Canadian Electoral System

Now that you are up to date with currents events I will briefly touch on some strong point of the Canadian democratic system. Citizens in Canada indirectly hold power in a free electoral system and are given better representation and more freedoms for their citizens than other systems of government. The freedom of speech, freedom of political expression, and the freedom of the media allow citizens to vote in favour of their own interest. Democracy in Canada is rooted on the grounds of equal rights; this gives people equality before the law, human rights, free and fair elections and so on. In comparison to the Third World, power is in the hands of the “Big Men”, the police and army are the ones who hold control not the people and where corruption is a norm, Canada may look like a utopia. Another strong point in the Canadian political system is everyone no matter race or sex has the right to vote as long as you are a Canadian citizen over the age of eighteen. Until the 60s/70s parties would make up electoral boundaries this was done to increase the number of votes in that location this is called gerrymander, this was unfair because certain parties had an advantage over others. However, now under the Electoral Boundaries Commissions this problem does not occur and no party has the upper hand over another. Interestingly the

In contrast to the Canadian parliamentary system, which has remained fairly static and unchanged since Victorian times, the Canadian legal system has undergone a tremendous evolution over the last century and a half. When looking at Canadian history in depth one discovers the repeated movement to take power from the superiors or the overruling and place it into the palms of the people. As seen through examples our western law (canadian law) has slowly branched off from the supremacy of God (mosaic law), to the supremacy of the monarchy (bristish law), finally to a realization of the importance of citizen participation in the creating, governing, and administrating of the laws (Greek law).

The electoral system in Canada is also known as a “first past the post” system. “First past the post” means the candidate with the highest number of votes wins the congressional seat, whereas the other candidates with a lower number of votes don’t get any representation. There are many cons to this system that will be highlighted throughout this essay. I will argue that the electoral system requires reform due to the discrepancies between the percentage of popular votes and the number of seats won. Canada’s electoral system has many problems and is not seen as fully democratic since it has provided poor representation for both candidates that win and lose. Candidates can win seats with less than 50% of votes, meaning that even if the majority of the nation, or province did not vote for the candidate they still win the election as they consume the highest number of votes among the parties. FPTP allows two people in different ridings to get the same number of votes with the outcome of one winner since the distribution of votes and seats are unequal. The system can also encourage strategic voting such as not voting for whom you think is the best fit but voting for the candidate that seems most likely to win in order to beat candidate you dislike. FPTP leads to an imbalance of power and has the potential for corruption.

Canada’s friendly neighbor to the South, the US, has an electoral system that is composed of 3 separate elections, one of them deciding the head of state. The president elected by the people and he or she is the determining person of the country’s political system. In the US runs like a majority system” In Canada, however, elections are held slightly differently. Citizens vote for a Member of Parliament in a 308-seat house and candidates win not by a majority, unlike in the US, but by a plurality. This means that a candidate can actually win by simply having more votes than the other candidates. This method of representative democracy, in general, does not cause too much controversy in a global scope but has

After all, a central aspect of the proportional representation argument is that the government should be formatted in a manner that allows for the fair representation of the political opinion of Canadians. However, Kam points out how legislation is passed in an effort to represent the will of the majority of Canadians. But, he also argues that there is no such thing as a true majority, as there is no single policy that voters prefer to all others. In turn, he claims that “manufactured majorities” created as a result of the SMP system are not necessarily a bad thing, as they give parliament the stability needed to pass legislation. In comparison, he points out how the MMP system would give power to a number of smaller parties, and that these parties would impair parliament’s ability to pass policy.

How can the Canadian government be dominated by one ruler when it has democratic elections with many competing parties? Mellon believes that Canadian elections have low voter turnouts and even lower public interest. Canadian elections are essentially sporadic. Finally, Mellon also believes that prime ministers “…are supported by a growing circle of advisors, pollsters, and spin doctors that help protect their position,” (Hugh 175). The main focus of Mellon’s argument is this idea of a prime-ministerial government.

