Yes, I Rule At Photoshop
Well, the results are in and Harper has somehow secured a majority government. I’m actually surprised that they obtained a majority, mainly due to vote of no-confidence in parliament, but this is how it all played out. In all honesty, I can definitely handle the conservatives winning, but I find it odd that Harper is still allowed to lead the party.
At the very least you would think the conservative party would remove Harper as the figurehead based on the previous allegations against him and the vote of no-confidence. But given that Harper’s government renovated the Parliament Buildings and replaced photos of old prime ministers with photos of Harper, I have a feeling that there’s definitely some ego involved here.
Regardless, the best news in all of this is that we as Canadians don’t have to endure another election for four years. Not the result that I ultimately was after, but it is apparently what the majority of Canadians who voted wanted.
Many people are calling for reform, since Harper secured a majority government with only 40% of the popular vote. It is a dated system, and one that’s probably in need of an overhaul. But, it’s the system we currently have, and those are the results.
My only real complaint with the whole process was what I observed here in Chilliwack. There were two lines at the polling station, one for people that had voting cards and one for people without. Maybe I don’t know how the process works, but I sort of thought we were all to receive them in the mail. I can still receive mail from my old address out here, and I never received one. Many other people in line also didn’t have cards, and so all of us were forced to go into the second line, which was for people who didn’t have a voter card.
When asked how long it would take to get through the line one of the volunteers responded that it was roughly a half-hour long. At that point many people groaned, and about three or four people just left. I didn’t watch the back of the line once I was in it, but I imagine more people left, and that’s a shame. On one hand those people probably should have stayed, but on the other it’s hard not to blame the process for making it time consuming. The whole purpose of that line was simply to look in a set of books and let each person know which desk to go to inside the polling station. Since there was no personal information in those books, there’s really no reason why a whack of them couldn’t have been placed out on the halls for people to browse through on their own. Some people probably would have still needed help, but many of us could have easily thumbed through it and saved ourselves a 30 minute wait.
But I’m at least happy I made the drive out to Chilliwack to cast my vote and take part in our democratic process, even though my party didn’t end up out in front.
Funny, in the UK they are holding a referendum to change it to the current Canadian voting method: first past the post. Isn’t it 5 years if you hold a majority?
Average duration is about four years.
The one other thing about Chilliwack voters at least is that most already know that they won`t make much of a difference, so a half hour wait may seem like a waste of time. I was actually surprised that the results in Chilliwack weren`t closer, given the terrible campaign that Mark Strahl ran, including skipping most all-candidate meetings (especially ones where young voters were involved), and the way he was nominated. However, one possible reason he won and continued the Conservative streak in our riding was offered by a volunteer I know for the Green candidate in Chilliwack. She met a lot of people in trying to get the Green message out, but many told her that while they liked some of the ideas the Greens were pushing and in some cases didn`t even like Strahl or Harper, they were still voting for Strahl because he is Christian. Ironically, I would bet that all the candidates would identify themselves as such (she confirmed that the Green candidate was quite devout in fact), but for some reason, the more right leaning the party, the less the faithful of many faiths seem to support that party. I`m not sure why that is, but it continues to be a trend in politics, albeit a diminishing one and moreso in some areas than others.
Of course, across Canada that was by no means the only reason. Vote splitting really helped the Conservatives in Ontario, where they won many ridings because of a split of NDP and Liberal voters allowing the Conservative to win. Turnout wasn`t much better than `08, showing that voter apathy is in fact still there. And the reality remains that many older voters still weren`t comfortable with voting for Layton and a party that had never had a sniff of power in the past. If nothing else comes of this election, the viability of the NDP as a credible alternative could make things interesting in 4 years, especially if the Liberals either don`t survive or throw in with them.
Andy, 1st past the post makes far more sense in a two-party system. With Canada’s currently 5 parties (we’ll see if the Bloc survives) proportional representation would be ideal. 1st past the post will encourage the collapse of party diversity into a simpler polarity.
The Reform party (far right) and Progressive Conservatives merged to become the Conservative Party, after realizing that the vote splitting on the Right/Centre Right was allowing for majority after majority Liberal gov.
I would agree that it is weird that he is elected but what we have to remember is the first vote was parliment and not the people of Canada.
Next note Dale you have to get Duane to do more photoshop you should of seen how proud of that pic he was last night