Numerology
Jan. 24th, 2006 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojFinal tallies, for those who are interested in that kind of thing:
Nationwide (308 seats)
Ontario (106 seats)
My home riding
And, for non-Canadians who are a little lost as to what all of this means, here's a brief summary of our political system:
The government is whoever has the most seats. If the party with the most seats has more than half of the seats, they are a majority, which means that pretty much whatever bills they propose will become law, because, with rare exceptions, Canadian pols vote by party lines. It also means that the biggest party gets to stay in power for up to five years, when the next election is called.
If the biggest party does not have more than half the seats, that means that in order to get bills passed, they have to work with the other parties to get them to vote for the bills too. It also means that, if there's a big enough stink raised about anything, the other parties can gang up and call a vote of no confidence, at any time. And if the leading party loses that vote of no confidence, they have to call a new election.
That's what happened with the Liberals. They were a majority government for ten years, then held a general election and became a minority government. They cooperated pretty well with the NDP (socialist party) and with the Bloc Quebecois, for about 1.5 years. Then the results of an inquiry into major corruption came out, the Bloc, NDP, and Conservatives held a vote of no confidence, and the Liberals lost. Hence our current election.
Which has been won by the Conservatives, as a minority. Which is not great, but not the end of the world, either, because they won't be able to ram through whatever they want whenever they want, because if they try to do that they'll face a vote of no confidence too.
And yeah, my home riding elected a Conservative. Who is apparently a really decent guy, very principled, honest and hard-working, says a friend of mine who knows him but did not vote for him because she was voting Green.
Oh, and: Prime Minister Paul Martin is resigning.
Nationwide (308 seats)
| Party | Elected | Vote Share |
| CON | 124 | 36.25% |
| LIB | 103 | 30.22% |
| BQ | 51 | 10.48% |
| NDP | 29 | 17.49% |
| IND | 1 | .52% |
| OTH | 0 | 5.05% |
Ontario (106 seats)
| Party | Elected | Vote Share |
| CON | 54 | 39.93% |
| LIB | 40 | 35.08% |
| NDP | 12 | 19.44% |
My home riding
| Party | Number of Votes | Vote Share |
| John Baird (CON) | 25607 | 43.13% |
| Lee Farnsworth (LIB) | 20244 | 34.09% |
| Marlene Rivier (NDP) | 9569 | 16.12% |
| Neil Adair (GRN) | 2932 | 4.94% |
| John Pacheco (IND) | 905 | 1.52% |
| Randy Bens (CAP) | 121 | 0.2% |
And, for non-Canadians who are a little lost as to what all of this means, here's a brief summary of our political system:
The government is whoever has the most seats. If the party with the most seats has more than half of the seats, they are a majority, which means that pretty much whatever bills they propose will become law, because, with rare exceptions, Canadian pols vote by party lines. It also means that the biggest party gets to stay in power for up to five years, when the next election is called.
If the biggest party does not have more than half the seats, that means that in order to get bills passed, they have to work with the other parties to get them to vote for the bills too. It also means that, if there's a big enough stink raised about anything, the other parties can gang up and call a vote of no confidence, at any time. And if the leading party loses that vote of no confidence, they have to call a new election.
That's what happened with the Liberals. They were a majority government for ten years, then held a general election and became a minority government. They cooperated pretty well with the NDP (socialist party) and with the Bloc Quebecois, for about 1.5 years. Then the results of an inquiry into major corruption came out, the Bloc, NDP, and Conservatives held a vote of no confidence, and the Liberals lost. Hence our current election.
Which has been won by the Conservatives, as a minority. Which is not great, but not the end of the world, either, because they won't be able to ram through whatever they want whenever they want, because if they try to do that they'll face a vote of no confidence too.
And yeah, my home riding elected a Conservative. Who is apparently a really decent guy, very principled, honest and hard-working, says a friend of mine who knows him but did not vote for him because she was voting Green.
Oh, and: Prime Minister Paul Martin is resigning.
