Minority Governments And The Current Situation

[Bizud]

This is Canada's first experience with a minority parliament in a quarter-century. After the last election, many Canadians were happy with the result. Now, I suspect many would trade the current situation for the days of Liberal dominance, even if that makes the executive less accountable to parliament. What do you think?

 

Second question, for those aware that proportional representation means constant or frequent minority governments, does this affect your support for it?

 

Third, studies have shown pretty conclusively that citizens in countries where coalition governments are the norm are happier with their governments than citizens of countries where one-party majority governments are the norm. Comment.

 

I guess I'll go first. No, it isn't lessening my opinion of minority governments, but it is lessening my opinion of Canadian politicians. However, if parties in most democracies can work together, the ones here can too. The problem lies with the nature of the electoral system, which rewards regionalism and will give the Bloc about 25% of the seats in any election held anytime soon, with about 12% of the vote. Meanwhile, the NDP will get about 19% of the vote, and maybe 9% of the seats if they're lucky. The Progressive Conservatives had the same problem, but Reform didn't; in 1993 the PCs won 2 seats, and Reform 52, with almost the same percentage of the popular vote. Our electoral system rewards regionalized parties and punishes parties with diffuse support across Canada. This is bad for federalism, and it's bad for democracy.

Edited May 18, 2005 by Bizud

[Moonlight_Graham]

i like the minority gov't so far. Everyone has a say, everyone is represented. Just look at the budget, the Libs tried much more to please everyone instead of just doing their own thing.

 

Each MP is elected by the people, so if each MP in the non-ruling party has more of a say in what happens in gov't i think thats a good thing for representation & democracy overall.

 

Seems like every gov't in the last 25 years has screwed up bigtime in some way anyways, so it can't be any worse.