Worthwhile Canadian Blogpost
Michael Stickings has a smart and informative take on the political situation in Canada.
It’s interesting to wonder what the long-term consequences of this will be for the Canadian political system. If you look at the past couple of elections, it’s clear that the divide between the center-left Liberals and the left-left NDP is a huge gift to the Tories. In principle, a coalition could lead to better future electoral performance for both parties via tactical voting and implicit or explicit decisions about which ridings to target. At the same time, though, the CPC considers to suffer from something of a taint of extremism since it’s the descendant of a party that was formed as a further-right alternative to Canada’s traditional center-right party. Governing in alliance with the NDP could cause the Liberals to lose their centrist sheen.
Ultimately, given the nature of Canada’s first-past-the-post voting, it would probably be better to have something more like a two-party system in which the most rightwing elements of the Liberal Party defect to a somewhat-more-moderate Conservative Party and then you saw a fusion of NDP and the remaining Liberals as a proper left-of-center party.
41 Responses to “Worthwhile Canadian Blogpost”
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December 1st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
“rightwing elements of the Liberal Party defect to a somewhat-more-moderate Conservative Party ”
In the Canadian province of British Columbia, that’s what happened. It doesn’t hold though – it just gave an opening for the Green party.
Federally, Canada is too prone to absurd amounts of parochialism/regionalism for something like this to happen. As much as it calls itself left of the Liberals, the NDP is really “Liberal” in most of western Canada.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
it would probably be better to have something more like a two-party system
Undoing the division between the Liberals and NDP is rather less difficult that revising FPTP (which is something New Zealand did in 1996, despite the British inheritance).
The BQ are the real joker in the pack, a party that is in parliament but is not actually interested in governing at all.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:15 pm
It is hard to apply the nash two-party equilibrium model to Canadian elections since it is not a winner take all game (ie we vote for MPs). Parties like the NDP and the Bloc can be very powerful in a minority government and I doubt their voters would give that up to achieve the largely symbolic position of prime minister.
Anyways try explaining your two-party state theory to someone in Quebec. They would probably laugh at you.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I very much doubt that this will, in the long run, reduce the number of parties in the federal parliament. Britain’s identical FPTP system also produces multiple parties (3 national ones + a couple of regional ones).
The real long-term consequence of this might be the ushering in of a “coalition era”, replacing our current tradition of allowing the largest party to govern alone with ad-hoc support on each different piece of legislation. The other thing, I suspect, will be a collapse of the federal Green party, assuming no electoral reform takes place under the Progressive Coalition.
BTW, I don’t think a “coalition era” would necessarily and always mean Lib+NDP(+BQ). In time, there could also be grand coalitions or Lib + Con, or Lib + BQ, or Con + NDP or Con + BQ, especially if the Tories abandon their more extremist tendencies and return to their traditional Red Tory course.
Who ever said Canadian politics were boring?
December 1st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
No, no, no.
The problem with the two-party system in the States is that it allows both of them to rally around two highly polarized fringe elements, and people in the centre (i.e. most people) are left to wonder which of the two will betray them the most if they get elected.
In Canada, the only way to win an election is to position your party as close to the actual centre of gravity in the country as possible. It is normally the Liberals who achieve this, and in fact you can date the Conservatives’ shifts to the right by the long unbroken periods of Liberal rule.
This has several advantages. Anyone who ran the campaign John McCain did would have lost his party every seat in the House of Commons. The Conservatives very nearly did that in 1993 when they ran on Brian Mulroney’s record and the “Is this the face of a Prime Minister?” attack ad. Harper himself only won (barely) by positioning himself more moderate than he actually is. But since he hasn’t followed through, he’s about to be punted.
That said, Canada’s system begins to fail when there are too many viable political parties. I’d prefer a preferential voting system to ensure that no one can win a seat with 25% of the vote.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Things were fine when we had choices on the left, centre/centre left, centre right and (pretty far) right. Canadians are averse to two-party systems, but the PC-Canadian Alliance merger has left little option.
Incidentally, Stephane Dion just said cap-and-trade and collaboration with Obama on the environment will be part of the agenda. It’s not carbon taxation, which was done a disservice in the past election, but it’s a start.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Or a series of run off elections (instant or otherwise).
Or a “rank the candidates” 1-2-3-4 type of ballot.
Or a hot or not type of ranking.
