Kaz! tells me I should post this as a new thread so as to generate more discussion. I was originally going to repond to Sam's post "Re: Elections, Electoral College". This will be the first thread I've ever started (as far as I remember) so, ah, yay!

The person I'm quoting, of course, is Sam.

> The power we give to states is, if I'm not mistaken, unique in the world, and it allows a large country to function well by allowing the govnerning of the people to be more tailored to the needs of those in each region...

>... our states are still comparatively strong compared to the regional governments of other large countries. (The provinces of Canada are mostly too large to function well as local governing; in fact our own state of California is to large to meet the internally diverse needs of its people.)

I've been meaning to put together a post about politics in Canada for the last day or so, and Sam's comment about Canadian provinces being 'too large' seems an interesting segue into this topic. For convenience, I'll discuss how our electoral system works in Canada first, and try to make it clear how we deal (at least in theory) with our 'large' provinces while still respecting the diversity of people who live in different regions of our country. My point here is generally that the electoral college and the popular vote are not the only options for an electoral system; if the United States is considering changing its electoral system it might be wise to consider options somewhere between these two extremes. Hopefully, Canada can serve as a functioning example to contrast with the American system in any continued RinkDiscussion about electoral college.

In Part II of this post, I'll discuss the upcoming Canadian election on November 27th. This will be the first time I get to vote, and I'd be interested in hearing the impressions of other Canadian RinkyDinks of the various political parties. Of course, I'd be interested in the opinions of non-Canadians as well, if any of you follow Canadian politics!

Naturally, if you already know how the Canadian political system works but would be interested in wasting some time by listening to (or reading) me ramble about our election for a bit, I'd encourage you to skip part I of this post and just read part II.

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PART I: A Political System for a Country Made Up of Provinces that are Too Big

I'll start by saying that Sam probably got the idea that Canadian provinces are too big by looking at a map, and in this case, maps are misleading. It's true that in terms of land area, most Canadian provinces dwarf American states. However, the fact is that most of Canada is really rocky or really cold, and hardly anybody lives in the cold, rocky parts. The population of the United States is 274,943,494, divided up into fifty states. By contrast, the population of Canada is 31,330,255, divided up into ten provinces (and three huge territories, each of which contain hardly any people). That's an average of about five and a half million people per American state, contrasted with an average of about three million people per Canadian province. Naturally, some Canadian provinces have more people than others, just as some American states have more people than others. However, in general, Canadian provinces are no bigger than American states when viewed in terms of population; in fact, they're on average somewhat smaller.

Unless Sam is arguing that the physical size of the province makes it to large to have an effective government (which would be ridiculous, since modern trains, airplanes, and telecommunications allow people to stay connected even across the vast distances of the largest Canadian provinces), the provinces aren't as "big" as they look on a map.

Still, they are pretty big. Canada has prided itself on a diverse, multicultural population, and grouping the people of Canada geographically into provinces means grouping together people from widely different cultural and ideological backgrounds. Just as in the United States, we need a voting system that takes into account the views of minorities. By the same token, however, we want a system that tends to keep "silly" parties like the Communist party and the Green party out of power. (The Green party in Canada is less intelligent then their American counterparts; for example, they plan on using astrology to balance our budget.)

The United States uses the electoral college to ensure that all regions are represented in the vote for President (at least according to Sam's argument about why the Americans should keep the Electoral College). In Canada, however, this would be difficult since our population is so diverse that considering any one province a "region" would be misleading and could cause many people's votes to go unrepresented. Imagine, if you will, an American state whose population consists of a mixture of peoples so that in every election, the east is /always/ predominantly Democrat and the west is /always/ predominantly Republican. Every election, the vote in this state would always be nearly 50-50; however, in every election, either the Democrats or the Republicans would win all of the electoral college votes for this state. Either way, nearly half the population's vote /wouldn't count/! It's different when only a few people aren't represented using the Electoral College in states that mostly vote one way or the other, but in a state where every election half of the results are disregarded, people might be justified in claiming that the Electoral College is undemocratic!

Wouldn't it be more fair if, for the purpose of an election, the state was split into two "electoral states", East and West? That way, every election, both the East and the West could be heard. Votes for parties like the Green Party or the Communist Party of America or whatever would still be disregarded because the electoral college would still exist in these "electoral states". However, the amount of the vote that is disregarded would be much less than fifty percent of the population!

