O Canada (photo: Jared Grove/Wikipedia)

In the most recent Canadian elections, the Liberal Party of Canada, one of the oldest and most dominant political parties in the world, lost badly and fell into irrelevance.  That fall, however, may lead the country to adopt more democratic election reforms, and Canada could serve as a case study for how the success of an insurgent party can upset the old order and bring election reform.

Canada, like the United States and the UK, uses single member districts with plurality winners for its federal elections. This is often called a “first-past-the-post” system. It is a highly unfair and unrepresentative system that prohibitively favors the two most popular parties.

The unfairness of the system was very helpful to the Liberal Party for most of Canada’s history, as long as it was one of the top two parties. For example in the 2000 election, the Liberals won just 40.85% of the popular vote but were awarded 57% of the seats in Parliament. This kind of outcome was fairly common. As a result the Liberal Party saw very little reason to change a system inherently rigged for their benefit.

This all changed with the 2011 election. In that election the Conservatives took first with 39.62% of the popular vote, but winning 53.9% of the seats. The New Democratic Party (NDP) shot up to second with 30.63% of the popular vote and won 33.44% of the seats. The Liberals got 18.91% of the popular vote but won just 11.04% of the seats.

Now that the Liberals had been knocked out of the top two slots, the unfairness of the system finally stopped working in their favor. Instead of getting way more seats than their popular vote warranted, they get way fewer.

As the third most popular party the Liberals face a serious choice on which the entire fate of the Party could rest.

1. They could try to formally merge with the New Democratic Party. First-past-the-post voting inherently causes politics to gravitate to a two party system. That could give Canada a traditional left vs right two-party system.
2. They can defend the old voting system in hopes they will soon become one of the top two parties again. Such a strategy carries the big risk that it could slowly destroy the Liberal Party or turn it permanently into a small third party with little influence. That could easily happen if they are viewed as spoilers preventing the NDP from getting the votes needed to defeat the Conservatives. Of course the big reward is that if they ever get a mere 40 percent of the popular vote again, they will be able to rule Canada with a large majority.
3. Finally they can embrace election reform. If the first-past-the-post system ends, it will mean the Liberals will never again be able to run with huge majorities in the Parliament after getting only a small plurality of the popular vote. On the other hand it would could keep the Liberal Party relevant even if it doesn’t radically increase its vote share. It would likely prevent the party from fading away or being forced to lose its identity in a merger or coalition with the NDP. For example if Canada had used almost any other fairer voting system in 2011, instead of Parliament being controlled by Conservatives, Canada would currently be governed by a New Democrat/Liberal coalition government.

It appears the Liberal Party is now heading towards option three. Fresh off a defeat the Liberal Party approved a non-binding resolution at their national convention calling for Canada to end the first-past-the-post system and adopt a preferential ballot voting system, which uses instant run-off voting.

The New Democrats, who until recently were almost always disadvantaged by the first-past-the-post system in federal elections, have a long history strongly wanting to replace it.

It is possible the next federal election could produce a NDP/Liberal coalition government or a NDP Parliament majority. If that happens we could see the first-past-the-post system eliminated in Canada.

This is how voting reform sometimes happens. An insurgent party gets strong enough to risk the existence of a dominant party. This convinces the formerly dominant party, hoping to maintain some relevance, to embrace reforms that makes democracy more representative.

Canadian Liberal Party endorses legalization (photo: El Tekolote via Flickr)

The Liberal Party of Canada, the country’s oldest federally registered party, has endorsed a resolution calling for the legalization and regulation of marijuana in Canada. You can read the non-binding resolution here. From Winnipeg Free Press:

Federal Liberals are taking some risky departures from the cautious political norm in a bid to put their once-mighty party back on the electoral map.

Sunday, they overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for the legalization and regulation of marijuana — a position immediately endorsed in principle by interim leader Bob Rae, although it remains to be seen how, or if, the resolution translates into a platform plank for the next election.

This is an important step forward for the marijuana reform movement. While the Liberal party’s historically poor showing in the 2011 federal election caused them to drop to third place behind the first place Conservatives and second place New Democrats, the Liberal Party dominated politics in Canada during much of the 20th Century.

