Canada Votes -- Again
24 January 2006, terribly early in the morning
As I head to bed, the NDP are looking like they will end up with 29 seats, which is really great. The downside, of course, is that the Conservative party have won 125 seats, the most seats this election. This means we have a minority government—again. Derek Lee won in my riding—again. I’m not surprised with the results, though I am impressed the Liberals still ended up with so many seats, despite running what must be one of the worst campaigns ever.
Update Jan 24th 9:52 AM: The breakdown of votes and seats this year was favourable to the Conservatives and the NDP, with the Liberals and the Bloc losing seats. I was surprised when the Bloc backed the Conservatives in bringing down the past government. The Bloc posted great numbers in the last election, and I couldn’t see why they would want to rock the boat. I suppose they had assumed they could steal more votes away from the Liberals this time around. This would have been a reasonable train of thought; I don’t think anyone would have predicted the Conservatives would do so well in Quebec.
In the end, the results were as follows:
| Party | Seats | % of Votes |
|---|---|---|
| Con | 124 | 36.25%% |
| Lib | 103 | 30.22% |
| BQ | 51 | 10.48% |
| NDP | 29 | 17.49% |
| IND | 1 | 0.52% |
| OTH | 0 | 5.05% |
The Conservatives won a Minority government, but no other party has the balance of power. The Conservatives are going to have to work very hard to keep the House of Commons working if they want to be voted back in the next time elections are held. I don’t think Canadians are interested in another election so soon.
In my riding, things were as they always are:
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % of Votes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Derek Lee | LIB | 30281 | 65.62% |
| Jerry Bance | CON | 9426 | 20.43% |
| Andrew Brett | NDP | 4973 | 10.78% |
| Serge Abbat | GRN | 756 | 1.64% |
| Alan Mercer | LTN | 243 | 0.53% |
Derek Lee actually got more votes this time around! Last year Raymond Cho did reasonably well in this riding, and I suspect many people who have voted for him last time, voted for Derek Lee this time. Last year there were 38,578 votes cast in my riding. This year, there were 46,146. The numbers for the other parties are very similar to their numbers last year.
If you are interested in how this election compares to the last, you can check out Election Canada’s website, which has last years results and other information online. I wrote about last year’s election as well..
We have a Conservative leading the country. God damn it.
NDP win a good number of seats. Conservatives win power. Do you think those two things are connected? Is the NDP the Ralph Nader of Canadian politics?
by Mahi on January 24 2006, 3:47 am #
You think cus it’s a minority gov’t again, we’ll have another election in like 2 years? The pictures you posted of Mahi and Krish were excellent, not sure if it’s the camera or the subjects that are worthy of my admiration though.
by ahilan on January 24 2006, 5:56 am #
I don’t think the NDP have the effect that the Nader does on American politics. In Quebec, the numbers suggest that Liberal voters voted for the Conservatives. Outside of Quebec, it is less clear where votes went, but I haven’t heard of ridings where a close Liberal/NDP race let the Conservatives sneak in.
by ramanan on January 24 2006, 12:02 pm #
My riding is one of those close Liberal-NDP ridings. Olivia Chow (NDP) finally beat out Tony Ianno after years of trying. But yeah, I don’t know how many others there were. I just thought that since the NDP won 10 extra seats, they must have all come from the Liberals.
PS. The photos of me and Krishna were brilliant because we are so attractive. They would have looked great if he had taken them with a camera phone.
by Mahi on January 24 2006, 12:41 pm #
Derek Lee has been around forever, and he’s a really nice person to boot. I often want to vote by party, but I can’t vote against Derek. Rouge River is a quiet riding, and there’s so little information about the other candidates that it just makes sense to go with the tried and true. (Now that I look at the other Candidates, they look poorly qualified indeed.) Honestly, in all this time Derek has stayed hard working, and never been the source of any trouble or embarrassment. Plus his daughter is a fox.
by Vic on January 24 2006, 1:22 pm #
As hot as his daughter may or may not be, he did vote against the same-sex marriage bill. His explanation of why he voted the way he did can be found on his web site.
by ramanan on January 24 2006, 1:45 pm #
The Conservatives won a Minority government, but no other party has the balance of power.
