I call it "House of Commons, in Excel."

[c9]

A graph (by me) of the seats won in the House of Commons in each general election since 1867 (when Canada was founded, for those unaware). I found it interesting to look at.

Items to note:

• The dotted line shows 50%+1 seats, the number required to have majority control of the House. In a majority, the governing party gets up to five years in power, whereas in a minority the opposition can topple the government on money bills and confidence motions (as we saw 30-odd days ago).
• Canada has a long tradition of protest parties, it's not just recent. For example, the Anti-Confederation Party at far left won 18 of Nova Scotia's 19 seats in the first general election, and their goal was to reverse Nova Scotia's joining of Confederation. Britain wouldn't let it happen though.
• Another protest party, Social Credit (burgundy) actually led in a way to the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties (green). You can see that the Conservatives' lowest points are far less so when combined with the Progressives in the 1920s and Reform/CA in the 90s.
• You can also see CCF, which became the NDP in 1961 or so. There really shouldn't even be a gap there.
• There have been both United Farmers of Alberta and United Farmers of Ontario parties. Only UFA really got anywhere.
• The Conservative Party joined with the Progressives in 1942, to create the Progressive-Conservative Party of Canada. Or, as one pundit liked to call it, "the backwards forwards party." In 2003, the PCs officially dissolved upon merging with the Canadian Alliance, but I drew the C -> PC -> C sequence as one line, for historically speaking it's the same party, just a little righter than it used to be.
• The Tories are sometimes called the party of Confederation, but the Liberals are nicknamed "Canada's Natural Governing Party."

Judging by the squiggle pattern (because of course that's how these predictions are done), I predict a Conservative minority. We're about due.

Sources: Wikipedia, www.parl.gc.ca

Comments

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

That is just too cool.

[socalledeconomy.livejournal.com]

That's quite a pendulum swing between the conservatives and liberals. Very interesting seeing it charted like that.

[thespos]

That is so interesting to look at! It's really cool!

And interesting the periodicity of it, you know?

Thank you for posting this... it gives an outside observer of Canadian politics a lot of info.

[c9.livejournal.com]

No problem. I keep adding explanatory bullets too, so check back. :)

[c9.livejournal.com]

I don't think NDP voters flock to the Liberals because of good times. They run out of fear. The NDP lost seven ridings last time to so-called "strategic" voting. Grrr.

Yes, Liberals are good at inspiration. But I see this one as mostly a rerun of last time, but with more corruption in evidence to push the Tory vote higher. Veeeeery interesting, in any event.

[c9.livejournal.com]

I'm NEVER going to repeat this again

At least you put it on the Internet, where nobody will ever see it. :)

[leapfish.livejournal.com]

I also predict a Conservative minority, but not because of peaks and valleys on a graph (the TSE was at an all-time high just before it fell to a decade low because of Nortel - trends are deceiving). Of course on this graph Liberal is high when Conservative is low - they're effectively the only two parties. If it's not heads, it's tails. So it makes more sense to look at the situation qualitatively. The social Conservatives haven't made much of a peep this election, because they know that would cause the party to lose. Instead of same-sex marriage and abortion, they talk about corruption and lowering the GST, which is something that Joe and Jane Canadian (who are normally Liberals, btw) can get on board with.

But once J&JC vote-in Harper's minority, and the social Conservatives feel comfortable speaking again, I predict another election before 2006 is out. It'll be easy for the other three parties to gang up on Mr. Harper.

[leapfish.livejournal.com]

Yes, I noticed that the market outperformed today. I consider Bloomberg one of the only websites I can safely visit at work, since it appears work-related.

Apathy aside, let's hope that there is a snow storm over all ridings in which there is a Conservative lead.

[bartok.livejournal.com]

seeing the past history of voting patterns, it really is time for Canada to go with MMP. It may be messy, but you end up with far fewer "wasted" votes (you'd really only waste a party vote if it were for a party that got under the 5% threshold, then the votes are redistributed).

[canuckboy.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of provincial, and some minor provincial, chatter about "responsible government" and proportional representation. British Columbia held a referendum on a solution that was crafted by the citizenry that ultimately did not receive the quantity of YES votes required. (This failure was attributed to poor communication, and not the system of voting.)

It's unfortunate, as the rest of the country was supporting the initiative to see how well it functions.

Here in Ontario, our current government has promised to look at the Democratic Deficit. We'll see if it goes anywhere.

On a Federal level, moving into an MMP/STV model will be extremely challenging. Canada's political landscape is extremely wide and varied (although two provinces - Ontario & Quebec - generally make or break the ruling party). The model would open some Constitutional questions and could lead to yet another referendum on Quebec sovereignty. I'm sure that C9 or myself could elaborate on how... unfortunately, right now, I have to go to work.

The main thing is that reviewing our electoral process = good. MMP/STV = challenging on a national level.

[bartok.livejournal.com]

and the current situation *isn't* challenging?! At some point Quebec separation is going to have to be addressed, and they could very well have a referendum in the next 5 years in the positive. The federal government (and indeed most of the population) need to stop acting as if the problem will just go away by itself.

As for MMP, it lessens tha chances of a majority government, but would result in a parliament that more closely resembles all of Canada.

[canuckboy.livejournal.com]

Where it actually becomes a huge challenge would be how to divide the percentage of the vote. Keep in mind that in Quebec, the Bloc may receive up to 50% of the vote, however nationally, they may only receive 15%. MMP would end up reducing the number of seats the Bloc could win, regardless of how it's sliced up.

Looking at the 1993 election, when the Bloc won the second most seats of any party, will illustrate this point:

In the first-past-the-post scenario, the Bloc won 13.52% of the national vote which converted to 54 seats. On a nation MMP level, that would have provided them 41 seats; provincially, with 49.3% of the vote, they would have garnered 37 seats.

The sad, unfortunate (even disillusioning) reality is that MMP would only add to Quebec separtism. The Bloc (and the PQ) would manipulate a true, fair electoral outcome into an attack on Quebec's right to political choice.

I fully support a re-evaluation of our electoral process and agree it needs to be changed. Our current environment (where the Bloc and the PQ are riding high) excludes this option for the time being.

[bartok.livejournal.com]

I drew the same conclusion about the # of seats the Bloc would garner, and it truly demonstrates the disparity of the current political set-up. I suspect the only manner that would satisfy the Bloc would to have parliament 50% Quebec/50% rest of Canada...however from a holistic "Canadian" perspective MMP would be messy, but act as a way to allow a better view of "political reality" within parliament.

The main thing that annoys me with the Bloc is that I don't really see what separation would acheive. Do you have information that points towards their "demands" to remain within Canada?