That's exactly the way we elect a Prime Minister in Canada. For the purposes of an election, Canada is divided up into 301 "Ridings", which in terms of electing a Prime Minister function similarily to the "electoral states" I've described above, except that we don't actually have electors. The winner of the popular vote in each riding gets the vote of one riding, and the candidate who wins the most ridings gets to be Prime Minister.

For example, there are six ridings in Edmonton alone, representing the different groups of people who live in different parts of the city. My riding, Edmonton Southwest, is comprised mostly of businessmen, owners of small businesses, and business executives (and their families). Other ridings, such as Edmonton Southeast, which is made up predominantly of working-class Edmontonians, also exist. Each distinct segment of the population of Canada should, at least in theory, get its own vote. At the same time, each vote counts for about the same amount, since ridings tend to each have about the same population (they're not all the same size geographically, however; rural southern Alberta has fewer ridings then Edmonton alone). Still, even regions with very low populations have at least one riding, ensuring that all parts of Canada are represented when electing a Prime Minister.

At the same time, silly parties such as the Green party are weeded out because they don't win a majority of votes in any riding. If a popular vote were taken all across Canada, the Green party might get enough votes to make some conceivable difference, just as it does in the United States. However, with the system that we have, only major parties take the votes from each riding, just as major parties take the votes from each state in the United States.

Of course, there are other differences in our electoral systems, but they stem more from fundamental differences in the political workings of Canada and the United States than from differences in the way we elect the leaders of our nations. For example, the Prime Minister is, in Canada, defined to be the leader of the political party that controls the House of Commons (which is like the American Congress). When we vote for a Prime Minister, we actually vote specifically, by popular vote in our Riding, for a Member of Parliament (who functions like an American Congressman) who will represent, and be directly accountable to, the people in our riding. It means that the Prime Minister always controls a majority in the House of Commons, and so can almost always get a bill passed through the House of Commons. However, he won't even be able to convince members of his own party to vote for a bill if the bill is against the best interests of the people in the ridings of the Members of Parliament, since it's those people who determine if the Members of Parliament will be re-elected. It's not unheard of for Members of Parliament even to leave their political party to protest a bill that the Prime Minister is trying to pass, in order to protect the people of their riding.

Controlling a majority in government arguably gives the Canadian Prime Minister more power than the American President. It also arguably allows our government to function more smoothly. However, it means that we don't have the "checks and balances" of an opposing Congress and President -- in Canada, we're big on "accountability" rather than "checks and balances". However, the Prime Minister also has less power, because in order to do /anything/, he needs the support of his party -- the Prime Minister does /not/ have veto power in Canada, and he is /not/ the Chief of Staff of our Armed Forces -- although he can appoint the person who holds that position. Furthermore, we /do/ have some checks and balances in the form of our senate, which examines and can veto any bill that goes through the House of Commons. The Prime Minister can appoint Senators for life and theoretically he can appoint anyone he chooses; however, traditionally, senators are chosen so that every province is given representation in the Senate. (It sounds like this gives Prime Ministers a lot of power, but actually since Senators are appointed for life, a Prime Minister hardly ever gets the chance to appoint a new senator, and the Senate is made up of the choices of /all/ of our Prime Ministers over the last half century or so. We have to count on our Prime Ministers to be wise enough to appoint someone who will do a good job in the long term.)

A few minor things: We don't allow our networks to "call" an election before it's finished; although they can /guess/ at who's going to win. Voters who can't make it to an election (if they're overseas or something) vote in an "Advance Poll" -- their votes are already completed and tallied by the time the actual election takes place. It does sometimes happen that re-counts need to take place, but if this happens it's often contained within a single riding. Ridings are smaller than American states, so re-counts can be completed more efficiently. (If someone wins a riding by a huge majority, then obviously a re-count isn't necessary.)

One more major difference, and the last that I'll discuss, is that we have five major political parties (as well as a huge number of independents and smaller parties) rather than two. I'll discuss the differences between those parties in the next section. Basically, though, most of the time only one party gets the majority of votes and so controls the House of Commons; however, it sometimes happens that the party with the most votes still has less than 50% of the ridings. In that case, that party can temporarily merge with another party to create a new party, for which a leader can be chosen; this is called a "coalition government". (For example, in the United States, Nader's "green" party could /join/ the Democrats, so that Gore could win the election; Gore would be President, but Nader would still have some say...it's a little complicated to make this comparison.) If the leading party can't convince another party to join them, then they can lead as a "minority" government and their leader is still the Prime Minister; however, if the leader isn't able to pass bills than this is inefficient and could result in chaos. To prevent that, if the Prime Minister can't get bills passed in Canada, we dissolve parliament and hold another election (this is called a "vote of non-confidence"). In this way, we avoid the chaos that often comes with a divided parliament.

