Dave Pollard has a nice summary of yesterday’s election results from Canada. Good news for progressives:
The rightist Conservatives lost nearly a quarter of their support, and only gained seats because they combined into a single party to exploit Canada’s antiquated first-past-the-post voting system. The three progressive parties, the NDP, Bloc and Greens saw their share of the vote rise by 50%. Canadians clearly said once again that Bush-style right-wing governments are not for us. I’m very proud of my fellow Canadians today.
I’m delighted to report that the Green Party got more than double the 2% of the vote nationally they needed to get the new government campaign funding of $1.75 per vote per year until the next election, and also behaved so credibly the Canadian media conglomerate won’t dare exclude them again from the national leaders’ debate next time.
| 2000
Seats |
2000
Pop.Vote % |
2004
Seats |
2004
Pop.Vote % |
|
| Liberal |
172 |
41% |
135 |
37% |
| Conservative |
78 |
37% |
99 |
29% |
| New
Democratic Party |
13 |
9% |
19 |
15% |
| Bloc
Québecois |
38 |
11% |
54 |
13% |
| Green
Party |
0 |
2% |
0 |
4% |
| Independent |
0 |
0% |
1 |
0% |
Must be the clean water. Question for the citizens of north of the border is when do we get progressive government representation?