I've been saying this for a long time. Unless the BQ disappears, which does not look likely, the prospects of a majority government are slim.
...Broad national parties that tried internally to broker compromises are under assault from the ideology of the left (the NDP), the narrow pursuit of regional self-interest (the Bloc), and single-issue politics (the Greens). A lot of Canadians are happy with this state of affairs. Canadian politics, and therefore Canada, will never be the same.
This is one of the reasons I support PR. If we are content to have a four or even five party system we should have an electoral process that reflects that.
And to my conservative or Conservative friends who think this means a permanent Liberal/NDP coaltion government I respond not necessarily. A new electoral system would give new electoral results. The Liberals are a brokerage party that famously campaigns left and governs right. There would be no strategic voting under PR so the scare the Dippers strategy would be forever muted. In fact NDP support would go up as you could vote for them knowing full well that they would never form a government allowing left leaning Liberals to switch. A similar thing would happen on the Liberals right flank as they could switch to what I assume would be a re-constituted Progressive Conservative Party. That's right, I see one maybe two new parties on the right former out of PR. There would be a much stronger Libertarian party and new version of a rural protest party call them Reform 2.0.
Bottom line is that the two mainline parties would have a hard time keeping their full base with them. A future under PR could be much different than our present under FPTP.
Comments (4)
Well said.
Posted by Greg | October 9, 2008 9:39 AM
Posted on October 9, 2008 09:39
Greg, I do not disagree with you about the possible direction we are going, but the whole concept of PR frightens me. In the short term at least, I believe it would lead to a marked drift leftward that would permeate policy making in Canada until the negative impacts of the policies could be clearly demonstrated. As a retiree on a pension, I cannot afford the luxury of waiting for my fellow citizens to learn the lessons from a failed socialist experiment. I will therefore strongly oppose any attempts to introduce PR.
Posted by Brian | October 9, 2008 10:15 AM
Posted on October 9, 2008 10:15
Hey, I am new to the blogging world. I just set up a blog last night with wordpress and posted on very similar topics. if you are interested I would like to know what you think.
http://scottpruysers.wordpress.com/
Very interesting arguments you make. I am concerned however with the notion of accountability within coalition governments. I often find it hard to distinguish between which party indeed played the major role in the policy formation (by extension which party should be rewarded or punished)
On a similar note, I am very uneasy about small parties which may come in fourth or fifth place becoming kingmakers. A party with such a small base of support should not be recieving cabitet positions and what not.
Posted by Scotty P | October 9, 2008 10:28 AM
Posted on October 9, 2008 10:28
Having lived in Italy and Germany for many years, you do not want to have multi-party rule.It’s a nightmare, with the compromises usually being leftist in nature, while the added risk of having bi-annual elections is very real.
Posted by Kursk | October 9, 2008 3:53 PM
Posted on October 9, 2008 15:53