Race to the Right 2009

Nothing is quite as satisfying politically as watching your opponents go through a leadership fight. The Ontario PC's are now engaged in a leadership contest. A quick run through of the candidates declared and otherwise.

Tim Hudak, MPP for Niagara West-Glanbrook: One of the youngest members of the Common Sense Revolution, Hudak has legislative experience having been elected in 1995. He also has cabinet experience though not exactly in high profile ministries. Most importantly, Hudak is reported to have the support of former Premier Mike Harris and other high ranking Tories. Expect CSR part 2 from Hudak. He has not officially declared but it would be a shocker if he doesn't soon. Assuming he's in, his challenge will be attracting enough second ballot support to avoid being yet another losing frontrunner See: Tabuns, Peter (2009); Clinton, Hillary (2008), Ignatieff, Michael (2006); Kennedy, Gerard (1996) etc.

Christine Elliot, MPP for Whitby-Oshawa: Elliot is a bit of a tabula rasa politically. She is most often defined by her marriage to Jim Flaherty. Elliot may not be as radical as her husband (she supports gay marriage, for instance) but certainly wouldn't be viewed as a voice of the progressive wing of the PC's. The optics may be wrong for Elliot. How does an Ontario premier complain about the fiscal straight-jacket being imposed on the province by Ottawa when her husband is the federal finance minister? Ms. Elliot should be judged on her merits, the question is whether that is possible. There is no guarantee Elliot runs. I'd put the odds at around 60% she runs.

Frank Klees, MPP for Newmarket-Aurora: Yes, the other guy from the 2004 leadership race is back. Klees should not be discounted entirely. He won 22% of the vote last time around and has arguably the longest resume in the race. Long resumes, however, are not guarantees of success in politics just ask Bill Richardson. He has the backing of the politically active Rev. Charles McVety so that may be a hint as to where his support base is. Klees has declared his candidacy.

Randy Hillier, MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington: Because no leadership race is interesting without the radical quirky candidate, we have Randy Hillier. Yes, the man who once sent a dead animal to a provincial cabinet minister and has been arrested for his radical farmers' protests is running to be premier. Mr. Hillier undoubtedly has a constituency. However, the PC's rules don't favour a rural based candidate. There simply aren't enough rural ridings for Mr. Hillier to be successful in a weighted one-member-one-vote system. Mr. Hillier has also officially declared his candidacy.

Masood Kahn: Even if Mr. Kahn was a serious candidate for this job, he'd be doomed by circumstance. The Tories are not going to elect anyone who does not currently have a seat in the legislature. However, he is in the race, so I guess this might be a Martha Hall-Findlay like attempt to raise his profile. In which case, all the power to him. He's in, so we should learn a bit more about him in the coming weeks. Then again maybe not... anyone got a bio on Gilles Bisson?

In Perfect Harmony

Just wanted to say a few words about Premier McGuinty's plans to harmonize the PST and GST in the province of Ontario. This is something that has been a long time coming. If you talk to small business owners and frankly, large business owners in this province they will tell you that this is something that will ease the bureaucratic burden. This was a burden imposed on the province by Brian Mulroney and now thanks to Dalton McGuinty it has at least been partially lifted. I understand that this will not be cheap for Ontarians. It is a tax grab. However, there aren't a lot of tax grabs that help foster a better environment for business in Ontario. This does. The province is in trouble and needs any extra income it can get. Businesses need reasons to stay open; they need a reason to keep trying in this economic climate. This can't hurt. Dalton McGuinty can be called a lot of things, cowardly isn't one of them. This is a man of great political courage and he should applauded for doing the right thing, even if it isn't the most popular thing today.

BC-STV: It Depends Where You Live

One of the more perplexing things about BC-STV, the proposed electoral system on the ballot in the upcoming BC provincial election, is that it changes depending on where you live. Most people in the province would find themselves in an electoral district represented by four or five members. However, there is significant deviation from this median. For instance, the BC Electoral Boundaries Commission or BC-EBC (starting to look like alphabet soup?) has proposed that in order to avoid an overly large electoral district in Northern British Columbia that the districts for Northeast and Northwest BC be limited to just two members. The people of Victoria and environs will have, by contrast, seven representatives. What is the difference? Quite a bit actually.

