We Need Representative Voting!

Hello all,

Sorry for the span of time between writing - but this week has been the proverbial gong show. Have been teaching lots - fantastic.

Anyhoo, the riding Hilary and I live in - Trinity-Spadina was one of the closest races in the election. NDP candidate, Olivia Chow (Jack Layton's wife, and the stoker on the tandem bike in the photo) was running against the 3-time incumbent Tony Ianno. In the last election, Chow lost to liberal Iannon by just 500 votes. Practically nothing.

Like the last time, this race was a close one. I remember clicking on the CBC website, and seeing them within 50 votes of each other. Eventually though - Chow pulled away, and won by a definitive 5% margin. Ianno lost for several reasons:

1. The Liberal Govt's response to the Chinese Head Tax reimbursal. (Not smart, seeing how Chinatown is within his riding.)
2. Ianno's countless empty promises, and the dubious question of where 500 million (yup - that's right, $500000000!) that was slated to develop the Toronto waterfront, and never appeared
3. General ineptitude
4. Chow's history as a Toronto councillor, and a popular one at that.

But enough of the riding. Just wanted to point out some other facts:

1. The NDP garnered 16% of the popular vote, and won 29 seats
2. The "other" party (I think it was someone from the Green Party) got 5% of the popular
vote, and in the end, 1 seat in the House of Commons.

And to top it all off, the Bloc Quebecois got 10% of the popular vote, yet won - get this, 51 SEATS!

There is something seriously wrong here. When the NDP get 1.5 times the number of support and has less than 2/3 the seats of the BQ. Or even more glaringly - the Bloc garners double the votes of the Green Party, yet gets 50 MORE SEATS !

No wonder this country is divided.