Canadian election

[Shadow]

Am I the only one who cares?

[Kilkenne]

when the dust settles you will still be our hat, thank you for keeping the sun out of america's eyes

[Shadow]

hurry up darnit

[Kilkenne]

I learned a lot about Canadan politics today. Apparently everyone hates this Harper fellow.

[Shadow]

Canadian political system is crap. Bugger could get a majority government with less than 40% of the popular vote, and that would be from people voting for his party or the local conservative candidate rather than him, because we don't vote directly for the PM.

Really, really needs some serious rethinking.

His approval ratings are low even among the conservatives, but he can still get it because we vote for local candidates rather than the PM in our system. Blasted thing is more of a periodically changing monarchy.

[Kilkenne]

Parliamentary systems have that system built in, but supposedly they're more directly representative of the people and allow for a system with more than two parties I suppose. Voting for a third party in the US is a waste of a vote, might as well write your own name in.

[Shadow]

Lies. Majority government with 40% of the popular vote is not representative.

It sort of allows for more than two parties, but not really. You just end up with vote splitting one way or another actually benefitting the party in power.

Now if a two-third majority were required, it would be a different story since there would have to be actual cooperation.

[Kilkenne]

Lies. Majority government with 40% of the popular vote is not representative.

It sort of allows for more than two parties, but not really. You just end up with vote splitting one way or another actually benefitting the party in power.

Now if a two-third majority were required, it would be a different story since there would have to be actual cooperation.

Point conceded, 2/3rds would be much better as far as representation goes.

Only issue would be that hardly anything would pass because of the divisiveness in today's politics.

[Shadow]

Buggers are scarily close to a majority right now.

[Genevieve]

Kyle, I think you only think your system is weird because you live next to the US.

There was a bit of debate about the Westminster system here last year, when we ended up with a PM that no one had voted for when the party leadership changed during their first term in power. And then in the election when the two major parties ended up with the same number of seats (not votes necessarily, I'm not actually sure what those stats were), and the decision of who was to be our PM came down to the personal preferences of 3 independent candidates and one minor party candidate that won their seats, who took a few weeks to make their decisions.

Anyway, I hope your election turns out well!

[Shadow]

Man, watching this live is stressful.

The US system and Canadian system both have their flaws. The PM has far too much power in Canadian politics.

[Kilkenne]

We should go to the Australian system. They lose prime ministers. Literally. They lost one. They do not know what happened to him.

[Shadow]

Would be sweet if we lost harper.

[Genevieve]

Wikipedia knows that happened to him:

In 1983, British journalist Anthony Grey published a controversial book in which he claimed that Holt had been an agent for the People's Republic of China and that he had been picked up by a Chinese submarine off Portsea and taken to China. Many of Holt's security detail had testified to seeing bubbles mysteriously surround him before he slipped beneath the waves. Much of this suspicion stems from the simple fact that his body was never found.

There have been reports from Chinese spies working for CIA, who have given a great deal of evidence concerning Holt's alleged presence in China. Additionally, at the time of Holt's disappearance, there was a major on-going investigation searching for a communist spy that was known to be operating at the highest levels of the Australian government. Holt would have been aware of this effort and that it was a matter of time before the traitor would be caught.

[Shadow]

gonna get their majority most likely. Goodbye future in Canada as a scientist ^_^