Having been a student of politics for the past five years and currently working on my masters degree in Canadian political science, election season in Canada is that rare time of year(s) when people actually care about what I have to say. Whether this faith is misplaced or not is another issue altogether, however, I have been getting the same questions repeated to me for the last 24 hours and I thought I’d put my specialization to use and write this little blurb about the events of May 2, 2011. This is a rant, and I’m not going to proofread it. So I apologize if I’m a little bit fuzzy at times.
The questions iIm getting are pretty consistent and all line up around the following themes:
- What happened last night? Wasn’t Harper supposed to get another minority?
- What the hell happened to the Liberal Party?
- How could Canada actually choose a Prime Minister that broke all those rules?
- The NDP are the official opposition! Shouldn’t we celebrate the change and hope that the strong showing on the left will be reflected in the next four years of policy?
I’ll attempt to answer these questions by drawing on what I’ve learned in the last 5 years. I’ll also add why I think this election is a teachable moment in Canadian politics, one that should give every Canadian pause to reflect on the value of our institutions, where they need to be protected and where they need to be changed.
Before I get into it, though, I will address my own bias. I know my more conservative leaning friends will be quick to point out that this rant is nothing but “sour grapes” about my party’s decimation in this election. Yes, it is true I volunteered for the Liberals. Yes, it is true I felt they were the best choice for Canada. Yes, I think the Conservatives are a horrible choice for Canada. But this is not based in a dogmatic adherence to the liberal ideology. In fact, in 2008 I was actively supporting the Conservatives as I felt they were the best stewards of the economy. I feel this speaks to my overall attitude toward Canadian politics: I vote for the party that I feel will best represent all Canadians. Not just those who showed up at the polls (this election having the lowest turnout in Canadian history) and my past behaviour stands as a testament to that fact. With that, I’ll start off.
I think the best way to do this is by having a hypothetical conversation with myself, and my alter ego, who I met in my first year of political science when I was discovering my political “identity”. We’ll call it the {My Name} Robot 3000, or ASR 3000 for short. ;) (I kid because I love, you know who you are).
Dude, What Happened Last Night? Should I Care?
Supporters of Harper will be quick to point out that nobody has a right to complain about the election of the Conservatives because “Canada chose them.” They played by the rules of the game and they won. This is a fair point. But before we unquestioningly accept this we have to be critical of the rules themselves. As a hardcore institutionalist I’m inclined to say that Harper was chosen not just by the people of Canada, but the institutional deficiencies of the Canadian electoral system as well.
ASR 3000: “Wait wait wait. Lolwut? You’re trying to tell me that a few kinks in the system produced the majority government? Ef off Stewardson, know when you’ve been beaten.”
Okay, well to respond to your critique, nega-Adam, we need to look at how the Canadian electoral system works in the first place. Canada uses what is called the “Single Member Plurality” or “First Past The Post” system. What this means is each seat in the House of Commons is geographically linked to a specific riding somewhere in Canada. Each riding gets one seat, which is determined by whichever candidate gets the most votes in that particular riding. As straightforward as this seems it is crucial to recognize that you do not need a majority of votes to win the riding. If you have three parties running for the same seat you only need a plurality.
Take London North Center, for example. In this riding you had a Conservative, a Liberal, an NDP, and a Green candidate. The riding’s final vote share looked like this:
- Cons: 36.95 percent
- Libs: 33.69 Percent
- NDP: 24.67 Percent
- Green: 4.24 Percent
Because of the system we run under, the seat was given to the candidate with 36.95 percent of the vote. 62.6 percent of the votes in London North were cast for other candidates and in support of other ideologies but receive 0 representation in the House of Commons. Sorry about your luck!
ASR 3000: “So what? The Conservatives won the riding, what’s the big deal?”
The problem arises when this same phenomenon is repeated throughout multiple ridings in Canada. For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that this same breakdown of vote share was repeated in every single riding in Canada. What would be the result? The conservatives would receive 35 percent of the overall vote in Canada, but get a whopping 100 percent of the seats in Canada. All 308. This is called “electoral distortion.”
“This argument is a red herring. It will never happen so shut up. Doesn’t it all even out in the end? I mean the NDP and Liberals had this work in their favour as well.”
