanced or with small deficits and then running their balance sheets into the ground, 40% of the electorate closed their eyes, stuck their fingers in their ears and then voted for more of that.
As a result, we have to put up with another four years of mean-spirited, small minded and vicious government at the federal level, and this time there will be no ability for the opposition in the Commons to defeat draconian government legislation, since the government now holds a majority of the seats. Le sigh.
The big, earth-shattering, change to come out of this election is the breakthrough of the NDP and the accompanying demise of the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois. The NDP will, for the first time in its history, form the Official Opposition (or if you want to be formal, Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition) in the House of Commons. The Official Opposition is the largest non-government party in the House.
To get a sense of how momentous this is, consider that throughout the entire history of Canada until this year, the Liberal Party had been either the government, or the Official Opposition. They are now reduced to a regional rump, deriving almost the entirety of their seats from the Atlantic region of Canada. The Liberals faced a double challenge of a Conservative Party on their right flank, and a resurgent NDP on their left flank. When there are strong parties on both the left and the right, it is very difficult for a centrist party to thrive.
Oddly, the Liberal solution to this catastrophe was to turn to one of the most hated former premiers of Ontario to be their interim leader: Bob Rae. This is a man who was, from 1990 to 1995, the NDP premier of Ontario and who led his party into an electoral disaster unprecedented in Ontario politics, after just a single term in office. Mr. Rae is also reviled by an overwhelming number of Ontarians for the utter incompetence of his government when he was in office. New Democrats also hate his guts for being a turncoat. That the Liberals would turn to him is a mark of either insanity or desperation. Or maybe a little of both.
The Bloc Quebecois was annihilated on May 2, reduced from 49 seats to 4. This was directly attributable to the rise of the NDP, because the NDP took every one of those BQ seats, and went from 1 seat in Quebec to 53. For the first time since the 1993 election, the majority of the people of Quebec are represented by a party opposed to the separation of Quebec from Canada. The question now is whether the BQ is finished as a viable political force. That remains to be seen, but they were knocked so low that they have lost their status as an official party in the House of Commons. While quite clearly sovereignty as a political project is not done, it’s moment in the federal sun may well be over.
The question still to be answered is whether this election represents a fundamental reordering of the Canadian political landscape. Will the NDP become the new party of the centre-left in Canada? Will the BQ go gently into that sweet night? Can anyone knock the Conservatives off their perch atop Canadian politics? Right now it’s too soon to tell.
Picture of Centre Block from a Flickr belonging to geiarne, the election results map is from the Wikimedia Commons and the picture of the justices of the Supreme Court is from the website of the Supreme Court of Canada.
