The real problem here is the system. Let's take a look at the ratios between the percentage of seats each party got in the election, and their percentage of the national popular vote:

Conservative
Seats: 143/308
Popular Vote: 37.63%
Ratio: 2.03 (More than twice the seats they would have obtained under a 100% proportional system.)

Liberal
Seats: 76/308
Popular Vote: 26.24%
Ratio: 0.94

BLOC Quebecois
Seats: 50/308
Popular Vote: 9.97%
Ratio: 1.63 (Interesting thing here; because voters in Quebec will vote the BLOC in much more often, they're skewed way above other parties even though they're practically running only in Quebec.)

NDP
Seats: 37/308
Popular Vote: 18.20%
Ratio: 0.66 (Screwed once again.)

Independent
Seats: 2/308
Popular Vote: 0.65
Ratio: 0.999 (Oddly proportional.)

Green
Seats: 0/308
Popular Vote: 6.80%
Ratio: 0.0 (Yeah. 6.8% of the vote, 0% of the representation. Good stuff.)

(Source: CBC.ca Election Results [www.cbc.ca])

We could have even fixed this (at least in the Ontario Legislature) if we'd voted in MMP [wikipedia.org] a year ago, rather than stayed with the skewed first past the post system. Unfortunately, I don't think enough people were educated about what the new system would mean and saw it as some sort of radical change, and so voted to stay with the current system.

Note: I think my math is accurate here but feel free to correct me.

Yeah, I think you'd be surprised. A bunch of my friends (of which a large percentage are not really geeks) have joined that group and are quite aware of the issues at stake.

Ironically, the first to join it was a friend who wants to be an IP lawyer.

Absolutely. The system had its problems as described, but I still think it would have been better than the current one. Those problems, by the way, could be overcome by having, say, a primary-like vote on the list candidates, where you voted on them by priority. The list candidates themselves could be further subdivided into areas (like per-province) so voters wouldn't have to look at such a large list.

The previous minority LIBERAL government had a copyright reform bill C-60 that failed as their government fell. It doesn't matter which party gets in they will try to ram through a copyright reform bill that conforms to what the industry pundits and the United States considers proper.

The real problem I have is that, at the moment we are paying a surtax on media that's meant to offset the loss in income due to copies made under our current "lax" copyright law. If the law is tightened up and allows for easier recovery by the industry through the courts then we should eliminate the surtax.

I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that we'll end up suffering under tougher laws and higher surtaxes as well.

Yeah, I'm encouraged to believe that this is starting to seep into the mainstream. I actually heard DVD DRM being negatively discussed in the context of consumer gadgetry on a (not particularly geek-oriented) morning radio show a little while ago.

The recent xkcd [xkcd.com] strip "Steal This Comic" [xkcd.com] makes a solid and concise against the DMCA and similar laws. If you want your non-geek acquaintances to understand why this matters, you might consider showing it to them.

We could have even fixed this (at least in the Ontario Legislature) if we'd voted in MMP a year ago, rather than stayed with the skewed first past the post system. Unfortunately, I don't think enough people were educated about what the new system would mean and saw it as some sort of radical change, and so voted to stay with the current system.

Note: I think my math is accurate here but feel free to correct me.

Your math might be correct but your premise is flawed. MMP and proportional representation are a disaster. I campaigned & voted against MMP. MMP and PR condemn us to permanent minority governments, with most parliamentary effort going into backroom deals to stay in power instead of governing. Governments with MMP or PR are always shaky.

You are taking away the right of the people to elect (and REMOVE) their representatives. MMP and PR demolish accountability.

Example: I live in the Trinity-Spadina riding in Toronto, where Olivia Chow (NDP) cruised to an easy victory because she is popular with the voters. If the people of Trinity-Spadina decide that they don't like Olivia Chow, if they think Olivia Chow is corrupt, incompetent, lazy, or any other reason, the people of Trinity-Spadina can organize and REMOVE Olivia Chow from office (and her extravagant $155,000 salary). The only people who can put Olivia Chow into office (and remove her) are the people of Trinity-Spadina. Olivia Chow is accountable to the voters.

