OK- this thread IS NOT POLITICAL! It's just a general Political Science question. It's about the Canadian election, but it's not just for Canadians. There are plenty of intelligent, astute observers and politically educated people here on Open Forum that might just find this interesting.

The question is- has Canada become impossible to govern?

Like most western democratic nations, with the exception of the USA, we have a multi- party system, simply meaning there are more than two official political parties operating at both the Federal and Provincial levels. We have the "big 3", Liberal, Conservative and New Democrats, representing center, right of center and left of center respectively (although in Canada, "center" is in reality oriented to the left). In addition, we have one other "big" party- the BQ, which ONLY represents one very large region- Quebec. They have no interest whatsoever for the rest of the country, yet they manage to get elected by Quebecers at the Federal level. And as Quebec is one of the country's most populated regions, the BQ gets a sizable number of seats in Parliament. The New Democrats always weigh in at a distant 3rd, but still occupy a sizable portion of Parliament.

When you do the math, with the votes usually gained by the NDP and BQ combined, it is impossible for either the Liberals or Conservatives to ever have a clear majority. This situation has only come into play since the development of the BQ. When it was just the "big-3", naturally a majority government was possible, and in fact usually normal.

Is there ANY OTHER nation among western democracies that has a political situation like this, where one region is even allowed to elect one party to the Federal level that is not one bit interested in the nation as a whole, but only the sovereignty of their own region, thus effectively hi-jacking the entire Federal political process?

Dave

I think that Canada is unique. The only other possibility I can think of is Germany due to reunification and the great initial disparaty in GDP between East and West. I know that Angela Merkel is from the East, but she is the toady of the Christian Conservatives in the West.

__________________
Doug

1987 300TD x 3
2005 E320CDI

Ya got a brand new one emerging called Iraq or something like that.