Sunday, November 1, 2009

What-If, The next step

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Next, I applied the same idea to more elections. I did a very educated 'guesstimation' of the 2006 and 2004 elections. I then compared it to a 4 party system by combining the PC and CA votes during the 90s. I even then compared this to 1988, 1984, 1980, and 1979 with this simple formula:

The Bloc wins 50 seats in Quebec. In 1979 and 1980 they take those seats from the Liberals, and in the 80's from the Tories. The Alliance wins all PC western seats, and half their Ontario seats. The remainder of the Ontario seats go to the Liberals. (This is very realistic when compared with what we now know) This is for the 5 party system. For a 4 party system, I only did the 50 bloc seats from above. In 1979 I re-added 6 to the Liberals to account for Social Credit.

This is my result:



I present the following arguments:

Since 2004, we've had a minority government in Ottawa. This is about 1500 days. Lester B Pearson lead about 1500 days of minority governance.
All other Prime Minister's combined, lead about 1500 days of minority governance.

Therefore, 1/3rd of our minority governments have occurred since 2004.

As is visible above, so long as the Bloc exists, we will have a minority government 9 out of 10 times. As is also visible above, only then both the Bloc and Reform/Alliance exist, will the Liberals win endless strings of government (9 out of 10). Therefore, I conclude the following.

Canada might be a "Liberal Country" but English Canada is "Conservative"

The Liberals are not the Natural Governing Party without Quebec. The Tories are. The Tories cannot, however, fill that role when split in half. The only time the Liberals have beat a unified Conservative party is either when Quebec is in their back pocket, or when there is 'something wrong' with the Conservative Movement (IE got to ditch Mulroney, we don't like Manning/Day/Harper, etc)

I also present that Minority Governments, in this country, can be damaging. While they have 'worked' over the past few years, I argue that they only add to the pre-existing stress on the country, especially where unity is concerned.

Quebecois have also shown multiple times in the past that they lean to the left, not to the right. If Harper now leads "Canada's Natural Governing Party (TM)" then this could only add to stresses on unity

Therefore. I present the following unsettling conclusion.


Canada cannot continue to exist so long as the Bloc Quebecois exists.


Am I wrong in this assessment? Perhaps. Time will tell.


Sorry, no extra data today!

1 comment:

Bernard said...

The 1960s minority government era also included Diefenbaker in 1962-63 and then Trudeau serving out a few months of the last Pearson term. In total the 1960s minority government era was close to 2200 days long, six full years.

In elections when Canada has had four or more parties winning seats, a majority government is hard to achieve.

The era when Social Credit/Credistes had strength we had 6 minority results and 3 majority results.

The Liberals certainly benefited from the five party elections in 1993, 97 and 2000, but once we shifted to four party races, the minority nature of the political system comes through.

Unless the Bloc disappears, I expect us to see two minority governments for every majority one.