Came across this review of an older book on a subject that is interesting to PR writers:
Elections British Columbia: The Unique Guide For Provincial Election Participants and Spectators, by T. Patrick Boyle, Vancouver, Lions Gate Press, 1982, 191 p.
However if we judge by the review, the book takes a superficial look at our present electoral system. According to the review, the author says Canada is not a democratic society but instead is a "representative democracy" which means "we are governed by politicians who just happen to get more votes than another set of politicians."
If only that were the case, our present electoral system would not stink quite so much.
Boyle would be surprised by outcome of last two Canada federal elections. where the party elected to the most seats (albeit to a minority of the seats) received fewer votes than another single party.
And Boyle would also surprised by all but three federal elections since 1921.
In all the elections since 1921 (except 1940, 1958 and 1984) the candidates that formed government (minority mostly but also 11 or so majority governments) received less than a majority of the vote - that is, the other politicians/candidates together received more votes than the candidates declared government.
I don't know if he would call all the defeated candidates "a set of politicians" but why not?
{more info on this on my blog
Boyle's writing appears to be part of drive to have property rights enshrined in Bill of Right, and to have FPTP plurality elections replaced by run-off elections (a non-proportional and expensive alternative to our FPTP system).
Boyle's book is perhaps interesting as an historical artifact of a simpler time - of the "in-between" time,
after Alberta and Manitoba dropped their partial-PR systems*
and before PR thought had progressed to our present generally-high level of analysis and clearness of thought as to its best replacements.
*By the 1950s, the provincial PR/AV systems in Alberta and Manitoba, and the use of PR in city elections in Calgary and in Winnipeg and area, were the last surviving remnants of western Canada's wave of PR successes in the 1917 to 1929 period.
In the 1917-1929 period, a total of 20 cities and municipalities in all four western provinces used STV for varying periods of time,
Boyles book is reviewed in the Canada Parliamentary Review
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