To an America not familiar with Canadian politics this would be roughly equivalent to the Democratic national convention adopting a non-binding resolution in favor of marijuana legalization.

There is no guarantee that the Liberal Party leadership will make this part of their platform during the next federal election, but there is at least some reason to hope they might. The Liberal Party needs to be very worried about losing even more of their left leaning supporters to the New Democrats, which after the last election is now the largest opposition party. In addition, the next federal election in Canada will likely not take place until 2015. If current trends hold up the people of Canada should grow even more supportive of marijuana legalization by the next election.

The Harper government has served notice that thousands of same-sex couples who flocked to Canada from abroad since 2004 to get married are not legally wed. 

Talk about a body-blow to all of the Americans — including me and my wife Kate — who flocked to Canada to get married. Stephen Harper’s conservative government has declared all marriages from any countries where there is not marriage equality null-and-void.

The reversal of federal policy is revealed in a document filed in a Toronto test case launched recently by a lesbian couple seeking a divorce. Wed in Toronto in 2005, the couple have been told they cannot divorce because they were never really married – a Department of Justice lawyer says their marriage is not legal in Canada since they could not have lawfully wed in Florida or England, where the two partners reside.

The two women – professionals in the their early 30s – cannot be identified under a court order. But Martha McCarthy, a prominent Toronto lawyer who represents them, said the government’s about-face is astonishing.

“It is scandalous,” she said in an interview. “It is offensive to their dignity and human rights to suggest they weren’t married or that they have something that is a nullity.”

The latest development threatens to transform Canada from an international beacon for the rights of gays and lesbians to a nation that discriminates against them, Ms. McCarthy said.

Our wedding album is here. Pat Mitten, a marriage commissionaire (equivalent to a justice of the peace in the U.S.) performed the civil ceremony, held at the Apricot Cat and Black Dog Bed & Breakfast in Vancouver, British Columbia on July 1 (Canada Day), 2004. [cont'd.]

What Stephen Harper and his government cannot undo is the freedom of equality we felt from all we encountered during our stay in Vancouver when we told them we traveled from North Carolina to their great city to be legally joined as a family unit.

If the bottom line is that if I’m no longer married, that presents an opportunity — we can do what we could not in 2004 — legally marry in NYC, where I have a lot of family and friends. Now if only we can afford to do the shindig, since that’s a lot more people to invite than just my brother – he was our sole guest the first time around. Shove it, Harper.

More from Dan Savage, who is in the same predicament.

UPDATE: Harper has been caught off-guard by this firestorm that has been lit.

“I will admit to you that I am not aware of the details,” the Prime Minister told reporters. “This I gather is a case before the courts where Canadian lawyers have taken a particular position based on the law and I will be asking officials to provide me more details.”

Mr. Harper’s advisers must know that a huge political controversy has landed in their lap. Soon after The Globe and Mail published the story, the Twitterverse exploded, with more observant posters asking if this meant that couples of different races couldn’t marry in Canada, or women couldn’t get a driver’s licence, if their native land forbade such things.

…If Mr. Harper wanted to launch a culture war through the back door, he has succeeded. If he was as surprised as everyone else by the lawyer’s opinion, then he will need to deal with the matter – and deal with it soon.

(source: wikipedia)

The big topline story from the federal election yesterday in Canada is that the Conservatives won a solid majority of seats in parliament. Prime Minister Steven Harper will have extensive power to govern the country as his party desires.

On a historical level, though, probably the even bigger news is that the election saw the near collapse of two political parties. The Bloc Québécois was effectively wiped out at the national level. Last night it went from 49 seats in parliament to a mere 4, causing it to lose its official party status. While not as dramatic, the massive losses for the center-left Liberal party will likely have much farther reaching implications for the future of Canadian politics. For a long time, the Liberals have dominated the politics of Canada as one of its major parties, but this election saw them fall to a distant third. Liberals lost over half their seats, falling from 77 to only 34.

It was the left-wing New Democratic Party that mainly gained from the losses of the other two parties. The NDP had overwhelmingly its best national showing ever, going from 37 seats to 102, making it the official opposition.

