The tragedy that occurred on Election Day still bugs me to this day – Canada recorded the lowest voter turnout rate in history with only 59.1% of eligible Canadians casting their ballots. According to Elections Canada, a total of 13,832,972 votes were cast nationally of the 23,401,064 registered electors. This is undoubtedly a huge blow to Canadian democracy that can’t be overlooked.

Another similarly tragic record was also set on Election Day. A political party received the highest number of votes in a federal election without claiming one seat in parliament. That, of course, was the Green Party, which received just under 1 million votes and 6.8% of the overall popular vote.

So what went wrong this federal election? Why were so few Canadians compelled to exercise their right to vote? There are many potential answers to this puzzling question. Some argue that the U.S. election campaign overshadowed interest in the Canadian election while others claim that an increasing number of Canadians are just uneducated and don’t know enough about the political parties and what they stand for.

To me, however, the biggest issue is frustration with the current First Past the Post electoral system. Under this system, a single constituent is chosen as a winner by having more votes than anyone else, with the second place candidate in a particular riding receiving no representation regardless of the amount of votes he/she receives.

The problem with this system is it causes many Canadians to feel like their vote doesn’t count and won’t make a difference. For example, in a riding that is historically conservatively dominant, what motivation does a Canadian who supports the Green Party have to vote? The Green Party will not win the riding regardless of whether their supporters in the area vote or not. This caused many voters to simply stay home on Election Day.

What Canada needs is a new proportional representation electoral system whereby parties earn seats in proportion to the percentage of the popular vote they receive. Such a system would encourage higher turnout rates, as voters wouldn’t feel their vote goes to waste. It would also encourage voters to stand by the party they truly support rather than make concessions and vote for a different party because they believe their vote would otherwise go to waste.

In October of 2007, a proportional representation referendum was voted on in Ontario and miserably failed. However, it would be a misconception to conclude that Ontarians simply didn’t want such an electoral system. The real problem was the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform pathetic attempt to educate the public about the proposed change. Based on my personal experience speaking to voters, I would argue that no more than 10% of voters actually knew what the referendum was all about. If we’re going to change our electoral system for the better, we need to do a better job educating the public. It’s time to take politics seriously.

Related posts:

1. $300+ Million Down the Drain – 2 Months Later Imagine what Canada could have done with the election budget…...
2. “You Can’t Sink a Howe”: Optimism Among Political Leaders in Canadian History Martin Seligman is a leader in the positive psychology movement....
3. Do Canadians Want Their Electoral System Reformed? Our parliamentary system is constituted in such a way that...
4. The Near Completion of the 2nd Session of the 40th Parliament of Canada T...
5. Social Media and the Federal Election Every candidate attempts to obtain 4 levels of commitment from...

Tags: election, election day, federal, voters

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at 4:36 am and is filed under Federal Election. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.