post vote thoughts

Needed another puppy picture today.

Here is some information to make you think - specifically about the need for election reform. This is from Wikileaks:

• Quebec voters contributed 36% of the total votes cast for the NDP across Canada, but Quebec MPs will comprise 57% of the NDP's national caucus.
• The Bloc Quebecois seats were reduced by almost 92%. While almost 1 in 4 Quebecois voted BQ, only 1 in 20 of Quebec's MPs are BQ. (Previously the Bloc always won far more seats than their vote percentage would indicate.)
• In Ontario, the Conservatives increased their share of the vote by 5% but saw their share of the seats grow by 20%.
• The NDP increased their share of the vote in Manitoba, but their number of seats was cut in half.
• The NDP won almost a third of the votes in Saskatchewan without winning a single seat.

So the problem here is that we don't have proportional representation. We have a majority Harper government but he did not get a majority of the votes.

Well - rather than mope about it - I mean, what's the point? - we need to gird our loins and be delighted that the NDP are the opposition. We need to support them in any way we can... and do the best with the hand we've been dealt.

As in life, so in politics - it's not the hand you've been dealt, it's how you play the hand.