Moving Canada toward a true left-right two-party system

The effective disappearance of Bloc Québécois and the huge loses for the Liberal Party could easily transform Canadian politics into some form of a two-party system in the near future. Exit polling found most NDP and Liberal voters supported a merger of the two parties. An official merger or some kind of a temporary non-competition pact in the next federal election to prevent the Conservatives from winning a majority with only 40 percent of the popular vote is at least a possibility.

Even if the party leaders don’t reach any kind of agreement, the voters may force a move toward a two-party system anyway. A big part of the Liberal Party’s appeal is that they could win, making them a solid pick for that “anyone but Conservative” voter. Now, though, they are a distant third, the extreme underdogs to win a majority, and three-quarters of Liberal voters support a merger with the NDP. Liberals’ base of support could further collapse if a few years under the right-wing Harper administrations causes voters to rally around NDP as the best chance of beating the Conservatives.

This election could easily mark the beginning of a new party system for Canada.

(photo: Finding Josephine)

Today is election day in Canada, so to all our Canadian readers: go vote! To our non-Canadian readers, today’s election could be a truly historic event worth keeping an eye on.

The center-left Liberal Party has ruled Canada for much of its history and been a major party for over a century. That makes it not only one of the longest, most successful parties in Canada’s history, but among one of the most successful political parties in any modern democracy.

However, today, the polling indicates that the Liberal Party will have one of their worst showings ever. They are almost assured to fall to a distant third behind a surging left-wing New Democratic Party and the right-wing Conservative Party.

This election could be the tipping point that pushes Canada towards one of several different possible major political re-alignments. In the long term the raise of the NDP could make it the new major party of the left and the beginning of the steady decline for the Liberal Party. With its third place status Liberals could find it difficult to getting new voters excited about a centrist party that would have trouble winning enough seats to govern.

There is also the remote possibility the election could produce a NDP-Liberal coalition. If that happens, such a coalition might decide to try to move Canada to a fairer election system, such as proportional representation. This would radically change the politics of the country and would the end weird conditions that currently allow the Conservatives to win a governing majority in parliament with less than 40 percent of the popular vote.

While the lon- term and short-term outcomes of this election are uncertain, the chance it could be bring historic political change is huge.

(source: wikipedia)

With less than a week until the the federal elections in Canada, the left wing New Democratic Party is experiencing an almost unprecedented 11-point surge in the polls. (Don’t be fooled by the traditional American use of the word “liberal,” the Liberal Party is a centrist party and the NDP is to their left.) From the Star:

A “seismic shift” among voters has vaulted the NDP to second place, just five points behind the Conservative front-runners while the Liberals are falling further behind, a new poll reveals.

With less than a week to go in the campaign, Jack Layton is riding a wave of popular support for the NDP not seen in two decades, said Jaideep Mukerji, vice-president of Angus Reid Public Opinion.

A new Angus Reid poll done in partnership with the Toronto Star and La Presse puts Stephen Harper’s Conservatives at 35 per cent, the NDP close behind at 30 per cent, the Liberals at 22 per cent, the Bloc Québécois at 7 per cent and the Green Party at 5 per cent.

Since Canada uses a single-member district, “first past the post” election system, like we mostly do, even a relatively minor change in overall popular vote can result in a disproportionately massive increase or decrease in the number of seats actually won.

NDP is polling so well, it is possible they will, for the first time ever, lead a government in Canada.

Perhaps ironically, if the election results in a NDP-Liberal coalition government, it could likely result in ending the “first past the post” electoral system in Canada. As the party that traditionally came in third place, the “first past the post” system has for years systematically disadvantaged the NDP, causing them to win far fewer seats than their relative share of the popular vote. As a result, the NDP developed a strong position in favor of proportional representation.

And now that the Liberal Party has dropped to third place, they may find it in their best interests to push for reform, as well. If not the Liberals face the possibility of their party rapidly losing power and getting caught in a third-place status that is very hard to get out of.

This kind of dynamic often is the cause for electoral reform in democracies. A major party that benefited from the unfairness of the old system decides to embrace election reform only when faced with the possibility of the same systematic unfairness suddenly and seriously hurting them.

