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In the most recent Canadian elections, the Liberal Party of Canada, one of the oldest and most dominant political parties in the world, lost badly and fell into irrelevance. That fall, however, may lead the country to adopt more democratic election reforms, and Canada could serve as a case study for how the success of an insurgent party can upset the old order and bring election reform.
Canada, like the United States and the UK, uses single member districts with plurality winners for its federal elections. This is often called a “first-past-the-post” system. It is a highly unfair and unrepresentative system that prohibitively favors the two most popular parties.
The unfairness of the system was very helpful to the Liberal Party for most of Canada’s history, as long as it was one of the top two parties. For example in the 2000 election, the Liberals won just 40.85% of the popular vote but were awarded 57% of the seats in Parliament. This kind of outcome was fairly common. As a result the Liberal Party saw very little reason to change a system inherently rigged for their benefit.
This all changed with the 2011 election. In that election the Conservatives took first with 39.62% of the popular vote, but winning 53.9% of the seats. The New Democratic Party (NDP) shot up to second with 30.63% of the popular vote and won 33.44% of the seats. The Liberals got 18.91% of the popular vote but won just 11.04% of the seats.
Now that the Liberals had been knocked out of the top two slots, the unfairness of the system finally stopped working in their favor. Instead of getting way more seats than their popular vote warranted, they get way fewer.
As the third most popular party the Liberals face a serious choice on which the entire fate of the Party could rest.
- They could try to formally merge with the New Democratic Party. First-past-the-post voting inherently causes politics to gravitate to a two party system. That could give Canada a traditional left vs right two-party system.
- They can defend the old voting system in hopes they will soon become one of the top two parties again. Such a strategy carries the big risk that it could slowly destroy the Liberal Party or turn it permanently into a small third party with little influence. That could easily happen if they are viewed as spoilers preventing the NDP from getting the votes needed to defeat the Conservatives. Of course the big reward is that if they ever get a mere 40 percent of the popular vote again, they will be able to rule Canada with a large majority.
- Finally they can embrace election reform. If the first-past-the-post system ends, it will mean the Liberals will never again be able to run with huge majorities in the Parliament after getting only a small plurality of the popular vote. On the other hand it would could keep the Liberal Party relevant even if it doesn’t radically increase its vote share. It would likely prevent the party from fading away or being forced to lose its identity in a merger or coalition with the NDP. For example if Canada had used almost any other fairer voting system in 2011, instead of Parliament being controlled by Conservatives, Canada would currently be governed by a New Democrat/Liberal coalition government.
It appears the Liberal Party is now heading towards option three. Fresh off a defeat the Liberal Party approved a non-binding resolution at their national convention calling for Canada to end the first-past-the-post system and adopt a preferential ballot voting system, which uses instant run-off voting.
The New Democrats, who until recently were almost always disadvantaged by the first-past-the-post system in federal elections, have a long history strongly wanting to replace it.
It is possible the next federal election could produce a NDP/Liberal coalition government or a NDP Parliament majority. If that happens we could see the first-past-the-post system eliminated in Canada.
This is how voting reform sometimes happens. An insurgent party gets strong enough to risk the existence of a dominant party. This convinces the formerly dominant party, hoping to maintain some relevance, to embrace reforms that makes democracy more representative.
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If Canadian author Peter C. Newman is correct, it is too late to save the Liberal Party of Canada. One reason for the party’s decline, according to Newman, is that it squandered its money on consultants who bear a chilling resemblance to the consultants south of the border who call themselves strategists and make big salaries giving out bad advice to Democrats.
Oh, and it didn’t help that the Liberals pushed out a leader elected by a party convention in favor of the runner-up, Michael Ignatieff, who supported the Iraq war and had been out of Canada for years.
It’s a pity that the Democratic Party hasn’t been humiliated like the Liberals and has to endorse progressive reforms as the price of survival.
Are the Canadians liberals still liberal or have they been bought off by corps.
How much does Canadian election cost per person.
What are their campaign donations laws.
What other countries have instant runoffs and how has it worked for them.
What do Harper’s polls show.
Will the U.S. allow election reform in Canada.
The MOTU motherfuckers in the U.S. will never allow that to happen here.
As I asked above, will the U.S. allow it to occur in Canada.
Thanks Jon – This article made my day! It has been many many years since I heard anything about the NDP. And the news looks good also!!
Democracy (small d) is my issue. And my rule of thumb is that people without power tend to suffer. That means it is my over-riding issue.
Back when Obama was running, I thought I would probably vote for him. He was a democracy activist like after all! Then I checked his campaign website. The word democracy could not be found! Recently I was considering voting for Ron Paul, He has talked in favor of the original constitutional function of the jury – jury nullification. It was an extremely powerful political right,. I just checked Ron Pauls campaign website. The words jury nullification were not found!
Jury nullification is more than just constitutional. It is quite central to the founding fathers concept of our U.S. Constitution. Ron Paul is apparently a constitutional BS artist! Third party here I come once again!
reference: Jury nullification
The Constitutional Relationship of the People to the Law
http://i-voter.tripod.com/ConstitutionalJury.html
The Liberal Party will probably still exist for another election or two but it’s done for. It served to keep Canada together while Quebec tried to secede and with the fading of that conflict no longer has structural raîson d’ètre (so to speak).
It was the Center party and, as is typical when countries start to modernize in a serious way, the center doesn’t hold and a two party system forms with fairly regular shifts of power between Left/liberal and Right/conservative coalitions. Similarly, the center/conservative wing of the Democratic Party in the USA has declined and disintegrated piecemeal. In UK the party of fitting comparison is(was?) New Labour.
I thought Canada already used STV (single transferable vote)? Maybe that’s just in some local election, or something. I do know several Canadians that discussed how they used last election, and they talked about STV.
What does the United States have to do with the electoral reform in Canada?