I may be misunderstanding this statement, but doesn’t a minority government imply a balance of power? In a majority government, the governing party would have the seats to do what they want and there would be no counterweight to balance their power. However, with a minority government, the governing party has to appeal to the sensibilities of the other parties in order to push through any legislation.
Granted, no other single party has the balance of power, but if they did, then they would be the majority.
by rishi on January 24 2006, 3:53 pm #
I just meant that no other party can form a coalition with the Conservatives to form a majority government. (That is usually what people mean when they say a party has “the balance of power”. Perhaps “remainder” would be a better word to use.) Anyway, this isn’t quite true, as a Conservative/Bloc coalition would have more than 155 seats. I just think the Bloc is not really in a position to form a coalition government as it goes against their own parties ideology (and should go against the ideology of any federal party they would hope to work with).
The one good plus from a minority government is that the ruling party can’t just do it’s own thing and ignore the other parties. I’m not too unhappy with these election results. I don’t think Harper can go bat-shit insane and keep his government in power. Anything he puts forward would need to appeal to a broad base in order to gain support.
by ramanan on January 24 2006, 4:40 pm #
I have to disagree with the usefulness of a minority government. Checks and balances are always important, however built in indecivness does not seem productive. Imagine if you were the leader of a group, and could never get anything important passed, be it mundane or radical. Candadian politics is such that rival parties are always working to bring down their competitors. To that end, they hardly ever support anything that will bring disproportionate favour to the ruling government.
About Derek’s stance on same-sex marriages, that’s certainly not in-line with my personal opinion, however I wouldn’t villainize him for sticking to his beliefs. And what he says about the majority of his riding is very possible. I would imagine that, older immigrants (as a group) are not very pro towards same-sex marriage, or same-sex anything for that matter.
by Vic on January 24 2006, 5:07 pm #
Minority governments don’t build in indecisiveness, they build in moderation and coalition building. You can in fact get lots of things passed as long as you can find common ground with other parties. This seems like a reasonable and productive situation where the vast majority of Canadians will get the policies they want.
On Derek Lee, I would actually agree that he is in line with his riding and the immigrant pop on the same sex anything. That only makes him more scary though. It also seems weird that he has been in parliament forever and I have no clear idea of what he has done there other than oppose gay marriage.
by Mahi on January 24 2006, 5:52 pm #
Generally speaking, in a system such as ours, one would expect a minority government to better represent all Canadians. It is not uncommon in Canada to form a majority government with thirty-something percent of the popular support. In this case, your government gets to rule with a lot more power than they probably deserve. With the current government, and it’s spread of power, the will of more Canadians should be served. The problem is of course, that you need people in power who are working hard to make things work. And as you point out, sometimes you need a government that is willing to make hard or unpopular decisions. I think overall though, a minority has a better chance of producing results everyone can get behind.
And I wasn’t trying to insult Lee; I think his vote is probably inline with the sentiments of the majority of his constituents. I just think that vote is backwards-ass enough for people to question their support for him.
by ramanan on January 24 2006, 6:15 pm #
Mahi,
I’m not exactly sure how Derek was scary in the first place. Maybe the people in Rouge River are crazy and backwards, but following your constituents isn’t really a scary quality for an MP. Wouldn’t you want your elected official to listen to you?
As I read my previous post regarding build in indecisiveness, perhaps I made my conclusion too early in the post. What I’m saying is that I think the leaders in Canada right now are fighting towards majority power, and are not comfortable with accepting a minority government and working within that system. They will sabotage and work against the system where-ever they can, even in areas where they share common ground. Though this is only my opinion and I do hope they prove me wrong. Honestly, we did JUST have a minority government, and look how quickly the opposition “found common ground” to call an election.
by Vic on January 24 2006, 9:53 pm #
You are right. Elected officials should listen to their constituent and they should be true to their own beliefs as well. Hmm. I guess I just find him scary because he doesn’t agree with me. Not a very strong position to argue from.
I suppose that I wish MPs would lead their constituents sometimes instead of just directly reflecting their views. Especially on things like minority rights.
by Mahi on January 24 2006, 10:14 pm #
Harper ready to start ‘rebuilding this great country’ (CBC)
Why do the Conservatives use the premise that the everything is broken and needs to be redone as their starting point?
by Ryan on January 25 2006, 6:33 am #