Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Canada: An illustration of the unfairness of FPP

Canada went to the polls yesterday. As I noted in my posted yesterday, Canada uses an unfair electoral system, and the results were disproportionate. How disproportionate? Take a look at the table below:

Party%voteSeats% Seats
Conservative39.6216754.2
New Democrat30.6310233.1
Liberal18.913411.04
Bloc Québécois6.0441.3
Green3.9110.32

(For the wonks, the result has a Gallagher Index of 12.58. New Zealand's last election, our worst under MMP, had a Gallagher Index of 3.84)

So the Conservatives get to govern, despite being rejected by a clear majority of the Canadian people, thanks to an electoral system which inflates a plurality into a majority, while under-representing everyone else. It is not acceptable for a supposedly democratic nation to be governed in this way; Canada desperately needs electoral reform.

Meanwhile, its a stark warning of the consequences of the electoral system the right want to foist upon us here. Don't let them do it.