Overwhelming rejection of Conservativism in Ontario

[rareboy]

Particularly in Toronto.

Between the Liberals and NDP, voters elected 70 MPP's versus the Conservatives 37.

With only one conservative elected in Toronto out of 23 ridings.

I'd like to think that TO mayor Rob Ford contributed to the liberal/NDP sweep by allowing all the Torontonians and GTA'ers so see what an ignorant asshat he is. Of course, he now has burned his bridges and can expect to be ignored by Queen's Park.

It is also an important re-buff to the idea of a conservative tide sweeping across Canada. A month or so ago, HarperCo. with a Conservative majority in Ottawa, thought that liberalism was dead in Canada and that they will be able to rule by fiat with the support of conservatives at the local and provincial levels. since then, liberals won another term in PEI and the NDP took Manitoba again. And now Ontario.

6 weeks ago, I thought that after 2 terms, the liberals in no way could pull off a 3rd term in government because we all have grown tired of their crew and some of the bone headed things that they've been responsible for.

However, Hudak, the Ontario Conservative party leader tried to play the immigration card (in a province built on immigration) and recently, tried the the anti-homo card. I'd like to think that these tactics lost them Toronto and much of the GTA as well. He may have picked up some of the rural vote, but it is a pyrrhic victory.

 

[rareboy]

Oh. By the way.

Did I happen to mention that after 2 terms of Liberal governance, Ontario created more full time jobs and certainly more good jobs in July than the rest of Canada and the US combined?

And that Forbes named Ontario as the top place for investment....in the world.

 

[White Eagle]

Well, send those responsible down here!!

 

[JayHawk]

SO it is a overt rejection of conservatism and not a overall satisfaction with the current leadership?

I do not doubt things are well in Ontario. However I would be more apt to say it was a rejection IF 70 conservative were replaced by 70 liberal and NDP folks.

This is really just saying we are satisfied with the current performance.

Jus' Sayin

 

[csb999]

well , the CBC flatly contradicts you " Ontario's McGuinty re-elected, but loses majority "

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/10/06/ontario-election-results.html

 

[rareboy]

well , the CBC flatly contradicts you " Ontario's McGuinty re-elected, but loses majority "

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/10/06/ontario-election-results.html

You miss the point.

It is a small 'L' liberal victory

The NDP and Liberals together represent a rebuff to the conservative tide.

Although, in case anyone was wondering....the Tories are also all mostly red in Ontario too.

In a lot of ridings thopugh, you could run a conservative mule and it would get elected.

The real test was that the Tories only gained 12 seats.....in largely unimportant ridings.

 

[theFallenGod]

As a Torontonian I am super pleased to see that now Mayor McCheese has to tuck his tail and play fair.


I think this election will have solidified the councilors (especially the "mushy middle") in the city to now vote against all of his lies and destruction.

It made me even happier knowing that Robbie boy couldn't officially endorse Hudak because he knew it would turn even more people against the PC's.

 

[M4P]

I think this election showed how divided our provinces are becoming. The large cities tend to vote centre and smaller cities and rural more to the right

Ontario's election was not an overwhelming rejection of conservatism however it did retain the current Liberal government, on a leash, however

 

[Kulindahr]

After reading that article, I have a hypothesis as to why many Americans aren't screaming for a multiparty system:

with just two, they don't need a score card to keep track.

 

[M4P]

After reading that article, I have a hypothesis as to why many Americans aren't screaming for a multiparty system:

with just two, they don't need a score card to keep track.

So true. We have way too many choices and end up with split votes. A party can win a majority of the seats with 40% of the popular vote

 

[Kulindahr]

So true. We have way too many choices and end up with split votes. A party can win a majority of the seats with 40% of the popular vote

But that's not a problem of a multiparty system, rather of your math.

 

[M4P]

But that's not a problem of a multiparty system, rather of your math.

60% of votes can produce fewer seats than 40% This is what happened in our spring federal election. A party won a majority of seats but didn't have the majority of the popular vote

 

[Tengilethos]

Proportional representation is your friend if you don't want someone with 35% of all votes to have a majority in parliament (this happened in the 2005 elections in the UK).

 

[Kulindahr]

60% of votes can produce fewer seats than 40% This is what happened in our spring federal election. A party won a majority of seats but didn't have the majority of the popular vote

Proportional representation is your friend if you don't want someone with 35% of all votes to have a majority in parliament (this happened in the 2005 elections in the UK).

Ack. And people think the Electoral College is bad....

How the frak do you run an election where a party that gets 60% of the votes and less than 40% of the seats?

 

[M4P]

How the frak do you run an election where a party that gets 60% of the votes and less than 40% of the seats?

Look up Parliamentary Democracy

 

[rareboy]

Quite simply, you may have 90% of the voters in one riding vote for a candidate. But it is still only 1 seat. So let's say they got 900 votes and their opponent got 100.

In the adjacent riding, the vote may split and only 40% vote for the candidate of the same party, with 35% for the next candidate and 25% for the third party.

So the 'A' party now has 1300 votes and both seats, while the other two parties have 700 votes .

Repeat the second scenario, only this time with 35% for the frontrunner and the other parties splitting the 65% of the votes.

Party A has three seats now but their percentage of the popular vote has now just slipped to 55 % of the popular vote.



And this can happen nationwide.

Which is how the Conservative Government in Canada got to form the government.

The left split the vote and the conservatives took seat after seat with only the barest margin of difference between them and their opponent.

But it all eventually evens out.

 

[Tengilethos]

Look up Parliamentary Democracy

That is wrong. It is entirely dependent on your election/voting method. Germany is a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation, and everybody gets roughly the same share of parliament seats as they get votes. First past the post is responsible. It has nothing to do with parliamentary democracy!

 

[Kulindahr]

That is wrong. It is entirely dependent on your election/voting method. Germany is a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation, and everybody gets roughly the same share of parliament seats as they get votes. First past the post is responsible. It has nothing to do with parliamentary democracy!

In proportional, you vote for parties, knowing who their candidates are, right?

As opposed to ranking, where you rank candidates by preference, and a bit of a shuffle takes place till the votes 'settle out'?

 

[Tengilethos]

In proportional, you vote for parties, knowing who their candidates are, right?

As opposed to ranking, where you rank candidates by preference, and a bit of a shuffle takes place till the votes 'settle out'?

No, that is wrong as well. There are several systems of proportional representation, but the basis of the system is that you get about the same share of parliament seats as you got votes, that means 35% of all votes give you about 35% of MPs.

We use "party-list proportional representation" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party-list_proportional_representation) in Germany, with a closed list. That means, on our ballot paper there are the names of the different parties and you choose one. There is a list of the parties candidates which determines the order in which they are elected. You can look it up but you cannot influence the position of single politicians on this list (the list is usually made by senior party politicians).

The other method is an "open list", where the voters can rank the party candidates, but still cast the vote for the party. That means that you still only get 35% of MPs with 35% of votes, but the voters additionally determine which candidates on your list become MP.

Another system of ranking is single transferable vote, in which you rank candidates regardless of political parties and then there is a shuffle until the votes settle out. That was proposed as an alternative to first past the post in the UK recently. It is STILL a method of proportional representation. Although there can be a bigger deviation from the 35% than in party-list systems, it is much smaller than the biggest deviations in first past the post.

(Note that we use a hybrid system in Germany in which we also have directly elected MPs (making up half of parliament), but they take the places of those with the lower positions of the party list. So in a parliament with 100 seats, if you get 35% of all votes and have 20 directly elected MPs, then 15 seats are filled from the party list, giving you 35 MPs in total.)