First of all, it severely limits the chance that anyone except for the Liberals and NDP would get elected in these electoral districts. Why? Because in order to get elected in the new Northern electoral district of Peace River you would require 1/3 of the vote plus 1. By contrast in Victoria you would only require 1/8 of the vote plus one. With a high threshold, the riding will be a difficult target for smaller parties. If the Greens were polling at 15% province wide, they would be wise not to waster their time in the north. The high threshold in these two member ridings would threaten to lock the ridings into a permanent state of 1 NDP MLA and one Liberal MLA with neither party able to get the requisite 2/3 of the vote to dislodge the opposing member. This predictable scenario could lead to the ultimate disaster for the people of Northern British Columbia: politicians stop having to listen to their concerns. If you are a strategist designing a platform for either major party you would be unlikely to put anything in to court northern voters, as there is no plausible reward and a high chance that there would be no punishment for the omission. The only competition would be within the party to determine which candidate gets on the ballot.

More technically, a vote is counted differently depending on how many members need to be elected. The transfering of votes which is the hallmark of STV happens more often depending on the number of candidates and the number of seats available. If there's only two seats, which in turn would drive down the number of major party candidates on the ballot (assuming the parties are strategic in the number of candidates they run in each district: a fairly safe assumption), thus inevitably driving down the number of transfers. Advocates of STV view the transfers as a way of understanding voter intent on a deeper level. If you don't have as many transfers, you have a more shallow interpretation of voter intent.

Canadian geography is always going to be an argument against a system which elects multiple members per electoral district. In the case of BC-STV, as currently proposed, the lack of density in Northern British Columbia would fundamentally make the electoral system different in the North than in the more populous south. The question is whether or not British Columbians are comfortable having different electoral systems depending on where they live.

Earth Hour 2: This Time It's Electoral

Earth Hour is back. This time they've eliminated most of the pretext of this actually being good for the planet (and thank God for that). This time it's just a massive demonstration ahead of the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen later in the year. The organizers are calling it a global election between the earth and climate change. Turn off your lights or the polar bear gets it! Yay for ridiculously false dichotomies! In all seriousness, the time to lobby governments about this is long past. No amount of darkness is going to make governments more willing to put domestic industry at risk in Copenhagen. People might care about climate change but they care about their job more. As long as there is a connection between going green and decreased industrial output in the minds of governments from Washington to Moscow to Beijing, we will not see real progress on climate change. The challenge in Copenhagen as it was in Kyoto and Bali before, will be reconciling the need for cheap electricity to fuel economic growth in places like China and India. This and the linked chicken-egg problem of the US only willing to reduce its emissions if the manufacturers of Asia are similarly bound and the Asian manufacturers unwilling to bind themselves to any agreement to reduce emissions until their CO2 per capita is equal to the West is what will challenge negotiators at Copenhagen. No amount of sitting in the dark will make these challenges any easier. Like so many other causes célèbres, it is easy for people to shout "Do Something About Climate Change!" Sorting out geopolitical intricacies, scientific challenges and economic dilemmas is a little more difficult. Earth Hour will yield nothing but anger, disappointment, and, inexorably, another Earth Hour twelve months hence.

Flintstones? Don't Insult Fred and Wilma

Gary Goodyear should resign. It isn't that someone who doesn't believe in evolution can't serve in government, he just shouldn't responsible for scientific funding. I wouldn't want a religiously motivated pacifist at the Ministry of National Defence either. That said, can we stop the Flintstones jokes and start taking this news story seriously. See when I heard this story, I immediately went to this:




Remember how we all laughed at the silly ignorant Americans? Laughed a little too soon.

Theocratic Democracy: An Oxymoron in Our Time

Iran's politics fascinate me. It might just be that I don't really understand how the system works and it is therefore interesting in its mystery. More likely, I think it's the apparent contradiction between the Governing Council of religious rulers and relatively democratic presidential elections (once the candidates are pre-screened). What kind of theocracy has term-limits? It's also of critical importance to the peace of the planet that current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is defeated and replaced by a more moderate, reform-minded leader. So, the withdrawal of former President Khatami in favour of another reform-minded candidate adds a new wrinkle to this story. Although it may be within a narrow range, there is a decision left to the people of Iran. I watch with interest and hope that they choose a candidate of peace.