Before I end this section, I should mention something about the power given to provinces. Provinces, as I have said before, aren't larger in terms of population that states, and in general each has its own concerns. Alberta, for example, is primarily concerned with farming and drilling for oil, while Ontario has a larger manufacturing sector and Quebec has special needs since it is made up almost entirely of French Canadians who represent a minority in Canada. Constitutionally, Canadians divide powers of government between the federal and provincial governments, so that the federal governments administer such areas of the Canadian administration as the justice system and cross-Canada shipping, while each province is free to administer services such as education and health care, since different provinces may have different educational and medical needs. I don't know exactly what Sam is referring to when he says that the power given to American states is "unique in the world", but we certainly feel in Canada that our provinces should and do have a large amount of autonomy and administrative power.

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PART II: A Political Leader for a Country Made Up of Provinces that are Too Big

All of this electoral mess that I've described actually comes into play on November 27th of this year, when we elect a new Prime Minister. Unlike in the States, the elections aren't held exactly once every four years; instead, the Prime Minister can dissolve parliament and call a new election whenever he likes (provided that no government sits for longer than five years). In this case, it's only been three and a half years since the last election, but this is the time when the Prime Minister has decided to call for a new election.

There is some speculation as to why the Prime Minister chose to call an election at this point. The Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, says that it's because the needs of Canadians have changed dramatically over the last three and a half years. Three and a half years ago, there was a financial crisis in Canada caused by the national deficit; now the government under the Liberals (who are currently in power) has fixed this deficit and would like Canadians to make a choice about the direction we are to proceed from here. However, the leader of our newest political party, Stockwell Day of the Canadian Alliance, suggests that Chrétien called the election simply so that the Liberals could get re-elected before the Alliance gained more support (since it's less than a year old, evolving out of what used to be the Canadian Reform party). And Joe Clark, leader of the Conservative party, says that it's probably because Chrétien just wanted make a run for the history books by being elected three times in a row before he retires from politics.

Unlike in the United States, where there are only two political parties, Canada has five. I'll discuss each briefly, roughly from left to right.

*The New Democratic Party (NDP) is led by Alexa McDonough. This is the party considered furthest "left" of all of the major parties on the political scale; they are the only party not talking about decreasing taxes in this election. Instead, they want to spend money created by the federal surplus to increase health care and support education. Certainly, these are noble goals, but the problem that I have with this party is that their political platform expresses no priorities /but/ education and health care. During the debates between Prime Ministers, McDonough dismissed issues such as Canadian national unity as and economic development by saying that they were not "real" issues that Canadians wanted to hear about. Um. Health care and education is important, but without national unity and economic development, our country won't survive! In any event, without economic development, Canada won't be able to /support/ a health care or education system since we need corporations to bring revenue into this country. The NDP has noble goals, I think, but by dismissing economic development and national unity, they don't seem to have a realistic vision of Canada's future.

* The Liberal Party, led by Jean Chrétien is currently in power (they've been elected during both of the last two elections). They are considered a "moderate" party, slightly left of center. Despite their "left" alignment, however, they spent the last three and a half years in power essentially making a lot of budget cutbacks, cutting from health and education funds, in order to stem the Canadian deficit and debt that were damaging our economy. Some cutbacks were necessary for the economic good of our country; however, many people are concerned about the way in which health and education were drastically cut back. Additionally, they made a lot of promises in the last election campaign (such as a promise to improve health care and a promise to eliminate the Canadian Goods and Services tax) that they did not keep. Now, they are promising to re-invest in Canadian health and education, as well as cutting taxes somewhat and improving Canadian infastructure by boosting Canadian technological development and -- get this -- giving high speed Internet access to /all/ Canadians. Read their platform if you don't belive me (they don't say anything about that on TV). They also plan to create a -- ooh, ah -- WEBPAGE! Generally, though, their plan seems good; but their platform is very general (they don't say /how/ they're going to accomplish most of the goals that they've set out). Can we believe that they're going to meet those goals at all? (If you ask me, the idea of giving high speed internet access to all Canadians is, if cool, a bit unrealistic.)

