Canada’s skewed voting system gave the Liberals 34 more seats than the Conservatives, despite the Conservatives getting 1.5% more votes than the Liberals. Voter turnout was 67 per cent, marginally lower than the 68.5 per cent in the 2015 federal election.
In the four western provinces, Conservatives won about 53% of the votes, yet the Conservative Party captured about 68% of the MPs. Western Liberals won about 21% of the votes, yet Liberal voters elected only 14% of the MPs.
In Alberta, Liberal voters merited five MPs, yet our undemocratic voting system tossed their votes into the trash. In Saskatchewan, veteran Liberal MP Ralph Goodale was defeated although Saskatchewan Liberal voters deserved to elect two MPs.
In Quebec, Bloc Quebecois voters cast about 33% of the votes, yet the skewed voting system gave them about 41% of the MPs. Quebec Liberal voters cast 34% of the votes, but they netted only 45% of the MPs. Conservative voters cast 16% of the votes, but got only 13% of the MPs in Quebec. NDP voters cast 11% of the votes, yet elected only one MP. Green voters cast 4% of the votes, but elected no one.
Under proportional representation across the Canadian state, the results would have been 116 Liberals, 117 Conservatives, 57 NDP, 22 Greens, and 26 Bloc, rather than 156, 122, 24, 3, and 32, respectively.
The Liberals have no mandate to govern unilaterally, with only 33% of the votes cast. The system robbed more than half of the NDP voters of fair representation. With 16% of the votes, they got only 7% of the MPs.
Green Party voters cast 6% of the votes but elected only three MPs, when fair representation would have netted them 22 MPs.
Atlantic Canada Conservative voters might have expected to be represented by nine MPs, rather than only four. The 32 MPs from the four Atlantic provinces should have included five New Democrats rather than only one, and four Green MPs rather than just one.
Ontario voters should have found 24 New Democrats in Parliament, not just 13, and 11 Green MPs, rather than none.
The current voting system consistently skews results in favour of Liberals and Tories, and distorts representation from the regions of a vast country.