No, it probably won’t. But just because this doesn’t happen in all ridings doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur in multiple ridings. The same thing did occur in many ridings in this election, which is why Harper garnered only 40 percent of the total vote in Canada but 55 percent of the seats in the House of Commons (167/308). It may have also worked in favour of the opposition parties, but they aren’t the ones who control the legislative agenda, Harper’s “false majority” does.
“Why do we even use this system if it’s so crappy? What are the alternatives?”
The First Past the Post System we currently use is a product of history. A study by the Canadian Law Commission in 2004 says this better than I ever could:
“Canada inherited its first past the post electoral system from Great Britain over 200 years ago, at a time when significant sections of the Canadian population including women, Aboriginal people, and non property owners were disenfranchised. Throughout the first half of the 19th century and for 50 years after Confederation, the strengths of our electoral system were evident: it fostered competition between the two major parties and provided the successful party with a strong, albeit artificial, legislative majority. Territory, embodied in the direct link between Member of Parliament and his (for they were all men) constituents, was the most important aspect of a citizen’s political identity and the pre-eminent feature of prevailing notions of representation”
The important point to draw from this long-winded explanation is that the electoral system, when first created, reflected the values that Canadians held. Territorial development and local patronage was a major concern of early Canadians, and it required territorial representation. But we need to ask ourselves: how have our values changed since then? If so, what are they? Are we a more complex society who deserves a more complex institution for aggregating out interests in the legislature?
The same by the Canadian Law Commission identified what it felt was the “values” Canadians most commonly associated with democratic representation. I won’t tell you to accept them at face value, as your values are your own, but it is important to reflect whether or not these “values” are served by the current system:
- Representation of parties
- Demographic representation
- Diverse ideas
- Geographic representation
- Effective government
- Accountable government
- Effective opposition
- Valuing votes
- Regional balance
- Inclusive decision making
Some of these values seem contradictory. You could argue the current system produces a stable “effective government” in the form of majority government and provides a solid geographic representation. THIS IS A REALLY GOOD POINT. But to counter it I’d say: doesn’t the current system over value these two values at the expense of all the others? And to answer it, I’d say: Yes.
ASR 3000 “Yeah dude, but which ones are undervalued? I mean the NDP have over 100 seats! That’s effective opposition and representation of parties! They have a bunch of different people in their party too, so we get the diverse interests of women, minorities, cultural and geographic cleavages. So our system works fine. It rules hard.”
Fair. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. You have to remember that Parliamentary democracy relies heavily on the idea of party discipline. Since Harper has majority control of the House, and since his party members are forced to vote along with him we have what Alan Cairns characterized the Prime Minister as: “The friendly dictator.”
Party discipline makes it so that the NDP could have 100 seats, 150 seats, 90 seats, 10 seats. It would make no difference. If Harper wants his majority to vote a certain way then the House will vote that way. The opposition can protest, but it cannot dissolve the House (it needs to have a majority to vote non-confidence) or pass its own legislation. So the idea of effective opposition? I would say no. Accountable government? Sort of, but not really. You might think I’m being melodramatic, but remember in Harper’s last minority he appointed new Senators to the unelected second chamber of the legislature and had them kill a democratically legitimated climate bill (passed by the other parties in a minority government). This is the same Harper who campaigned on making the Senate an elected body to avoid it from trumping our elected officials.
To be fair, the Liberals have done the same thing. And I reiterate, this is not a partisan rant. This is me pointing out that the way the system currently works is not adequately representing the views of all Canadians. I would be happy with a Conservative minority because that government was required to pay attention to the other values listed above as the opposition parties actually had the ability to hold them to account.
This very concept came to life in 2008 when the Conservative Finance Minister presented Parliament with the economic update in December. This was in the middle of the “great recession” and update showed that the Conservative government had no intention to engage in any significant stimulative spending to combat unemployment. The result: the opposition teamed up and threatened to take over the government by forming a coalition of toppling the Harper government. Harper prorogued Parliament and came back with a budget that –and this is crucial—found middle ground between the opposition parties and the Conservatives.
Now, this is the advantage of minority government. It finds a balance between the “stability” argument of government, and the ten other values above. The current system is prone to produce false majorities (as I’d shown above) which does not –in my humble opinion—produce the same balance between the values of Canadians.
