16% = (near) majority

The will of 16% of the population of Canada has been thrust upon.  Steve is acting like he’s been handed a majority.  Stephane has succombed.  Jack’s gang is a little larger, but no longer a threat.

The numbers are really quite depressing.

For starters, only 3 out of every 5 Canadians voted.  I’d like to know what happened to the other 40%.

A total of 13,832,972 votes were cast nationally of the 23,401,064 registered electors (source=CBC).

As for those that voted, 37% (or roughly 5.2 million) voted for Conservatives.  This is about 15.8% of the Canadian population.

Fair Vote Canada broke the numbers down into even more detail:

Once again, Canada’s antiquated first-past-the-post system wasted millions of votes, distorted results, severely punished large blocks of voters, exaggerated regional differences, created an unrepresentative Parliament and contributed to a record low voter turnout.

The chief victims of the October 14 federal election were:

– Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.

– Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.

– Urban Conservatives: Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.

– New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.

“How can anyone consider this democratic representation?” asked Barbara Odenwald, President of Fair Vote Canada.

Had the votes on October 14 been cast under a fair and proportional voting system, Fair Vote Canada projected that the seat allocation would have been approximately as follows:

Conservatives – 38% of the popular vote: 117 seats (not 143)

Liberals – 26% of the popular vote: 81 seats (not 76)

NDP – 18% of the popular vote: 57 seats (not 37)

Bloc – 10% of the popular vote: 28 seats (not 50)

Greens – 7% of the popular vote: 23 seats (not 0)

This article with rabble takes a different spin on whining about Proportional Representation (PR), but for me, PR has become the greatest priority and should be for the rest of Canadians.