Elections shouldn’t be viewed as “the American way” and “other”. I’d hardly say our hodge-podge two party system does much for environmentalists or evangelicals. Canada has issues based parties where we just have generic spectrum based parties. Elections should try and fairly reflect voters views (and count all the votes) and we don’t do that very well. At least Canada is trying.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
The Canadian system does have some problems associated with first-past-the-post and multiple parties. Under the current political party structure, it is going to increasingly difficult for any party to gain majority. People are split along regional(Quebec, Prairies) and demographic (urban vs rural vs suburbs).
That should not by itself make for unstable governments. However, we have had a significant period of time where there has been only one short-lived minority government (Joe Clark, 1979), until the past three elections all resulted in in minorities (one Liberal, two Conservatives).
The problem is that the political leaders have been very reluctant to work together on legislation. They only seem to want to work together when it comes to voting against the government. If the politicians actually did what the electorate wanted – figure out how to make government work better and develop policies that make sense – then a minority government (formal coalition or not) could work. Unfortunately they all seem to be to arrogant or worried about their own future to attempt to work things out.
Maybe this coalition attempt is a first crack and real compromise, or maybe not.
December 1st, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Spitting Image is largely right, but I’d like to point out that even though a candidate *could* technically win a riding with as little as 20 or 25% of the vote, no one has actually done so. In Guelph, the Liberal Party won with 32%, and the Tories won Nunavut with 34%, but that is about as low as it gets. Generally, ridings have 2 or 3 viable parties, and only a few select ones have 4.
I really just think we need MMP to correct for the huge imbalances produced by FPTP, but that is unlikely to gain the support of the Bloc, which is heavily advantaged in FPTP.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Sure. Okay. Yeah. So, the problem with U.S. politics is that the parties tend to extremes, that’s why the Democratic Party has been overwhelmingly business-fetish focus center right for the past 30 years, and why nearly all their major leaders supported every major initiative by Bush Republicans for the past 8 years — it’s cause they’re all left wing radicals.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:36 pm
El Cid your post doesn’t make any sense at all. If the parties “tend to extremes” then the Democrats would go to one extreme and the Republicans to another. What you are saying is that they both went to the same “extreme.” Hence, you make no sense and you should shut up.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:42 pm
@ Andy -
I think the most likely long-term outcome is a fight between the Grits and the Tories over the Bloc’s votes. Both parties have a lot that is appealing to Bloc voters (greater focus on progressive policies versus greater shift of resources/responsibilities to the provinces). Also, Lib/NDP governments seem like they would be pretty stable (and could lead to more efficient tactical voting). But the real long term effect is probably a real push for electoral reform, especially instant run-off voting.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Love the post title!
December 1st, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Oh great. When Matt contemplates American politics he always comes to the conclusion that we would be better off with a parliamentary system, for one reason or another.
And now, contemplating the Canadian parliamentary system, he concludes they would be better off with a two-party system!
Face it, guys, he’s just messing with our heads.
December 1st, 2008 at 8:10 pm
JFD: Clean at least some of the sh*t out of your head and read the posts upstream.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Face it, guys, he’s just messing with our heads.
Not quite: he’s saying that FPTP + multi-party = unrepresentative, unstable government. Of course, low-threshold proportionality + multi-party gives you the same.
Some kind of preference-based voting would, presumably, prevent the NDP and Grits from handing seats to the Cons, but for some in both parties, spiting the other is a feature rather than a bug. That’s going to make the outcome of Dion-Jean (as opposed to King-Byng) pretty interesting.
December 1st, 2008 at 9:40 pm
JFD – don’t post
December 1st, 2008 at 10:33 pm
underground shoemakers in bc rejoice or do they?