* The Conservative party (actually, I think they're called the "Progressive Conservatives"), led by Joe Clark, is slightly right of center. Under Brian Mulroney, the Conservatives created a huge deficit as well as the unpopular Goods and Services Tax (GST), near the beginning of the decade. They were so unpopular that in the next election they went from being the /most/ powerful political party to the /least/ powerful political party, controlling at the moment something like two out of three hundred and one ridings. Still, their long history makes the Conservatives a major political party, and with new leadership and a new mandate, the Conservatives might make a showing in this next election. My major problem with them is that during the debates, leader Joe Clark didn't once mention his own party's platform or say anything about what plans the Conservatives had for the country; instead, he spent all of his time alternately criticizing the Liberals or the Alliance. If he were in power, I have no idea what he'd do!

* The Canadian Alliance is Canada's second most powerful political party (making it the "official opposition"), as well as Canada's newest, being less than a year old. Led by Stockwell Day, it sits furthest right of the major political parties, and advocates major tax cuts as well as a reduction of "wasteful spending". Their platform is the most specific of any I've seen, as it sets out exactly how they are going to execute their proposed changes and what the results would be. Instead of speaking in generalities, the Alliance promises tax cuts of exaclty a certain percent (which I forget). They also advocate a program of "listening to Canadians" which has advantages and disadvantages -- according to their program, Canadian citizens could trigger a national Referendum on /any issue/, which could put our country into strife on a regular basis. The major problem that I have with them, however, is that they are made up mostly of prior members of the grassroots "Reform" party, which has a reputation for lots of uneducated people with high moral and religious beliefs (read "intolerent"). I don't know if this is as true of the Alliance as it was of the (now defunct) Reform party, but in a country as diverse as Canada, intolerence is a /bad/ thing.

* The Bloc Quebecois, led by Gilles Duceppe doesn't really fit on the "left-to-right" scale. They represent only the province of Quebec, and feel that Quebec is so different from the rest of Canada that it should separate from Canada and become its own country. They were so powerful at one time that they formed the official opposition, and still carry a lot of weight because Quebec has a lot of ridings in it. Even Quebecers who don't believe in separation often vote for the Bloc because the Bloc is committed to recognizing the needs of Quebec. Obviously, since I don't live in Quebec, I don't believe in this position; certainly, I don't think Quebec should separate (I won't get into this, but it would be disastrous, both economically and politically!). I don't live in Quebec, so I couldn't vote for the Bloc even if I wanted to (they don't bother with votes outside of Quebec). Other than the fact that his views are pretty much totally opposed to mine, however, I think that Duceppe is a good, statesmanlike politician!

In Canada, there are two, and only two, actual televised debates between the leaders of these parties (one in English, and one in French -- I watched them both, and the translators for the French debate were /very/ good). My impressions are as follows.

I /like/ the Liberal party. Besides our Prime Minister, most of the Liberals seem quite intelligent and capable of running our country. The trouble is that in the debates, the Prime Minister himself didn't come out, in my opinion, as either very intelligent or very Prime Ministerial. It's true that he was being attacked by all of the other candidates for his actions as Prime Minister in the past few years; however, he seemed to spend most of the time trying to sidestep issues, or repeating the same few points about his new campaign to support "innovation" or about his few successes in the past (the major one being ending the deficit). Even with everyone else attacking him, I would expect the Prime Minister to be much more confident and statesmanlike, and, well, intelligent-sounding (rather than repeating the same stuff over and over).

By contrast, the Alliance leader Stockwell Day was attacked almost as much (he's leader of the Official Opposition, after all), but he defended himself much better. He appeared to me to be a good speaker; however, according to CBC commentators, he was alternately "wooden" and "scripted". However, among the "wasteful spending" that the Alliance tends to cut is spending on the CBC...so I suspect there might have been something of a bias against him. Certainly, all of the CBC's election reports that I have seen appeared biased against the Alliance, highlighting only the /worst/ that he's said, and that out of context.

Other than that, Joe Clark appeared to be a reasonably good speaker and a good statesman despite his (in my opinion) comical personal appearance; however, as I said, he had nothing to say about his own platform and mostly criticized the Liberals. Similarily, Duceppe was a surprisingly good speaker, especially in English (French is his native language); if I didn't disagree with practically everything he had to say, I might vote for him!