Well, that’s a C, eh?

And an N, eh?

And a D, eh?

And, more specifically, here’s the top ten reasons to live in Vancouver:

1. Weed
2. Two million people and two bridges
3. The local hero is a pot-smoking snowboarder
4. The local wine doesn’t taste like malt vinegar
5. Your $400,000 Vancouver home is 5 hours from downtown
6. A university with a nude beach
7. You can throw a rock and hit three Starbucks locations
8. If a cop pulls you over, just offer them some of your hash
9. There’s always some sort of deforestation protest going on
10. Cannabis

And, to honor the Canadan hockey team which won a Gold Olympics™ medal to the United States of America’s Platinum Olympics™ medal, here’s some Manitoba jokes:

You know your from Manitoba, Canada, when….

You only know three spices – salt, pepper and ketchup.

You design your Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

The mosquitoes have landing lights.

You have more miles on your snowblower than your car.

You have 10 favourite recipes for moose meat.

Canadian Tire on any Saturday is busier than the toy stores at Christmas.

You live in a house that has no front step, yet the door is one meter above the ground.

You’ve taken your kids trick-or-treating in a blizzard.

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled in with snow.

You owe more money on your snowmobile than your car.

The local paper covers national and international headlines on 1/4 page, but requires 6 pages for sports.

At least twice a year, the kitchen doubles as a meat processing plant.

The most effective mosquito repellent is a shotgun.

Your snowblower gets stuck on the roof.

You think the start of moose season is a national holiday.

You head south to go to your cottage.

You frequently clean grease off your barbeque so the bears won’t prowl on your deck.

You know which leaves make good toilet paper.

The major parish fund-raiser isn’t bingo – it’s sausage making.

You find -40C a little chilly.

The trunk of your car doubles as a deep freezer.

You attend a formal event in your best clothes, your finest jewelry and your Sorels.

You can play road hockey on skates.

You know 4 seasons – Winter, Still Winter, almost Winter and Construction.

The municipality buys a Zamboni before a bus.

You actually get these jokes and forward them to all your Northern friends.

And, finally, for those of you from elsewhere who have a hard time telling Australians, Brits, Canadans, and USAmericans apart, here’s a primer:

Aussies: Dislike being mistaken for Pommies (Brits) when abroad.

Canadians: Are rather indignant about being mistaken for Americans when abroad.

Americans: Encourage being mistaken for Canadians when abroad.

Brits: Can’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else when abroad.

Aussies: Believe you should look out for your mates.

Brits: Believe that you should look out for those people who belong to your club.

Americans: Believe that people should look out for & take care of themselves.

Canadians: Believe that that’s the government’s job.

Aussies: Are extremely patriotic to their beer.

Americans: Are flag-waving, anthem-singing, and obsessively patriotic to the point of blindness.

Canadians: Can’t agree on the words to their anthem, when they can be bothered to sing them.

Brits: Do not sing at all but prefer a large brass band to perform the anthem.

Americans: Spend most of their lives glued to the idiot box.

Canadians: Don’t, but only because they can’t get more American channels.

Brits: Pay a tax just so they can watch four channels.

Aussies: Export all their crappy programs, which no-one there watches, to Britain, where everybody loves them.

Americans: Will jabber on incessantly about football, baseball, and basketball.

Brits: Will jabber on incessantly about cricket, soccer, and rugby.

Canadians: Will jabber on incessantly about hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, and how they beat the Americans twice, playing baseball.

Aussies: Will jabber on incessantly about how they beat the Poms in every sport they play them in.

Americans: Spell words differently, but still call it “English”.

Brits: Pronounce their words differently, but still call it “English”.

Canadians: Spell like the Brits, pronounce like Americans.

Aussies: Add “G’day”, “mate” and a heavy accent to everything they say in an attempt to be cool.

Brits: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an island.

Aussies: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an island.

Americans: Cross the southern border for cheap shopping, gas, & liquor in a backwards country.

Canadians: Cross the southern border for cheap shopping, gas, & liquor in a backwards country.

Americans: Drink weak, bad-tasting beer.

Canadians: Drink strong, bad-tasting beer.

