BQ: Quebec French separatist party. Only really powerful in Quebec. Does not
care about being powerful in any other province. So the countrywide numbers
do not show a complete picture.
In provinces other than Quebec, the percentage of people voting BQ is
essentially 0% since the BQ does not even have candidates running. In
Quebec, the BQ voters generally run closer to 50%. That is why they are able
to pick up seats with what looks like a small percentage of the popular
vote. The high percentage in Quebec looks small when averaged across all of
Canada.
For federalists like myself, the good news is the BQ lost seats and dropped
3 points in popular vote in Quebec. This makes it unlikely we will have
another bloody Quebec referendum for a while now.
The movement for voting reform (as versus voting for the Reform Party which
became about half of the New Conservative Party), is probably stronger than
ever. The majority of provinces are seriously looking at, or have already
adopted, some form of proportional representational voting. Polls show the
majority of Canadians feel their governments, any government, do not really
represent their views. Many experts feel these and other factors are very
likely to result in federal voting reform in the next decade or so.
Isn't Democracy fun?
Timothy Atwood
Holtenwood Computing
http://www.holtenwood.bc.ca/computing/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Heasman, David" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 8:42 AM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Congratulations Canada
Thanks for that, Bruce. I note that the BQ got a lot more seats than
the NDP despite having a much smaller popular vote. There was a movement
toward voting reform in Canada a year or so ago. Has that petered out?
Because it looks to me like a lot of Canadians are wasting their votes,
which leads to discouraging voting, which is considered not a good
thing.
Oh and it wasn't just CNN that ignored the results. The British media
gave more prominence to Ignatieff than to the rest of the election.
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