Whatever!! Sore loser.

If it had been a Liberal victory it would have been praises and rose ...What a load of crap. welcome to a democratic society. Suck it up losers

he makes some very good points about FPtP systems -eventually it results in a two party system, and as such reduces the choices offered to the electorate AND can result in a large percentage of wasted votes , tactical voting , spoilers and more importantly an appearance of impropriety. its an antiquated system that doesn't work well in this day and age

The question is how does one reform the system to accurately elect the people's choice and still maintain functional government

I think everyone should take heart in Elizabeth May's victory. It took the effort of 2000 volunteers, lots of hard work to identify the voters and to ensure that her supportors got out to vote. This has always how one wins an election.

What shocks me with the supposed "progressive" crowd is how little of technology they used. Having just watched the Eqyptian jasmine revolution, do you think that those people in the streets would not freely vote if given the chance.

I live in downtown vancouver and I only saw 3 people campaigning in the streets (only one politician). Are system is set up so that a grass root movement has a chance to win an election and have a 4-5 year period to govern our country. The key is to get out the vote. Use your social networking prowess. Identify your supporters. Get them out to vote.

What I hate is voting every 2 years? I trust most canadians to not steer us too wrong. If in 4 years time, the NDP get thier act together and win a majority with 35-40 of the populatity vote, I would bitch and complain but in the back of my mind I would congratulate them on running a strong campaign. I would then get motivated to oust them 4 year hence.

Looking at cuz and Emils comments kind of proves that theory that the Conservatives are so sensitive and retaliatory to any criticism. Steve & co. won a majority with 39% that makes 60% of us citizens "critics". Get ready for 4 years of it !

Not to be cliche - but the wisdom of the voters should never be doubted even if the outcome may not be what the majority desire - or even some of those who voted Conservative to provide the majority desired-also dont' like the outcome. Let me explain:

1. Stephen Harper acquired an 'ugly' majority. Though the Bloc have been purged from Quebec they are now in a position to repatriate and run for the Parti Quebecois - the Quebec provincial party poised to win the mandated general provincial election in Quebec which must be held by March 2012. Quebecors despise Stephen Harper and his Conservatives-he doesn't have any quality ministers from the remaining 5 or so who kept their seat in the Crush of Orange. Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Quebecois indicated she will put Quebec sovereignty into motion as soon as she wins (and not wait for any referendum).

Stephen Harper is totally reliant on Jack Layton in this regard --- Laytons' second is Thomas Mulcair from Quebec who epitomises a skillful, intelligent elected Member of Parliament - likely more than we have seen in recent memory---maybe as skillful as Pierre Elliot (not kidding).

The Quebec election - New Brunswick's complaint about its entry into Confederation at the Canada Supreme Court level - and Quebec's swift moves toward separation which will follow a PQ victory (The Liberal Party is Quebec is doing as poorly as the federal Liberals did)--will occupy the first 2 years of Stephen Harper's mandate.

2. The Province of Ontario secured nearly one half of all Stephen Harpers seats in the House of Commons including the city of Toronto. Canada's other two major urban centres, Vancouver and Montreal flatly rejected the Conservatives save for Vancouver South where Ujjal Dosanjh longtime Liberal MP lost. Harper saw the NDP coming and had to make a deal with Paul Martin Liberals (market Liberals) in Ontario. These votes were loaned to him - his Ontario caucus will want to dominate.

3. Harper has to control a larger more confident caucus - some of whom are ripe for missteps - which will be difficult to control. His party's recent history on the ethical front is weak - any misstake will drop his national support in the region - (the vote is on loan from market liberals) and influence national support downward quickly--he cannot rely on continued vote splits--this was a one time deal unless he is very - very good.

4. With a majority Harper has no more excuses he can blame on minority government--he has to produce - and he must do so on Senate Reform, the Courts, and Accountability - where he has stunk the house out--trying to maintain control. If he doesn't move to secure promises made as Reformer - he will lose BC in a heartbeat---as the protesters from the right side will come out--while Liberals in Ontario watch to see if he is Ottawa-Toronto loyal or the Reformer they were worried about.

5. My sources tell me the Conservatives tanked Gary Lunn - by not getting the vote out --- (the only incumbent in BC who truly got trounced) in order to maintain some type of leverage over the New Democrats as Gordon Campbell's BC Liberals did for a long time. This certainly is not said to disparage a very excellent effort by Elizabeth May and the Greens - no - full value for the effort -this is politics however - and rumour or not - all things must be considered going forward.

If Harper can manage his way through all of this - he deserves this majority folks.

I do agree that we should have a system that is more fair, but even with the new distribution of seats, it's a conservative minority that will get to form government first. People are first and foremost concerned with who is in power then distribution second. Even with this new theoretical distribution, people will still complain that 60% of the people who voted did not vote for a conservative minority.

"What a load of crap. welcome to a democratic society."

I would love for you to explain how first-past-the-post, arguably the most regressive electoral model in the Western world, is more "democratic" than proportional representation. It is completely irrelevant who ultimately benefits from it, fptp means that a huge amount of votes in every constituency is effectively meaningless. If you happened to live in an area that is heavily NDP-dominated and you cast your vote for the Conservatives, your vote would literally not count when it comes to the make-up of parliament. In contrast, with a proportional representation system your vote would still count toward the Conservative share of seats via the overall national percentage. There is no rational argument to be made in support of the claim that the latter is not, in fact, more democratic than the former. And this doesn't affect only minor parties, it affects every vote.

Just when we get the strong majority required to make such a massive overhaul of our electoral system, guess what? They're the beneficiary of the "skewed" FPtP system! That's why we've never seen a change and probably never will. Get used to it.