A couple of weeks ago, we introduced you to Dan Baril, a political strategist, who used to work for Green Party leader Elizabeth May. He stopped working for her when she stopped taking his advice.
For example, she ran in the October 2008 election in the riding of Central Nova, in a virtually unwinnable seat, against Peter Mackay. Baril suggested she run in a more winnable seat. She didn't. She lost badly. He's moved on.
One of the ideas Baril shared with us during his appearance on The Agenda relates to whether people actually get the results on election day that they want. Here's how Baril describes the exercise on his blog:
"The question asks not for whom you will vote but rather how many seats would you like each of the five main political parties to have in the house of commons. In short, it's a question about Proportional Representation by other means.
"The point of the exercise is to showcase the divide between what kind of representation Canadians want versus what our electoral system gives us. Something is wrong when a system that espouses Democracy delivers something very different from what that Democracy expressly says it wants.
Here's the question Baril actually asked:
Imagine that there are 100 seats in the House of Commons. How many would you like to see each of the following parties win in the October 14th federal election? Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Quebecois, NDP, Green
Some of the findings that were particularly interesting:
* Conservatives thought they were entitled to a large majority government (193 seats). That's a lot of the 308 seats in the house, but not all of them. Even Conservative partisans recognized the need for an opposition.
* Liberals didn't think they deserved a large majority government. They thought they were entitled to the barest of majority governments (157 seats). Interestingly, almost a year before election day, Liberals thought they were entitled to 20 more seats. Presumably, even Liberals fell a bit more out of love with their party over the course of the election campaign.
* Both New Democrats and Greens felt they were entitled to many more seats than they ended up winning. With a proportional representation system, they'd have had those extra seats.
Given that the real seat count doesn't look anything like what a PR system would deliver, we'll revisit the issue of changing the way we elect our politicians on a future program.
To see other findings from the survey, visit Baril's blog. You'll find it here.
