Oh! Canada! - Part One

“The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff.”  -
Britney Spears

I do a little bit of what might be seen as America-bashing on this blog. In the interests of not coming off as just another bigot, I will turn the tables from time to time and set out a few little gems that make Canada the less-than-perfect place it is.

I believe that a major pain for Americans who travel and interact a lot with Canadians must be our smugness and superior airs when it comes to America. We bash America, its foreign policy and its internalized and, from our viewpoint, naive and ignorant people, and we do it with a haughtiness that can be insufferable. What must be particularly annoying to thinking Americans, the ones who know that our jibes are not entirely without foundation, is that while we are quick to criticize, we never seem to acknowledge that we, as neighbours, allies, and America's largest trading partner, are often a co-beneficiary of those very policies we look down our noses at. Add to that the self-conscious "We aren't really America-Lite; we're special - better." undercurrent, and our American cousins must sometimes have to fight back the urge to just smash our faces in. So, let's look at a few things that make me gripe as loudly about my homeland as I do about my southern neighbour.

Today - Democracy Canadian Style.

In Canada, unlike America with its flawed republican system, we inherited an abomination called the "parliamentary system." I do not use the word "abomination" thoughtlessy. If what one strives for is "democracy" and a government that fairly represents the will of its electors, then our parliamentary system must be seen as a total failure.

What makes it a failure? Several things, but I will point out just one. It is a multi-party system but it is a winner-take-all system. That is to say, whichever party's candidate gets the most votes in a given riding wins outright. Whichever party has the most outright winners forms the government. Unlike several other countries, in Canada there is no run-off or second or third ballots required until one candidate has received over 50% of the popular vote. Nor is there the corollary - proportional representation - that allows minority views to be represented in the legislature.

A clear example of the disastrous potential of this system is a particular election in Ontario that almost made me physically ill. There is a socialist party in Canada (and its provinces) called the NDP (New Democratic Party). Never in its history had it enjoyed greater than 10-15% support in the country. In an Ontario provincial election in 1990, the NDP  managed to more than double its customary support and received something on the order of 34% of the popular vote across most ridings. Mostly this increase could be seen not as popular conversion to their social-democrat philosophy, but rather a protest vote against the incumbent party and its major opposition. However, motivation does not matter. What matters is that a party viewed by the vast majority as being radical and dangerous was elected with an unassailable number of seats in the provincial parliament because of the preposterously inequitable electoral system. This was the same effect as would have been the case if 80% of the population adored them, rather than distrusted them, as was the actual case.

This was just an extreme example of what happens regularly in Canadian elections.The democratic idea of tyranny by the majority is bad enough, but hailing rule by the minority as the essence of egalitarian wisdom? As I said, it turns my stomach. How anyone can view a government elected by fewer than 50%+1 of the electorate to be "democratic" is beyond me. And that any politician, after receiving perhaps 3 or 4 votes out of 10 (and those 10 coming from only about half of the actual population being governed), can, with a straight, proud, face speak of "mandates" and doing the people's will is simply insulting.

I will leave for another post a couple of points about the actual operation of this parliamentary system that take a bad idea and, in my view, turn it into outright fraud.

See ya later, eh?  Have to go feed my sled dogs some french toast and pea soup then head off to meet with some Mountie friends for a game of football. We want revenge against our regular opponents who won the last game by just a rouge!