Cramer v. Stewart

A few words on what I think will be the interview of the week if not the month. For those of you out of the loop, Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money was the guest on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart after a week of squabbling back and forth. Stewart was at his best and worst last night. His worst because he barely let Cramer speak, letting his emotions overwhelm his skills as an interviewer. His best because it was reminiscent of the oft replayed Crossfire episode where Stewart took Tucker Carlson and to a lesser extent Paul Begala to task for their coverage of politics. Stewart seemed to channel the anger of a nation and let Jim Cramer stand in for America's financial industry. Cramer acted like a diplomat in a hostile capital: quiet and conciliatory. There was none of Cramer's trademark energy, anger and humour. Stewart ambushed Cramer with video of the former hedgefund manager explaining how to artificially lower a stock's share price without getting caught. Cramer could only watch uncomfortably and apologize. Cramer's attempts to defend himself and his network seemed half-hearted. His only real argument seemed to be that Wall Street executives had lied during their interviews on CNBC. Stewart was having none of it.

In the 1930's, bank robbers gained the status of cult heroes as people found solace in the damage done to the banks which had wrought such havoc in their lives. Stewart struck a similar populous chord last night. He was uncompromisingly angry. He was ruthless. When he said "we" when talking about the American people, he did not risk much dissent from Main Street. There will be those who will be like Tucker Carlson was in the middle of Stewart's Crossfire interview when he grumbled "I thought you were supposed to be funny." However, his fans will be content. Stewart is popular not just because he's funny but because he's funny and in touch with the frustrations that modern America has with itself. Cramer will not like Carlson fade to black. I think both Cramer and Stewart realized the potential for this feud. Mad Money and The Daily Show do not have a huge overlap in audience. I think they probably both gained fans this week from the cross-pollenization. Cramer looked like he was taking his medicine last night and it may prove to have been good for him.

A Bad Clip is a Dangerous Thing

Some quick thoughts about quoting out of context. First, stateside Jon Stewart has started a war with CNBC over their coverage of the economy. Stewart is right in his criticism that CNBC cheerled the housing bubble all the way up and did next to no investigative journalism into its potential consequences. Did he need to take Jim Cramer out of context when he was talking about the safety of money invested with Bear Stearns as opposed to money invested in their stock? No. Likewise, this vid slamming Harper on the economy takes the PM out of context for no reason. Harper was actually right in his statement that the Canadian HOUSING MARKET is in a cyclical downturn but does not require major government intervention (I don't consider the collateral damage insurance to the banks as major intervention). I mean seriously, the interview Harper did with Amanda Lang during the election is gold (that's the "buying opportunity" one). Why do you need to misquote an interview where he actually sounded intelligent?

Congratulations Rick Johnson!

We have a new MPP for Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock and it isn't John Tory. I guess this proves the old adage: if at first you don't succeed; fail, fail, fail again.

The Rock and The Hard Place

I'm not an economist. I have studied a bit about economic crises and their political responses, but I'm by no means an expert. However, I think what we need today is a better sense of the consequences of the actions being proposed to deal with the economic crisis. This isn't a Glen Beck what if the worst case happens thing, it's more of a why is everybody saying "do it my way or else" thing. So in what is probably in oversimplified, layman's explanation, what exactly are people so scared about.

The Rock: The rock here isn't Newfoundland, it's Japan. Specifically the economy of Japan for the last twenty years. In the late 1980's the Japanese economy was overwhelmed by a series of bank failures. The Japanese government responded with piecemeal bailouts and the maintenance of a zero percent interest rate. The result was banks that were too weak and risk averse to lend but not weak enough to fail and be put out of their misery. The term zombie banks is used because they were essentially half-dead. It can fairly easily be argued that Japan never really recovered from that shock. The Nikkei certainly hasn't. GDP growth has been slow when it's grown at all. In the late 90's economists called it the lost decade, it's now more like a lost score (in the Lincolnesque use of the word). The similarities to today are striking and worrying.