In Canada’s system of governance, the outcome of an election is vested in the franchise, however heavily influenced by political structure and voting institutions. This essay will evaluate Harper’s failed strategic manipulation of Canada’s political and electoral institutions. First, the effects of the concentration of power vested in the executive under the parliamentary system will be assessed. Next Canada’s first-past-the-post voting institution will be analyzed using the 2011 and 2015 election in that in the former it allowed for Harper to win, however when using it as precedent it contributed to the Conservative failure. Finally, the 2015 election will be evaluated under a proportional representation system. Despite Conservative

The majoritarian model is currently being used in Canadas political economy, however, Canada’s would be better off with a shift to the consensus model as it included all minority groups and represented the true meaning of democracy. The consensus model represented the people in a society by including minority groups, using a federal or decentralized government and a multi-party system. The consensus model ensured the inclusion of groups in plural societies, where this was absent under a majoritarian ruling. A majoritarian model of government only made decisions in the hands of a select few, whereas, in a consensus model the power was divided in a federal or decentralized government. Finally, a consensus model allowed for multiple parties to run for election under the multiparty system and voting was done under proportional representation. However, in a majoritarian government, there are two parties running for office which operated under a disproportional election.

Another important reason that Canada should select a different election system is that the FPTP system has a large impact on smaller parties. According to Political Scientist Maurice Duverger’s Law, given enough time FPTP systems will eventually become a

At this time, the Majority Liberal Government is looking into changing the voting system in Canada, moving away from a system that has led to their victory many times in Canadian history. Canada utilizes the plurality election system, colloquially known as “First Past the Post” (FPtP) which is named after a term used in English racing. The term FptP is quite literal in its name as the first party to reach the set amount of seats wins the right to be the party to run Canada. There have been (get exact number) a few attempts at changing the system since democratic votes started in Canada. However, it has never really became all that close to changing. Many believe that the voting process should be as representative to the people's votes as possible,

Canada’s formal political arrangements act in different ways to both concentrate and disperse power. In this concept note I will discuss three key ways which demonstrate that power is concentrated and dispersed: Their ineffective bicameral system, their parliamentary style and their federal system. Canada is bicameral, with the House of Commons and the Senate, but this does not necessarily disperse power as intended. They have a parliamentary system, which further concentrates power.

When adopting plurality electoral system, many third party supporters had a strong preference for their party over all others, and therefore “reluctant to rally rather either of the top two contestants” (Blais: 2002, p.449). Moreover, many parties overestimated their chance of winning, hence did not feel that their vote would be wasted. Blais suggests that parties and political leaders are the main reasons why there are fewer parties and candidates in plurality elections, due to the fact that potential candidates perceiving their chances of winning are small and are more reluctant to run and invest a lot of money and time in their election campaign. Contrastingly, the proportional representation could demonstrate a fairer turnout for Canada, which reduces the problem of excluding candidates and lesson the problem of concentrating votes for a single candidate. For example, Chile’s reformation of adopting proportional representation demonstrates that their new electoral system have many routes to proportionality. It turned out to have “strengthen(ed) the parties” and “contribute(d) to less complex strategic coordination” (Gamboa & Morales: 2015, p.63). If our candidates are loyal to the party, the votes of candidates should not only benefit the candidates, but also the

There is a fundamental problem with the democratic process in Canada. This problem is rooted within our electoral system. However, there is a promising solution to this issue. Canada should adopt the mixed-member proportional representation electoral system (MMP) at the federal level if we wish to see the progression of modern democracy. The failure to do so will result in a stagnant political system that is caught in the past and unable to rise to the contemporary challenges that representative democracies face. If Canada chooses to embrace the MMP electoral system it will reap the benefits of greater proportionality, prevent the centralization of power that is occurring in Parliament and among political parties through an increased

Voters are not the only people who benefit from the practice of party discipline. The practice is also fundamentally important for the stability of the Canadian government. Being a pluralist country means there are groups (political parties) of differing ideologies that represent

One of the main benefits that countries which have opted for proportional representation have noticed is an undeniable increase in voter turnout. In a political democracy citizen engagement is incredibly important. In situations where a plurality voting-system has been abandoned in favour of a system utilizing proportional representation the rise in voter turnout averages 7 to 8% (Pilon 155)7. There is no reason to believe that Party-list PR would have any different effect on Canadian parliamentary democracy.