Canada should have a progressive federal government
Posted on September 6th, 2008 in canada, politics, rants, society |
With the federal election right around the corner, the latest polls are showing that the Tories are within “striking distance” of a majority, something that is both shocking and quite frightening. If you have followed Stephen Harper or some of his colleagues’ history, you will know that they are truly conservative individuals with extremely right wing agendas.
However, what frustrates me the most is the fact that the majority of Canadians are in fact progressive individuals. There’s the Conservatives who are scooping up the right vote, but then there’s four parties splitting the centre-left vote: the Liberals, the NDP, the Greens, and the Bloc.
Here’s the latest polling data done by Globe/CTV:
- CON: 37%
- LIB: 29%
- NDP: 17%
- GRN: 9%
- BLC: 8%
Which, if you add up the percentages of the four progressive parties, goes to show that there are in fact 73% of Canadians that do not want a Conservative government.
When a progressive populace and a progressive country are represented by a conservative government, I think the alarm bells should be ringing and people should be questioning the representative capacity of our elective system.
I understand why the progressive parties want to stand on their own, but after the Progressive Conservatives merged with the Canadian Alliance, it has in effect given them are unfair advantage over the remaining progressive parties. They collected up their vote, while we continue to split ours.
I do not think the burden should be on gathering the centre-left vote, because Zeus knows the last thing we need is a US-style two party system. We need to be looking seriously at overhauling the elective system and installing some form of proportional representation.
Canada is not a conservative country. Canada should not have a majority Conservative government. Plain and simple.
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2 Responses
The Liberals sure like to talk progressive during elections, but I didn’t see too much progressive legislation being passed while they were in government, especially when they had a majority.
Good point Paul! I was thinking similar thoughts the other day, about how ridiculous it is for us to have a Conservative leader when, in fact, most Canadians are not.