The rock is what we know. It is the go to scare tactic for those on the ideological right. It's proof, if one case can be a proof, that simply throwing money at a problem doesn't make it go away.

Quick side note: The response of some on the left, that there is a similar success story in Sweden is not all its cracked up to be. The Swedish economy which was bulldozed in the early 90;'s recovered but whether that was because Sweden took over banks or because Sweden liberalized labour and trade laws in the early 90's culminating in their accession into the EU, is highly debatable. They both probably played a role, but I don't see comparable liberalizations which could encourage global economic growth today. In other words, the ideal antidote is short term stability and medium term growth but you need both to be effective. Short term stability with no prospects for growth is Japan and growth is simply impossible without some level of stability.

The Hard Place: The hard place we don't really know. It's more ambiguous. There are a few different nightmare scenarios here. I'll paint the one I think most troubling. There's no historical equivalent here. This is the argument against those who oppose anything with any government involvement. In other words, against neo-liberal ideological rejection of government aid: see the House Republicans in the States. The scenario here involves why exactly the financial architecture in New York is so important. There are those who argue that we should just let the weak banks fail and eventually the smaller national banks or the stronger regional banks will fill the void. The problem with this argument is that you have to pray that the world doesn't panic when the banks start falling like dominoes. Markets are as much psychology as they are economics. If Wall Street starts crumbling, what happens to all those investors in East Asia and elsewhere who have the United States and its financial institutions as pillars and safety net of their economies? In other words, what if all that US currency and treasuries held in Asia comes home all at once. A run on the US dollar or US debt would have untold consequences.

The United States has been the economic backbone of the free world for sixty years. First because a bunch of people got together in New Hampshire and designed it that way and then post-1970's because people were so used to operating that way. The entire global economy is built on the premise that the United States will be their as the guarantor of last resort. If the US is not seen as a reliable guarantor, the world changes. It is debatable whether a better financial architecture may be possible at the end of a such a change. What is virtually certain is that the change in between would wreak untold carnage in the global economy. Credit markets would become paralyzed. Business would become almost impossible. That's the hard place.


I don't have the third way. If I did I wouldn't be blogging about it, I'd be advising world leaders. I just think it is important that when you hear ideologues on both the left and the right say that down the other path is certain doom, they aren't crazy. As a society, we can neither be ignorant of the pitfalls nor paralyzed by them. These are not easy decisions and they will have profound consequences. However, some decision must be made.

Yet Another Abandoning?

The European Union is looking less and less like a union these days. There was a sense that after World War II, Western Europe abandoned their Eastern brothers to the iron fist of the Soviet Union. It wasn't like there was much that could have been done, but the feeling of regret stuck. I wonder if that is on anyone's mind as the major Western powers once again go deaf to the concerns of Eastern Europe. I wonder what the currency, stock and bond trading will look like on Monday morning in country's like Hungary and Latvia which are teetering on the edge of complete economic collapse. Western Europe again demonstrates its penchant for supporting any worthy cause unless there's actually a cost involved. Canadian and American troops have learned that lesson in Afghanistan and now the economies of Eastern Europe face the same cold shoulder. What happened to fraternity and solidarity in Europe?

Flaherty Doesn't Want To Talk To Himself

All of a sudden our "this market is a buying opportunity" Conservative government is in an awful rush to spend money. See, Jim Flaherty wants to circumvent the normal process for the spending of government money. Now, traditionally budgets are screened and approved by the Treasury Board. It is possible that the President of the Treasury Board, Vic Toews, has a secret plan to prevent any of this stimulus money from getting out but I doubt it. I really doubt that the Treasury Board is that scary to Mr. Flaherty after all, he's a member. Yes, folks, Jim Flaherty doesn't want the stimulus to be delayed by Jim Flaherty. Who could blame him.

Side Note: The NDP's new source for all their ideas: the United States. Barack Obama is putting up a website to track the stimulus cash. The NDP want one too. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm just saying the Obama-envy is getting a little nauseating even for an Obama fan like myself.

