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Tom Monto

Past false-majority governments may cause trouble in our future

In the next election some might expect the Conservative party to replace the Trudeau Liberals.


if the Conservative party wins a majority of seats in the House of Commons, that party has right to government.


but if it does not, it has no right to be assured of achieving power, in which case then there might be quite a few disappointed voters - not a majority of the voters but quite a few.


Chances are that the disappointed Conservative voters will not make up a majorty of voters - it has been a long time since the last time any one party won a majority of votes cast in a federal election.


Votes and seats are two different things --although under proportional representation they would be much closer together than our curent First Past The Post single-winner plurality system produces.


Under our political system,

- the majority of votes is not what determines who is in power. - although it should.

- if a party takes a majority of seats, it holds power, whether or not the party won a majority of votes.

-if no one party holds a majority of seats and if a couple of parties work together to amass a majority of seats in the chamber, then that two-party group holds power, whether or not another party has taken more votes than either one of those co-operating parties, or holds more seats than either one of those co-operating parties.


Basically those rules are important becuase they guarantee majority rule -- unfortunately not based on votes but at least based on seats in the chamber.


In a parliamentary system, the executive (the cabinet) is determined by the majority in the chamber. (also the ability to pass laws is based on a majority in the chamber.)


The majority is 50-percent-plus-1 of members in the chamber or more.


Members are shifted into or out of the majority-in-power in the form of party caucuses as whole units, so are never - or seldom are - exactly 50-percent-plus-1.


The executive, the cabinet ministers, who are the executive- can be as many as the party in power - or parties in power - determines. 


Understanding this structure may become all-important in next election -

 if Conservative party again takes more votes than any other party but does not take a majority of seats, there may arise a Canadian equivalent  of the U.S. right's "stolen-election" mantra.


Citizens are not taught basic facts of parliamentary govenment -

the majority in the chamber holds power.

and unfortunately under FPTP the majority in the chamber may not reflect the majority of votes cast in the election.

All the false-majority governments of the past (which includes almost all the one-party majority governments that Canada has had) have been cases where the majority in the chamber did not reflect majority of votes cast.

But people are not taught about that.


so they may think a somewht different rule prevails or should prevail  -- that a minority - a party with only a plurality of seats - has right to rule over the majority. 


They may think this based on the many times when Canada has been ruled, in a manner of speaking, that way - a party with plurality of votes holding power (a party with only a plurality of votes but with a majority of seats).


This lack of basic political education may lead to trouble following the next election.


(But the sometimes-related talk of the executive branch as being distinct from the legislative branch is somewhat un-necessary,

in the parliamentary system, power in each is derived from the same chamber and (directly or indirectly) from the same votes.)


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