Alexa McDonough was annoying. No matter what anyone said, she only had one subject, health care and education. Everything else, as I said, she considered not to be a "real" issue. Most of the time, whenever she opened her mouth, I just wanted her to shut up so that we could actually hear some discussion about the issue at hand! Yet, according to the CBC's coverage, she did better than anyone else. The CBC brought in 15 people "off the street" from across Canada to comment on the debates; /every one/ said that they were impressed with McDonough because she was "clear". Gah! Meanwhile, they said that Day was "offensive" or "scripted and wooden" (which he wasn't). Might this have something to do with the fact that the NDP would probably boost the CBC's budget, while the Alliance would cut that budget? Maybe, just maybe?

Oh, and an aside. At one point, during the debates, Stockwell Day who was continually being accused of advocating a "Two-Tier" health system, despite the fact that he was /continually/ stating that he did not and had not ever supported any such thing, held up a sign reading "No Two-Tier Health Care" in order to make his point. When he did this, our current Prime Minister is reported to have muttered "Stunt a l'Americain" (the Prime Minister's native language is French, but it means exactly what it sounds like). Some of you were wondering what international perception of America was like...well, here in Canada, we get to watch all of your campaign commercials!

The night of the election debates (while it was still fresh), I wrote an e-mail to a friend of mine discussing the debates. Here's what I said:

Well, elections are coming up, and I've been watching the prime ministers do some debating (French yesterday, and English today). Stockwell Day did much better than I had expected (not that I was expecting much); I thought he managed to stay calm and dignified while everyone else was yelling incoherently at each other. Of course, the people interviewed by /The National/ and some of their "political commentators" thought that this made Day look alternately "wooden and robotic" or "oiled and rehearsed". Well, whatever.

Of course, these are the same people who thought that Alexa McDonough did very well. Gah! I hate her! No matter what the topic is, she's only got one thing to say, basically: "We are wasting our budget surplus by giving tax cuts to people. Instead, we should help people who need a 'leg up' by spending money on health care and education." It's not necessarily a bad thing to say, and it's certainly an important issue, but it's annoying when she can talk about nothing else!

REPORTER: "So, Alexa, what's your position on the justice system?"
McDONOUGH: "We are wasting our budget surplus by giving tax cuts to people. Instead, we should help people who need a 'leg up' by spending money on health care and education."
REPORTER: "Alexa, what do you think are important reforms we should make to our fishing industry?"
McDONOUGH: "We are wasting our budget surplus by giving tax cuts to people. Instead, we should help people who need a 'leg up' by spending money on health care and education."
REPORTER: "Alexa, how do you propose we encourage more businesses to come to Canada to help improve our economy?"
McDONOUGH: "We are wasting our budget surplus by giving tax cuts to people. Instead, we should help people who need a 'leg up' by spending money on health care and education."
REPORTER: "Would you like a glass of water?"
McDONOUGH: "We are wasting our budget surplus by giving tax cuts to people. Instead, we should help people who need a 'leg up' by spending money on health care and education."
REPORTER: "Mr. Duceppe, what is your position on having a strong national government to guide a unified Canada into the future?"
[DUCEPPE and CHRETIEN squabble for a while.]
McDONOUGH: "Tonight, you've heard the stupid Liberals and the stupid Bloc argue about stupid fake issues like the constitution and separatism that nobody cares about and that people are tired of hearing about. We need to address real issues. We are wasting our budget surplus by giving tax cuts to people. Instead, we should help people who need a 'leg up' by spending money on health care and education."

Okay, okay, so I made that stuff up, but that's what it felt like.

Commentators and the "people on the street" interviewed by the National like McDonough because she's "clear" and because she has a firm position. Fine, but it's very one-dimensional, and you could write her entire platform on the back of a napkin!

Some people actually are interested in issues like the constitution and separatism. Sometimes, we want McDonough to shut up about health care so we can actually hear the other leaders say something that relates to the issue!

Annnyway....I still don't know who to vote for.

So. Comments?

-Space "Canadian!" Bar

Incidentally, Orson Scott Card, the noted science fiction author, wrote an essay on Electoral College and posted it on the web. He and Sam seem to share a similar viewpoint! Check it out on the link below.