On the other hand, with MMP or PR, since every party will get some share of the vote, the only determinant of whether Olivia Chow gets a cushy job with a $155,000 salary is if she keeps the NDP party bosses happy. The only people who can put Olivia Chow into office (and remove her) are the party bosses. Olivia Chow is no longer accountable to the voters.

Now, first past the post does have its problems, but MMP & PR are even worse.

If you're going to abandon first past the post, the single transferable vote system is much better: politicians still have to answer to the people.

Nah, more like very few people care who's in charge of this country. A lot of folks used to be indifferent, now we're just all annoyed with the candidates. Harper's a robot, the two before him were stone-faced crooks, and the locals just make it worse.

The way the Canadian electoral system works, we've been voting for the same local inbred candidates for the last 20 years. There's no new blood, which means often times to support your preferred party, you also have to support some idiot that's going to shit all over your home town. Well what do you do when the 4 or 5 different candidates are all from the same two-faced protein-deficient gene pool ? You don't vote. That's right! A staggering number of people this year either didn't bother voting because it was a waste of their time, or participated in so-called "strategic voting" to at least make sure a minority government was established. It makes them all play a tighter game, less extravagance in spending/legislation, etc... At this point, many people believe that's the best option, until Harper gets run over by a moose, or the liberals find a leader that doesn't wet himself on camera.

The voting system we have in Brazil isn't totally proportional, but still it raises more problems than it solves. Each party must have a minimum percentage of the vote to elect representatives. The total vote for the party is computed, a candidate for a popular party needs less votes to get elected.

A sad example of how this, very complex, voting system works is that this clown got elected and got three other representatives in his party elected [wikipedia.org] when he ran as a "protest" candidate, i.e. people voted for him because they thought no one was a worthy candidate. His motto was "my name is Eneas" and his main political project was that Brazil should detonate the nuclear weapon that reportedly was developed here in the early 1980s.

Bingo. That would kick ass and put Canada aright.

The problem is the NDP leadership is a bunch of whiny 5 year olds, the Liberal leadership is too interested in knifing each other in the back to care, and they're both sceptical of the greens because, unlike in the USA, the Greens are actually more right wing than the Liberals in terms of fiscal ideas. I'm surprised Harper hasn't offered to go down on May for Green support to greenwash the Conservatives.

sigh. Still, Harper faced the most inarticulate and inept Liberal candidate in decades, and wasn't able to get a majority, so that shows you how little support the conservatives actually have.

Argh. I really dig Canada, but their politics are completely fucked.

RS

Lots of IP lawyers are against DMCA, etc. They actually understand what it means to consumers. Some IP law makes sense, so you do need IP lawyers. Lawyers aren't ALL evil you know. ;)

In my opinion, the far more elegant system is single transferable vote [wikipedia.org]. BC is considering adopting it provincially.

it gave seats to people not [...] voted into power.

This is not always a bad thing by necessity. I recall a while back there was a push to change from an appointed to elected senate. I was watching an interview with one of the current senators, unfortunately her name escapes me. She was firmly against the idea of an elected senate, and her reasons were something along the lines of (paraphrased) "if we go to an elected senate, it will take less than a decade for every seat to fill up with rich white men with large campaign chests". Now here is a woman with the power to approve and reject legal status for some of our most important issues, and she enjoys the ability to speak frankly and openly about these issues, with no fear of reprisal. I'd love to hear an elected senator say the same thing on national television. More likely you'd get a bunch of dancing around the issue, with the senator hoping to muster enough votes to keep their jobs.

Moral of the story - electing people to power is not always necessarily the best way to go about things.

I disagree with the others who say our Conservatives are different(I am Canadian). They share the same ideology (Pro Corporation, anti-socialism) and Harper seems to share the same mean spirited mud slinging personality as many republicans.

How they won is related to vote splitting and a weak Liberal leader. We have 1 right wing party, and 4 on the center left splitting the vote. Over 60% voted against the current government. But vote splitting gave them a government.

The green party is essentially the "Ralph Nader party" They elect no members and siphon off enough center/left votes to give yet more seats to the Conservatives. Idealistic people voting their idealism and giving the worse case result in reality.

