semen in the ear : CP/CBC talk FPTP

Whenever Canada's CBC and CP media outlets use a meaningless phrase like "well established democracies"  you know they are about to frack you in your ear.

On June 17th of this year, a CP story re-posted on the CBC said that FPTP was 'the most common voting system in the world' .

A claim at more variance with the truth is hard to imagine.

When does media say 39% is not a majority ?

In the case of Canada, it is whenever the NDP or the Bloc or (heavens !) the Greens - and not the traditional two biggest/oldest parties - gets a majority of the legislative seats, based upon 39% or less of the popular vote.

Yet in fact, the last true majority at the Canadian national level was almost sixty years ago (!!!!), when Conservative John Diefenbaker got support from 54% of the 80% of the electors who turned out to vote.

NS: Green 4.3%, NDP 6.0%

As dismal as Nova Scotians' votes were for the fourth place Greens in this week's Canadian election, the third place party, the NDP, wasn't granted much more.

If the Green Party's leadership and 90% of its membership weren't totally obsessed with propping up FPTP by electing 16 MPs on just 5% of the national vote, Greens in NS might actually have capture some third place finishes over the NDP....

Elizabeth May's Plan to Save FPTP !

You could kiss goodbye any hope for Proportional Representation (PR) voting in Canada, ever, if Green Party leader Elizabeth May's plan to elect 16 Green MPs in the recent Canadian election had succeeded.

For if the party could elect that many MPs (mostly from BC) and thus win crucial "Official Party Status" in Parliament, on a national vote of only about five percent*, why continue the fight for PR voting ?

*Five percent nationally made up of about 35% of the vote in 16 ridings and about 3% in other 310 ridings, and about 7% in the remaining few.

If FPTP is so self evidently not broke, others could then ask, 'why then fix it, Ms May ?!'

'Climate Deniers' & Trudeau's AV voting

Brand new PM-elect Justin Trudeau got elected partially by advocating a shift to AV voting, simply because it appeared to address growing popular calls for fairer elections but actually would only increase the number of 'false majorities' long enjoyed by his Liberal Party.

But post-coitus, voters should realize that virtually all leading climate deniers are as pro FPTP/AV as Trudeau and then ask themselves, Why?

"The Two Thirds want IN, not AV"

Any Canadian prime minister with a majority of the seats in Canada's parliament is probably the most powerful figure in democratic politics anywhere in the world but all that power is (ironically/perversely) based upon the narrowest victories at the ballot box in the whole world !

One Third Solution not strong enough

The strongest restraint on serious movement to end climate change is the fact that 1% of the population, in every nation, controls the vast majority of the dynamic investment capital and hence controls the economy and restrains any bold government action.