Cost of a botched coalition: A poll shows LibDem leader Clegg at MINUS 2%
How low can you go? If you are a politician of a party that traditionally has won around 20% of the votes cast in election after election, but with your…
proportional representation
Dutch election aftermath: it’s pretty much all good
Dutch election yesterday, with preliminary results as follows, via Parties and Elections in Europe: Party – Preliminary results (99,5%) – Ideology, Affiliation, Founding 2012 Seats 2010 Seats Volkspartij voor Vrijheid…
Quebec election: What Francois Legault should do
Now that the dust is settling, a PQ minority government will take over in Quebec with roughly one-third of the vote, while the Legault Coalition party will end up with…
Rick Salutin on Democracy, Parties, and Electoral Reform
“Democracy,” as Winston Churchill famously stated, “is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Somewhat less famously, he also…
Rick Salutin on Proportional Representation
The problem with parties is they don’t exist to represent the views of the public, or even sections of it, or even their own members. Maybe they once did, or…
The New Era: The Cullen Plan is alive, and a coalition government probable
Nathan Cullen broke with other senior Dippers during the NDP leadership race to openly espouse the concept of electoral cooperation between the NDP, the LPC and the Greens. The aim…
Why losing "my" MP leaves me indifferent
The MP for Calgary Centre, Lee Richardson, has announced he is resigning his seat to take a job as Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s principal secretary. Considering that Calgary Centre is…
One good reason to vote NDP in 2015
Perhaps Leonard Cohen has something to say to those Canadians who look with dismay upon our broken, undemocratic, first past the post electoral system, and wonder that a man who…
My shortlist for permanent leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
Speculation swirls around Bob Rae and his rumoured resignation as interim leader in order to throw his hat into the ring for permanent leader. Journalists give their views of which…
Democratic deficit: Undemocratic result in Alberta penalizes Wildrose Party
Hot from the press, we have yet another example of how the archaic, undemocratic First Past The Post (FPTP) system of selecting representatives of our Parliament and Legislatures leads to…
Stephane Dion’s Shiny New Voting System
Did I read that right? Did Stephane Dion, former head of the Liberal Party of Canada, just come out in favour of proportional representation? Better late than never! Well, that’s…
The Liberal Party and the role of Quebec in Canada: Bob Rae’s Views
With the possibility that Bob Rae will soon step down as interim leader of the LPC and so trigger the beginning of the race to select the next permanent leader…
Ontario NDP’s Horwath misses her chance
The Ontario NDP have the balance of power in that province, with the PCs cancelling themselves out of the equation by refusing to cut a deal with the provinical Liberals.…
Alberta NDP should bargain for modified proportional representation
As their price for propping up either the Wildrose or PC parties. The race has tightened, with 308indicating neither the PCs nor the Wildroses gaining a majority of seats, and…
Dion Proposes New Voting System
Monday’s election results in Alberta demonstrate once again the strange outcomes that our First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system can create. A difference in vote percentage between 43% and 34% leads to…
Dion Proposes New Voting System
Monday’s election results in Alberta demonstrate once again the strange outcomes that our First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system can create. A difference in vote percentage between 43% and 34% leads to…
Liberal blogger CalgaryGrit makes persuasive argument for Cullen as NDP leader
WesternGrit ranks the top NDP leadership candidates through the prism of what is best for the Liberal Party, and, while expressly not endorsing any candidate, outlines a very strong case…
NDP Members: You can guarantee that an NDP MP will be our next prime minister IF …
… IF you make your decision to listen to the massive outpouring of views by NDP supporters and Liberal Party supporters, the bulk of whom favour electoral cooperation and post-election…
Will Nathan Cullen have to thank these 2 if he becomes leader on Saturday?
We’ve heard little about the results of the push by these two significant groups, but perhaps by Sunday morning we will all be nodding our heads and saying: Of course!…
The C-word: Refreshing honesty from NDP’s Nathan Cullen
Remember when Michael Ignatieff turned himself into a pretzel while trying to respond to the simple question whether he would or would not enter into a coalition with other parties…