Jim Stanford's Economic Fantasies

The thing about the NDP is that most of the time their wacky left-wing arguments don't get much press time. We don't see them, so we forget how ill-conceived they are. Thankfully, the Globe gives writing space to socialist economist Jim Stanford. Here's the link to today's delusion. Let's start with the premise. Most serious economist that I've heard don't claim that protectionism made the great depression a depression, they claim that it made it great. In other words, they argue that the closing of borders FOLLOWING the crash of 1929 made it nearly impossible for the global economy to recover. That's why most economists are scared half to death about new protectionist measures coming forth in today's recovery plans. Straw men while convenient are a sure sign of fallacious argumentation. Let's move on. Did free trade cause this global meltdown? Well, no or at least not the free trade most union hacks oppose. The trade of goods and services free from tariffs did not cause this problem. What caused this problem was the simultaneous adoption of subprime mortgages with and the securitization of the relevant credit paper. While this was freely traded which in turn has caused problems (like socialist darling Sweden praying that collapsing banks in the Baltics don't crush Swedish banks), that really is a function of banking regulations not trade policy.

Canadian trade relative to GDP fluctuating in between two years when there was free trade is an irrelevant statistic. I don't know the numbers. But, if Mr. Stanford wanted to make this argument he should have made it between 1985 (before the FTA) and today. Of course at least some of the decline in the period Mr. Stanford marks can be attributed to declining trade within the North American auto industry. When a piece of a car can cross the border numerous times in a production process it has a disproportionate impact on trade statistics. When fewer car parts and cars are crossing the border, the number is going to drop. As Mr. Stanford himself points out auto exports have dropped 40%. Frankly, the decline of the American car giants started in the 1980's or earlier. The residual effects depressing trade stats is not a good argument against free trade. Nor is the loss of the American saving instinct. Why Americans kept borrowing and spending amidst economic decline is a complicated question but I don't know how Mr. Stanford can tie that back to trade. There's no clear cause and effect relationship here. Finally, Stanford argues trade deals with Asia killed the big three. Let's separate fact from fiction. What most people in the North American car industry complain about is the lack of FREE access to Asian markets. The problem with the trade deals isn't that they're too free but that they are not free enough. The argument that the Big Three usually give is that if they could sell cars without tariffs in Japan, South Korea, Europe etc. they'd be just fine. I don't think that's the only problem the Big Three has but I wouldn't oppose making our trade relationships in Asia more free.

It's a sign of great arrogance that Mr. Stanford believes Canadians should only be able to buy cars made by American car manufacturers. This argument is a tad perplexing. In point of fact, the North American auto industry is now much larger than just the big three. Japanese auto manufacturers provide good paying manufacturing jobs to Canadians and Americans alike. I have never seen a reason for Canadians to favour a company based in Detroit over one based in Tokyo. They are both companies based in foreign countries with large economies which are friendly to Canada. The should be treated equally. Mr. Stanford is biased and sees the union shops as domestic industry. They're not. Toyota and GM are equally Canadian in that they fundamentally aren't Canadian. GM Canada is as Canadian as Toyota Canada. In both cases, Canada is not the home base for these companies and will not receive preferential treatment in either expansion or contraction. Magna, which is Canadian, provides parts to many car manufacturers from various countries and they perhaps deserve our consideration in terms of government support. What's good for Magna is good for Canada. What's good for GM is still only good for America.

Separated at Birth?