Brits: Drink warm, bad-tasting beer.

Aussies: Drink anything with alcohol in it.

Americans: Seem to think that poverty & failure are morally suspect.

Canadians: Seem to believe that wealth and success are morally suspect.

Brits: Seem to believe that wealth, poverty, success and failure are inherited things.

Aussies: Seem to think that none of this matters after several beers.

Happy End of The Canuckistan Olympics, everyone!

And — you may now go back to loving San Francisco best of all the West Coast cities.

photo by BL1961

Bush, in Canada, commits the best Freudian slip of all time by announcing his memoir:

"I’m going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there’s an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened," Bush said.

All previous books about the Bush administration will be burned.

The meeting of Robert Toussie and Bush occurred around the time Toussie logged a $28,500 donation to the Republican National Committee.

Bush granted Isaac Toussie a pardon last Tuesday – and rescinded it a day later, after The News reported on the elder Toussie’s donation and how the pardon bypassed normal reviews.

…

Bush participated in "thousands of photo opportunities this year alone," Siciliano continued. "Mr. Robert Toussie attended one of these events on March 14, 2008, where the photo was taken…. It was at the home of Paul Singer."

That would be Bush Pioneer Paul Singer,* by the way. Also, apparently, in a generous mood that day: Toussie character witness (and former Bear Stearns Director) Robert Steinberg

Word of Bush’s reversal came late in the day as The News was set to report that three Toussie family friends were "affiants" who vouched for him in writing, including GOP donor Robert Steinberg of Greenwich, Conn.

Steinberg was a senior managing director at Bear Stearns before it collapsed in March.

The same page of campaign finance records that lists Robert Toussie’s dona­tion also show a Robert Steinberg giving $30,800 to the RNC and the John McCain campaign on the same day.

Steinberg and his wife, Suzanne, also gave a total of $9,200 to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

"I don’t know why [the pardon] would be controversial," Steinberg scoffed in a call from his oceanfront winter retreat in Highland Beach, Fla.

Steinberg is a "good friend of the family" and was Robert Toussie’s college roommate, said Isaac Toussie lawyer Henry Mazurek.

I think maybe the White House story is about to evolve again.**

Just a hunch.

*At the time, Singer was the guy Bush didn’t want to be seen with

Singer, a mega-donor for Republicans and conservative causes over the years, has pumped out more than $2.6 million in contributions over the past decade… He was a big promoter of Rudy Giuliani’s late presidential campaign and gave $5,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth back in 2004.

Singer also has been one of the top money guys for Progress for America, an ostensibly independent political committee that promoted Bush’s policies and political agenda, giving, all told, $1.5 million. The only Democrats on Singer’s favored list seem to be Chuck Schumer and Bill Bradley.

So why should the White House or Republican National Committee not want to advertise that Singer was the host of such a fabulous luncheon — 70 folks at $20,000 a pop?

Maybe it’s his media nickname, "vulture capitalist," coined because his firm buys up debt held by Third World countries at a discount, then sues them to force repayment in full, sometimes for even more than the original amount.

**Although it’s not clear to me why they’re bothering – no-one actually believes that this is anything other than one more instance of these people scuttling for the safety of the baseboards because the lights went on briefly in the kitchen, do they?

From Doghouse’s mighty rant on the subject (and really, read the rest)

We could construct a wall of ironic ineptitude and butt-nakid greed in this country high enough to hold off a melted polar ice cap, maybe two, without much effort, but all in vain. The Bush administration is not to the appearance of impropriety what Plaxico Burress is to handgun safety, "Jeff Gannon" to military service, nor Phil Gramm to economics advice. The latter are ironies which exist on a human scale. The idea that the Bush administration would be forced into a moment’s [extremely rude gerund] reflection over the "appearance of impropriety" is simply beyond our experience, even as extended by the Hubble telescope, sub-atomic particle acceleration, and televangelism.

Prime Minister Harper will be able to open a new session with a new throne speech, but is, under the Canadian constitution, limited in his spending options and ability to make decisions. In effect the Governor General froze like a dear in the headlights, and has paralyzed Canada’s government for almost two months as the economic crisis deepens.