(that’s true linus because as it happens the Mulroney fellow introudced the GST; libs will replace it with a carbon tax)
indeed you have to think a rich man’s fart is probably worse
December 1st, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Some change to the FPTP system (either proportional representation or runoff elections) is better than a two party system that doesn’t allow regional or issue parties to exist with some representation. These smaller parties are often the source of policy innovation and political renewal. As example the NDP introduced the first comprehensive health care system in North America and, for better or worse the Reform/ Conservative merger reinvigorated the right side of the political system.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:32 pm
One thought occurs to me, in regards to how to square the circle of multiple parties, first-past-the-post, and the need for coalition to achieve working majorities while still giving the people of Canada a >2 choice of parties:
Ballot fusion. I.E, allowing individual candidates to seek the nomination/endorsement of multiple parties and be listed on multiple ballot lines. In this fashion, you’d be able to make real alliances, by having, say, left-leaning Liberals run on the NDP ticket as well to get over the Conservative, and vice-versa, without having to go through the rather undemocratic process of working out no-contest arrangements.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Keep in mind that there are more ways a country can be polarized than in the sense of “left” versus “right”. Think of urban versus rural issues, for example. My point was not that the Democrats are a left-wing fringe party, but that they do use wedge issues to boost support in their “turf” at the expense of votes in Republican areas. I’m not saying that they do it as much as the Republicans, but that it is possible for either party to do this and win. Obama in fact is seen as to have broken away from standard operating procedure by campaigning vigorously in “red” states instead of writing them off like Mark Penn would have done. (Come to think of it, he’s a perfect example of what I would call a Democratic “fringe”.)
Wedge issues don’t work as well in Canada because there are more parties on the ballot. If two parties decide to campaign by standing on opposite sides of an issue and yelling at each other, most people will hold their noses and vote for the third. Harper’s Conservatives are the first party that I’ve seen campaign in Canada in a genuine Republican style, and the results speak for themselves. Harper has managed two minority victories in a political climate which would have given anyone else consecutive majorities.
December 1st, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Sorry, the suggestion that a two party system would be better simply shows little knowledge of the parliamentary system and Canadian history. Some remarks are simply out to lunch, even many from within Canada.
People suggest the Bloc Quebecois seats represent a separatist vote. Nonsense! The most recent polls indicate separatism is supported by only about one third of the population of Quebec, the lowest number in forty years, yet the Bloc got most seats. Why? Because Quebec people are politically very shrewd and they have parked their votes with the party best able to advance their interests WITHIN Canada.
The Bloc is closest to the NDP in ideology, which in part is why the NDP has so much trouble breaking through in Quebec. The people are very left of center, opposed to our presence in Afghanistan, looking for major investment in supporting the manufacturing sector as well as arts and culture, very supportive of social programs in health care, daycare, seniors pensions, etc.
The fact is, Canada has benefited tremendously from the multi-party approach despite its shortcomings. The very character of Canada as a country with a strong social safety-net is in good part because third and fourth parties have pulled policy to their views. The NDP are largely responsible for our health-care policy and for senior pensions despite the fact that they have never governed nationally. The Reform Party on the right, the Party that subsumed the Progressive Conservative Party to become the current Conservative Party drove much of the policy agenda well before gaining second party status, their focus being taxes, the military and the economy. They also hated daycare, Indians and Quebec and these postures influenced national policy even when they were an upstart party from the West with few seats.
Sure two parties would be cleaner but America displays that a monopoly two party system is deaf to incremental change and at the mercy of shifting only in response to crisis and of being owned by special interests.
Lastly, there has been much comment that the current Canadian crisis has been a response to cutting off federal subsidy for political parties. This is so out of touch. The current policy of providing all parties with less than two dollars for each vote they attract was a concession to getting rid of special interest politics. Now in Canada, political parties can not take donations from industry or unions or other groups. In exchange for giving up this tap into funding, the public money was established. This costs the taxpayer less as Industry, unions, etc. can not write off such donations for taxes. The Canadian system is far more progressive in ensuring the people own their politicians, not special interests.
The Canadian system can be improved but not by going for the American approach.
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:23 am
I still think it would be interesting to see proportional representation in parliament. If you don’t have to reside in the riding, then why not go with the national vote to allocate MPs to the parties.
That would really help the NDP, and really hurt the PQ. But most importantly would get around the split ticket issue.
Now if someone could fix the proportions in the Senate.
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:34 am
The most recent polls indicate separatism is supported by only about one third of the population of Quebec, the lowest number in forty years, yet the Bloc got most seats. Why?
Because the federalist vote is divided. The BQ won most of the seats in Quebec with only 38% of the vote.
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Right, Danny. Also, I think non-separatists who aren’t pleased with the other parties will still vote for the Bloc, just because they regard them as effective advocates for Quebec. It’s similar to the reason Alaskan politicians get constantly re-elected despite corruption – the ability to deliver federal monies is highly valued.
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