Alleged Fraudster Allen Stanford and Comic Legend John Cleese

Indecision 2009: Oy Gevalt Edition

When I said in my last post that I loved Israeli elections, I wasn't being completely disingenuous in spite of the context. They are absolutely fascinating theater. Being a Jewish-Canadian, I probably follow Israeli politics a little more closely than some other countries but I challenge you to find an election with a wider variety of compelling narratives. Here is a country at war holding free and fair elections. It is a country where Jewish-Israelis and Arab-Israelis vote and hold office. But beyond the general, there are some really fascinating story lines which have resonance beyond the ever-present military issues. You have the possible election of a female Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, in an election defined by military issues. There are a lot of people who would say that this would be an amazing feat in most countries, it's barely an issue in Israel. You have the resurrection of the political career of a man, Benjamin Netanyahu, who last held office ten years ago. Not a lot of leaders can claim to have come back from the political dead after that long out of power. There is also the collapse of the party that used to be Israel's "Natural Governing Party", Labour. Labour couldn't even win in their traditional and spiritual (spiritual, not religious) base of support: the kibbutzim. Kadima matched their support there. The story of a collapsing NGP is not uncommon. Also not uncommon is the rise of a quasi-racist party to prominence. From Denmark to the Netherlands to Switzerland we've seen these nationalist parties gain in support and the third place finish of Mr. Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu is further confirmation of this trend. Finally, the continued power of the religious right is an issue which transcends oceans. In Jerusalem, religious parties finished second and third behind Likud. The secular left, Labour, and right, Yisrael Beitenu, finished in a tie for sixth in Jerusalem. Truly fascinating and a political scientist's wet dream.

How to Elect A Government Under PR

Step 1: Vote
Step 2: Count
Step 3: Six weeks of backroom deals.

I love Israeli elections.

STV Debate: Some Basics

The debate over electoral systems is an interesting one. It is also a frustrating debate to engage in, principally because of some logical leaps made by proponents of various forms of change. I believe I've made this argument before, but it bears repeating. When discussing an electoral system it is useful to measure it on what it promises to do and the reasons for its introduction. In the case of First Past The Post, the system is designed to provide a means of finding the most popular candidate in a given area to represent those people in a legislature. That's it. Parties and national vote totals are not a consideration. So when people complain about the popular vote not being reflected in parliament or in a provincial legislature, there's a good reason for that: the popular vote is not a determinant in electing MP's or MPP's or MLA's as the case may be. In fact, the province-wide or national popular vote is as relevant as voter turnout in determining the shape of the legislature. FPTP is a system of bringing people from various areas together in a congress (if you'll excuse the term) to make decisions. In Canada, this was a salient system in a country blessed with great amounts of land and few people. That's why we have FPTP in Canada. It is organic. Usually, electoral systems are devised with a certain goal in mind based on the existing political system. Generally, they are introduced to fix some problem.

In BC, the problem that the Campbell government originally wanted fixed was the lopsided 2001 provincial election where the government won a overwhelming majority, leaving little in the way of an opposition. Also, the 1996 election where the NDP retained power in spite of garnering fewer votes than the Liberal opposition. If that is the problem that needs fixing, the obvious answer is some system where there is province-wide proportionality guaranteed to political parties namely the Liberals, NDP and Greens. As I understand it, the Citizens' Assembly in BC rejected PR systems like the one recently defeated in Ontario and PEI because they disliked with the idea of party lists. Instead they proposed STV. The only problem is that STV doesn't remedy the problem that was at the crux of the matter. STV is designed to provide a voice to minorities (e.g. Protestants in Ireland). Thus, while it is nearly impossible to generate the results seen in the 2001 election under STV, there is no guarantee of proportionality. Furthermore, the 1996 BC Election which got Premier Campbell on the electoral reform path in the first place, could easily happen under STV. I'd argue it's not even that much less likely to happen under STV than FPTP. If the goal was to eliminate the possibility of a repeat of the 1996 BC Election, this is not the system to fulfill that goal. This is the problem with STV that I've never heard explained away. If BCers want an electoral system which will ensure that party preference is reflected in the legislature, they should reject STV and look at PR. If the idea of a party list is as repulsive to them as it was to voters in Ontario and PEI, than they should stick with the system they have.

Cartoons Can Be Deceiving

Back on the anti-STV trail. Because I'm feeling generous I'll let my opponents define their system as they would see fit. Here's the vid:



Think the video has all the answers? Pop Quiz!

1. In the beginning of the video, it states that a person may choose to vote for only one candidate, in that case what happens when that vote needs to be redistributed?

2. How does BC-STV guarantee proportionality, province wide?

3. The video says every vote counts, how does the 4th place candidate (whose votes are never redistributed) have his votes counted any more than they would under FPTP?