It's not like those special-interest reps will get to make policy without having to win over the rest of them, right?

Wrong. The railway workers representative will gladly vote for the project granting special tax benefits for churches in exchange for special retirement rules for railway workers. Just remember one small fact: there are no ideological differences between different special interests.

The Conservatives don't care what "the people" think, and in a way, why should they?

If there was any issue that might have made young voters turn up and vote, it would've been this issue. Right or wrong, the threat of being sued and even jailed for downloading copyrighted content should have lit a fire under their asses.

Instead, we had one of the lowest turnouts in Canadian history.

It made me lose faith--not in our system, but the people. The media talks about "voter fatigue" and us having gone to federal polls three times since 2004, each time returning a minority government. Well for fsck sake people, a minority government is the BEST government possible under our system!!! Is it really *that* much to ask for you to go to your local polling station? Or to follow the news for a mere 5 weeks and form an opinion about candidates/parties?

Or are you all staring blankly at American Idol, wishing they allowed Canadians to vote for the next vapid American pop star instead? Maybe that's the problem--the younger generation have been told to "vote early, vote often" and think that the single vote they're given in a real election doesn't matter.

where does the article say that *ALL* conservatives are would vote for this and *all* NDP, Bloc, Green and Liberals would vote against ?

MPs very rarely break party lines in Canada. The Harper government especially is known for strict party discipline. Additionally, with a minority government, it's even less likely that a bill tendered by the ruling party will be voted against by that party.

While it *may* indeed be horrible for DMCA opponents if/when it's drafted, this awful bill doesn't even exist yet and there's been no indication it's on the docket in the near future.

We've seen two versions of this already, so we have a pretty good idea what the next attempt will look like. Especially immediately after an election, on an issue not important enough (read: one which enough people don't know about) to trigger an election over.

disregard of public opinion on what? DMCA? The economy? the environment?

This Conservative government is known for only talking to the press in very controlled circumstances, having a "Harper dictates all" policy, rather than consulting party members, and making a huge percentage of bills votes of confidence (meaning if the opposition parties aren't willing to fight an election over it, it will pass.) This doesn't sound like a party that listens to the will of the people.

You're a (small 'c') conservative - that's fine. I think you're wrong, but democracy is all about dissent and differing opinions. It is also supposed to be about doing the will of the people, governing in a way that benefits the citizens rather than foreign corporations, with (if we're very, very lucky) a bit of truthful information thrown in. The current version of the Conservatives (and I voted PC back when Joe Clark ran things) is none of these things.

Very few outside of geeks care about the DMCA.

Quite true, but in this election a lot of geeks weren't even aware that Harper planned to re-introduce the DMCA. There were several submissions in the firehose before the election, when the news had a chance of having an effect, but Slashdot didn't publish them. Probably more of a kdawsonfud effect if they only publish these things when the electorate don't have a choice.

It's the same sloppy editing that brought us the mis-reported UK 42 days detention [slashdot.org] story. And the same sloppy editing that has refused to publish the stories in the firehose, saying The Lords have rejected it [bbc.co.uk].

"the NDP are a bunch of radical socialists...who (in a previous incarnation) introduced such radical policies as universal healthcare."

Wow, a bold statement like that definitely requires citations, especially considering that the NDP weren't even conceived of prior to the advent of socialized Canadian health care.

She was firmly against the idea of an elected senate, and her reasons were something along the lines of (paraphrased) "if we go to an elected senate, it will take less than a decade for every seat to fill up with rich white men with large campaign chests".

She's absolutely correct. I'll support her argument with one from the UK, where the House of Lords is in essentially the same situation as the Canadian Senate, see: The 'Democratic' Option [wordpress.com] by Lord Norton.

An un-elected upper chamber (Senate or House of Lords in a bicameral system) is a check on power. The idea is to stop stupid legislation, like Secret Inquests [wordpress.com], for example. Or, more importantly, use their expertise to help government get legislation right the first time.

However, an elected upper chamber will rightly want the power to create legislation themselves. This is the biggest issue with such a system: dilution of accountability.

