Monday, February 13, 2017

See, first-past-the-post is working again now

In June 2015 the Liberal Party released a position paper :
“We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.”
and Justin Trudeau took that campaign promise on the road.

At the time the Liberals were 3rd in the polls :
NDP - 32.6%    CPC - 28.6%   LPC - 26.3%
The Liberal majority now rests on 43 MPs whose margin of victory is less than 5%.

Before the election Fair Vote Canada asked all MPs to pledge that campaign promise. NDP did because it is part of party policy; CPC did not because it is not.
The following list of Liberal MPs, some of whom campaigned aggressively on that issue, answered ‘Yes’ when asked before the election if they feel :
"the number of MPs elected to Parliament from each party should be roughly proportional to the number of votes cast for that party’s candidates.":
Cabinet ministers in bold: 

Candidate                            Riding                                         % Margin of victory 
BC
John Aldag                        Cloverdale-Langley City, B.C.          10.7
Terry Beech                       Burnaby North-Seymour, B.C.          6.5
Ken Hardie                         Fleetwood-Port Kells, B.C.              17.6
Joyce Murray                     Vancouver-Quadra, B.C.                  32.9
Carla Qualtrough              Delta, B.C.                                       16.3
Harjit Sajjan                      Vancouver-South, B.C.                    14.9
Jonathan Wilkinson            North Vancouver, B.C.                     29.8 
Jody Wilson-Raybould     Vancouver-Granville, B.C.               17.0

Ontario
Omar Alghabra                    Mississauga, Ont.                           21.1
Leon Alleslev                       Aurora-Richmond Hill, Ont.              2.1
Shaun Chen                         Scarborough North, Ont.                20.8
Neil Ellis                               Bay of Quinte, Ont.                         16.4
Nathaniel Erskine Smith      Beaches-East York, Ont.                 18.6
Karina Gould                      Burlington, Ont.                                3.5
Patty Hajdu                         Thunder Bay-Sup North, Ont.         21.8
Andrew Leslie                      Orléans, Ont.                                   28.8
Lloyd Longfield                    Guelph, Ont.                                    22.8
Karen McCrimmon              Kanata-Carleton, Ont.                     12.1
David McGuinty                   Ottawa South, Ont.                         48.5
John McKay                         Scarborough-Guildwood, Ont.       33.5
Catherine McKenna           Ottawa-Centre, Ont.                         4.2
Maryam Monsef                 Peterborough-Kawartha, Ont.          8.7
Jennifer O’Connell               Pickering-Uxbridge, Ont.                12.1
Rob Oliphant                        Don Valley West, Ont.                     16.2
John Oliver                           Oakville, Ont.                                    6.9
Anthony Rota                       Nippissing-Timiskaming, Ont.         22.6
Kim Rudd                             Peterborough South, Ont.                 2.9
Raj Saini                               Kitchener Centre, Ont.                    18.4
Sonia Sidhu                         Brampton South, Ont.                     17.1
Marwan Tabbara                  Kitchener South-Hespeler, Ont.        5.6
Anita Vandenbeld                Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.             25.9
Arif Virani                             Parkdale-High Park, Ont.                  1.8

Quebec
David Lametti                      LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, Que.          14.9
Alexandra Mendès              Brossard-Saint-Lambert, Que.        25.7
Greg Fergus                        Hull-Aylmer, Que.                            19.9

PEI
Wayne Easter                      Malpeque, P.E.I.                               44.5
Lawrence MacAulay          Cardigan, P.E.I.                                48.8
Bobby Morrissey                 Egmont, P.E.I.                                  20.3

Amarjeet Sohi                     Edmonton Mill Woods, Alta.             0.1
Robert-Falcon Ouellette      Winnipeg Centre, Man.                    26.5
Jim Carr                              Winnipeg South Centre, Man.         31.5
Matt DeCourcey                  Fredericton, N.B.                              20.9
Darrell Samson                    Sackville-Chezzetcook, N.S.           13.6

Ironically, it is first-past-the-post that allows these MPs to now ignore that campaign promise.
h/t Anita Nickerson and Kelly Carmichael at FairVote for poster and stats respectively.
Hill Times : Liberal MPs concerned about PMO’s handling of electoral reform and cash-for-access issues, say Grit sources
.

3 comments:

West End Bob said...

So . . . . I guess we can safely surmise that my MP - hedy fry - didn't even make a token pledge to make voting proportional.

Figures . . . .

Alison said...

She's actually a pretty big supporter of PR and has voted for it in the House, although I don't expect her to vote with today's rather loaded NDP motion that the Liberals "misled" Canadians.

She was one of the 11 Liberal MPs still in government who voted Yes in the HoC in December 2014 on an NDP motion in favour of MMP. The others were Carolyn Bennett, Scott Brison, Rodger Cuzner, Kirsty Duncan, Wayne Easter, Mark Eyking, David McGuinty, John McKay, Joyce Murray, and Adam Vaughan.

Thanks again for your photos of Saturday's protest.

West End Bob said...

My Bad! Who knew?!?

Well, duuuhhhh! Obviously M'Lady knew . . . . ;-)

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