ASR 3000: “That’s all well and good, stewbaby, but what the hell are the alternatives?”
“Electoral reform” has often been forwarded as a solution for making the Parliament more representative of the Canadian electorate and finding a better balance between the values listed above.
I’ll be brief as to not bore you more than I have to, so I’ll present one alternative.
The Mixed-Member Proportional System: This system blends together the current system with one that has a degree of “proportional voting.” There would still be geographic ridings, and you would still vote for a local candidate like you do now. HOWEVER, you would also get TWO votes for the price of ONE vote! (A DEAL AND A HALF).
In addition to voting for a geographic candidate you would get a vote for the “party” as well. So, you could vote for your local liberal and they could win the same way you’re used to. But your second vote would be for a “party.” The House of Commons would have a certain number of seats set aside with no geographic link, and the second vote would determine what percentage of these seats go to what party.
So if the Conservatives got 30 percent of the “second vote” they would get thirty percent of the “list seats” in addition to the ones they won in geographic ridings. The advantage to this is that your vote isn’t “wasted” like it is now if your geographic candidate wins. Moreover, smaller parties (like the Greens) who get 5 percent of the national vote would get 5 percent of the list seats. Yay!
The advantage is that this system would represent more diverse values in the House, it would still produce relatively stable minority or majority governments, and force the parties to campaign nationally as well as concentrating on their “strong zones” (like the Conservatives in Alberta).
ASR 3000: “Cool story bro, but you still haven’t answered my question about why this election was so unique”
Studies in political science have often centered around the problem with “polling.” Professor Peter Ferguson and Cristine De Clercy at UWO have an article that takes issue with last minute polling in elections, as the results of polls have the potential to change how people vote.
Professor Mark Pickup in Voting Behaviour in Canada tested this theory and found that poll results can, indeed, have the effect of changing how people vote. An overview of the literature on the subject theorizes that this may be due to a few effects:
- Strategic voting: the idea that you see a poll and vote in response. If you support the NDP, and the Libs and Cons are in a close heat, you change your vote (clothespin vote) the libs to avoid a conservative victory.
- Bandwagon Effect: the party spikes in the polls, people feel that the confidence afforded to the party by the public is a sign of competence, enticing them to vote for them. “If the public thinks they’re desirable, they must be desirable”
- Underdog effect: identify with a trailing party and give them your vote to help them out. In Notably the same poll can produce both underdog and bandwagon effect.
- Cue taking: a swing in the polls indicates a change in the public’s perception of the party. Use of heuristics to simplify a complicated decision. “I don’t know why the swing happened exactly, but it makes it easy to see they are not doing so well”
- Cognitive response: change in the polls has a voter generate a list as to why the party went up or down. Using these self generated explanations, an evaluation of the party occurs at the individual level. Can have the effect of increasing support for desired party –whether ahead or not. Counterarguments ar generated when the polls results are undesirable, solidifying a voter’s initial position.
- Behavioural response: similar to cognitive response, but actually goes out and seeks new information.
You can see these effects coming out in the recent election. The spike in support for the NDP that was widely reported in the polls may have changed the way people voted. If, for example, you were a conservative leaning Liberal Party Supporter, and you feared the NDP may win the government (as the polls suggested) you may have jumped on board with the Conservatives to prevent the NDP from winning. This is a “strategic vote.”
The Bandwagon effect may have taken place for NDP supporters. You may have been inclined to vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives out –even if you liked the NDP the best—and you saw the NDP spike in the polls you would have “jumped on the bandwagon” and supported the NDP as they’re your first choice. But WAIT, the electoral system only rewards the winner with the most votes! So since the Conservatives already had a lot of support, and the Liberal voters may have been jumping ship to the already strong Conservatives, and since only ONE seat is available in each riding, it was likely that your switch to the NDP helped the Conservatives win. Even if the NDP had a strong showing. This would explain the “hollowing out of the center” we saw with the huge decline for the liberals. Shitty buzz.
Why did this happen? Polling is one reason. The theoretical effects above would suggest that. But also the institutional problems in our system not allowing the strong show of NDP support in every riding to be accurately represented in the final showing in the election. Shit.
So there you have it my friends. My long winded rant. I could go on, but this is why I feel this election was so problematic in so many ways. See you all in four years.