What this means: currently, when things go wrong federally, we all look at the House of Commons. But with an elected Senate, it is not clear who is to blame for creating or supporting a piece of legislation.* We already have to think in terms of Provincial vs. Federal, imagine what politics will be like when it's Provincial vs. Federal vs. Senate.

The next issue: lack of debate. An elected upper chamber gives us two elected chambers, with no substantial differences between the them. Like local councils (in Britain, I forget what they're called in Canada: municiple govt. perhaps?) people don't vote for the best candidate, they vote for whatever party they're voting for nationally. So the Senate becomes the same as the Commons, and in this case, who is there to stop the stupid legislation? What's the point in having a bicameral legislature, if they're both the same. They may as well be re-factored (to use coding parlance) into one house, but then the check-and-balance of an upper chamber is lost.

The last, but still important, issue: lack of representation. No seriously, as Lord Norton puts it: 'people vote for white haired, middle-aged men.' Typically the ones with enough cash to mount FUD campaigns against their opponents. Women, ethnic minorities, even average people are under-represented in our legislature. The political system is filling with career politicians, with little-to-no experience of real life, and this is reflected in the quality of legislation. An elected upper-chamber will only make this worse.

Side-note: what is meant by 'average people' are IT workers, plumbers, electricians, doctors & nurses, basically everyone in the real world, who're affected by legislation squeezed out by the government. The House of Lords is an instructive example, as patronage is slowly being phased out, to be replaced by nominations of members based on 'conspicuous merit' [lordsappointments.gov.uk] and decided by an impartial committee. Just look at the list of authors on that Lords blog alone [wordpress.com], there are professors, teachers, lawyers and scientists.

So, for what it's worth, I would like to see the Canadian Senate change from a system of patronage (Senators appointed by the PM). To one where the public may nominate Senators, who're then appointed by an impartial committee based on conspicuous merit.

* Note: the US system is completely different to Canada or the UK, so please don't think I'm casting aspersions on your own elected Senate. They may have the same name, but the purposes are different.

Sorry, but this 'blame the third party' crap really piss me off, especially in this election, where it doesn't hold up to analysis. Even if you took every single Green vote in every riding and gave it to the Liberal candidate in that riding, the party would still have lost a dozen seats. No one lost this election for the Liberals except the Liberals, and the Greens certainly didn't prevent a Liberal government.

I'm proud to vote for whoever I think is the best party to lead Canada, and not for some 'lesser of two evils' party.

I'm confused, possibly because you are. You used the word "principled" to describe the old Tories, and "quasi-fundamentalist" to describe Reform. Both of these are inaccurate. The Reform party was painted as having "religious" members and leaders by Canadian media, but religion was never part of their platform. They were possibly less "religious" than the Liberals were in French (and therefore Catholic) dominated areas of Ontario and Quebec. Mulrouney was the symbol of old Tory government- a multimillionaire lawyer from Quebec with some suspicious business connections. Hardly "principled."

I'd rather say that the Tory merger ruined the Reform party. I don't really think either group is happy with how things turned out.

The assessment of the Conservative gain is 100% wrong, and conclusions proceeding from it may also be flawed. The Conservatives were facing a grossly underfunded Liberal Party in historic disarray, and led by a man widely perceived to be utterly unfit to be Prime Minister. The time was so ripe to grab a majority that the Conservatives broke their own platform promise to stick with a scheduled election (the "It was a minority and we couldn't help it" dodge is a complete red herring). The New Democratic Party, which would be regarded in the US as raving loony communists, also picked up seats.

The Tories have now been told twice to cool their jets, and they won't be going back to the public any time soon unless they want their asses thoroughly kicked. Seven out of 10 Canadians either voted against them or didn't vote at all (a historic low turn-out, by the way).

I won't bore you with further details (except to note that of all the parties, the only one that actually got more total votes was the Green Party), but the bottom line is that this result is a repudiation of the Conservative Party's attempt to steal candy from a baby. If they choose to introduce legislation like this, which has historically been unpopular with Canadians, they'll be playing with fire. Most likely, they'll either let it slide under the guise of building inter-party amity, or they'll allow the legislation to be brought forward, but not make voting a matter of confidence.