4. What is the formula to determine the transfer value for votes transferred a second time?

5. How many times was a vote for the first place candidate counted? How many times was the votes for the 4th place candidate counted?

6. Should voting be this complicated?

Don't have the answers? Maybe switching voting systems isn't child's play after all.


We learned this fall that Canadians don't understand their parliamentary system as well as we'd all like. If you are going to vote in the upcoming referendum in BC, get informed, know what you are voting for.



Answers to Pop Quiz:

1. They don't get redistributed, because that's not possible. As I understand it, ballots that can no longer be counted are discarded and the threshold is recalculated excluding those ballots. So let's say 10,000 people vote in a riding with 3 MLA's the original threshold would be:

(10000/(3+1))+1=2501.

Let's say that after the first candidate is elected/dropped there are 200 ballots with no further preferences, the threshold would be recalculated as

(9800/(3+1))+1=2451.

In other words, the bar is constantly moving.

2. It doesn't. This is damn close to an out and out lie. In Ireland, where this system is used, results are nowhere near proportional. In the last election Fianna Fáil lost seats while increasing their share of the popular vote, something that shouldn't happen in a proportional system.

3. It's exactly the same as FPTP the votes are, in Fair Vote lingo, "wasted".

4. Well the original transfer value is calculated at

Transfer Value 1 = (Total Votes-Threshold)/Total votes

so the new value would be as follows:

Transfer Value 2 = TV1*((Total Votes for second candiate-threshold)/total votes for second candidate)

5. To avoid another formula with no values in it. Let's put it this way. The first candidate's voters got to have their opinion heard three times (albeit at different values), the fourth place candidate's voters got their opinion heard once.

6. No.

It's A Hiring Opportunity, Right Mr. Harper?

129,000 jobs. More people lost their jobs in January than live in the city of Kingston, Ontario. 9.09% more Canadians are looking for work now then they were on New Year's Eve as the unemployment rate jumped from 6.6% to 7.2%. Mr. Harper you have failed this country. I agree that you cannot let a bad job reports stand in the way of an economic recovery program. However, Mr. Prime Minister you don't have one. We need a plan for Canada's economy today and tomorrow, you provide yesterday's answers. There is enough steak amid the sizzle of the budget to make it impossible for reasonable people to reject. We could not afford to wait for an election and a new budget process. You have thus been granted a lease on power, use it well. The country needs you to be the intelligent man you are capable of being. The country needs you to lead, sir. If you don't, there is an eminently qualified gentlemen at Stornoway who is ready to lead and has a team of bright men and women ready to govern. History will record your actions in the coming weeks, Prime Minister. Do yourself and your country proud.

Budget Voting

I'm a little surprised by the uproar in certain quarters over the dissent by the Liberal Newfoundland and Labrador caucus on the budget. I think that when the outcome of a vote is not in doubt, there is no reason an MP shouldn't be able to vote their conscience or their constituents will as the case may be. You can't advocate for more power for backbench MP's and then cry foul when MP's exercise their power. At the end of the day these people are accountable to their electorate first and their party second. It isn't the first time that regional dissent has occurred within a party's caucus, it won't be the last. People called Stephen Harper a control-freak when he kicked Bill Casey out of caucus for a similar decision. I think the reaction to this has as much to do with Danny Williams as anything else. I am a strong federalist. I don't like the way Williams has used his popularity to blackmail the federal government into giving up their constitutionally mandated powers. However, I don't think it matters why this budget was toxic to the MP's from Newfoundland and Labrador. What matters is that it was, and for that reason they voted against their party. They should be applauded for their courage and principle not condemned as threats to national unity. There are plenty of problems associated with the Williams government in St. John's, but to heap blame upon the Newfoundland caucus for the political situation that they find themselves in is inappropriate. It is frankly refreshing to see any part of the country paying enough attention to their national politics so that a single vote in parliament becomes an electability issue back home. There are plenty of cases in our history where parliamentarians have voted against their constituents best interest and not been punished for failing to do their job as representatives of said constituents. The provinces may be getting too powerful but this vote is not the forum for that debate.