Canadian elections

I haven't said anything to date about the Canadian federal elections because the outcome was admitted by everyone to be pretty predictable. The Conservative Party won, as everyone expected. The only question was whether their win would be big enough to give them a majority in Parliament instead of the plurality that has allowed them to rule through a minority government since January, 2006. Answer: They increased their plurality but still did not get a majority. The bigger story is that the Liberals continued their downward electoral slide. The Conservatives gained 16 seats; the Liberal Party lost 30 seats. How does that add up? People voted for third and fourth parties, most likely to avoid giving the Conservatives an outright majority. Still, this plurality is just 10 votes short of a majority. To win a confidence vote and bring this government down, all of the opposition parties would have to vote together.

Then in Québec, there's the Bloc Québécois. I'm not going to attempt to explain them at this time. If you want to start on your own, see "Charlottetown" and "Lake Meech."

The whole campaign lasted 37 days, blessedly short compared to lengthy U.S. campaigns. On the other hand, it seems like a short time to get to know the candidates. That is, if the candidates are unknowns. In this case, they were not. This was practically a replay of the federal election of 32 months ago. Now that one was a sizzler! Parliamentary systems elect a government for "up to" a specified mandate, generally 5 years. The Premier and his party can choose to dissolve Parliament and hold new elections sooner than that, and do so when they feel they have an advantage (good poll numbers, recent successes, disarray among the opposition). Or the opposition can force new elections through a no-confidence vote on a major bill, usually a budget bill. This was Canada's third election for national leadership in 5 years.

Throughout campaign speakers on radio and TV have said the Canadian election was, in fact, less important than U.S. elections. There is heavy coverage of our Presidential election. They talk about it every day, and have been doing so for a long time. As a rule, the Québécois I hear on the radio read U.S. newspapers and watch U.S. TV. It’s not unusual to hear them discuss what was on “60 Minutes.” They have the ability to move back and forth between the two languages and see what’s going on unfiltered in the original language. In the U.S. Presidential elections, they’re watching and analyzing the debates, the TV ads and just about everything you could see or read in the U.S.

Radio-Canada's morning and evening news shows include a format that is common in media outside the U.S., the press review. Someone, or a panel of someones, goes through today's newspapers of various stripes and summarizes their important stories. In five minutes, listeners get an overview of 6 or 8 or more stories carried in different outlets. Since the reporters on Radio-Canada are bilingual in French and English, they cover the newspapers in Québec, in other parts of Canada, and major U.S., U.K., and European papers. Typically, the summaries run something like this: "Today Le Devoir and La presse (Montréal francophone), the Gazette (Montréal anglophone), the Globe and Mail and the Star (Toronto), the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune are featuring... Then in Europe, the Guardian, the Times, Libération, Figaro, and another paper or two have main articles about....." There's occasional news from newspapers not in French or English, but it is mostly from francophone or anglophone sources. You have to listen fast, but I love this stuff.

Getting the news this way means there's not a single, clear interpretation; that makes it difficult for me to say, "Here it is," about the election results. That would require a really long time listening to sort out all the different views.

One clear fact that inspired frequent comment was the low voter turnout, the lowest in Canadian election history. After all, it was the 3rd in 5 years and practically a repeat of 2006. Still, the "low" voter turnout was repeatedly cited as 59%. That sounds high to me compared to what I've heard before about U.S. elections. Five minutes of googling suggests, however, that there are lots of ways to calculate the numbers.

U.S. voter turnout according to Information Please 43%http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html

A George Mason Univ professor adjusts the numbers to subtract ineligible adults like non-citizens and felons who have lost their voting rights. His graph says about 60%. http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm
Here are his detailed statistics for 2004, the most recent Presidential year. 2006 was in the 30 and 40 percents.
http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2004G.html


I wonder how the Canadian numbers were arrived at. And by the way,I voted today.