Among the astonishing facts: The only party to have gained votes in Federal Election 2008 was also the only party not to have won a single seat to the House of Commons.
All other parties LOST VOTES. The following table, whose data was obtained through Fair Vote Canada, visually highlights how deeply eroded our democracy has become.
2006 | 2008 | Vote Change | Seat Change | |
Cons | 5,374,071 | 5,205,334 | down 168,737 votes | up 19 seats |
Libs | 4,479,415 | 3,629,990 | down 849,425 votes | down 27 seats |
NDP | 2,589,597 | 2,517,075 | down 72,522 votes | up 8 seats |
Bloc | 1,553,201 | 1,379,575 | down 173,636 votes | down 1 seat |
Green | 664,068 | 940,747 | up 276,679 votes | 0 seats in HoC |
Given the Conservatives gain of 19 seats (by our ridiculous and archaic first-past-the-post voting system), Stephen Harper claims to have received a "stronger mandate" to govern. On the contrary: In losing almost two hundred thousand votes, his party lost favour with Canadians.
Not only does Election 08 go down in history for the first in which voter turnout fell below 60%, it may also have gone down in history for delivering the least democratic result since the formation of Canada.
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