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Why the Liberals lost and where should they go from here.

kEiThZ said:
^ That also says that the Tories would have won anyway.

Personally, what I find offensive in this whole thread of thought about the split left is the idea that all Liberal voters would have automatically voted for single left party.
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The 155 seats mentioned in the article (which would give the CONS a majority) are for GTA races only.

If you take into account all of Canada the CONS would have ended up with a minority of 151 seats but for vote splitting. As for the idea of vote splitting being "offensive" I think it is more a fact of life. I'm not saying that the Liberals are entitled to votes. Ultimately the Liberals are responsible for their disastrous performance especially considering how vulnerable their opponents were.
 
kEiThZ said:
... All those screaming that 60% voted against Harper (or that he doesn't have a real majority because only 40% voted for him) are being very, very presumptuous.
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Agreed! Not only presumtuous but downright ridiculous IMO. Anyone who is thinking at all could easily see the fallacy in this line of thought, and it's disappointing if anyone brings that tired old argument out again. The argument implies (or sometimes is explicit) that if you don't win an absolute majority of the votes, your win (plurality) is somehow not valid. That's nonsense of course. How would anyone ever get a "valid" win under those criteria?

Proportional representation might be the way around that. But I don't think it is evident at all that it would meet with wide acceptance. (Wasn't there a referendum in Ontario not too long ago?) Many people would see proportional representation as a recipe for never-ending minority governments, amd I see little evidence that the majority of the population really want that, especially following the most recent four or five years.
 
Observer Walt said:
Many people would see proportional representation as a recipe for never-ending minority governments, amd I see little evidence that the majority of the population really want that, especially following the most recent four or five years.
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That might be the general perception, but in fact governments under proportional representation are just as stable as those governments under first-past-the-post. The examples of Italy and Isreal are always mentioned, but those two countries are the exception, most other countries that use proportional representation have governments that are as stable (or more so) than seen in Canada.

The reason is that before a government takes office, it must be formed by negotiations between the various political parties, creating an alliance that combines for at least 50% of the seats. Each member party typically agrees to support this alliance for a specified length of time, in exchange for seats in the Cabinet. Some might argue that this is ideologically impure, but I think it is a good thing, as it allows more than just one narrow point of view to participate in the government, resulting in a more representative government than is found in first-past-the-post systems.

These two advantages -- that every vote actually counts in electing representatives under proportional representation, and that the resulting government represent a broader range of public opinion -- in my mind outweigh the greater decisiveness of first-past-the-post elections. They are decisive, yes, but at the expense of effectively disenfranchising most voters, most of the time.
 
Peepers said:
If you take into account all of Canada the CONS would have ended up with a minority of 151 seats but for vote splitting.
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That's what I meant. They would have still won. But with a minority instead.

Peepers said:
As for the idea of vote splitting being "offensive" I think it is more a fact of life. I'm not saying that the Liberals are entitled to votes. Ultimately the Liberals are responsible for their disastrous performance especially considering how vulnerable their opponents were.
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I am not suggesting the mentality is offensive because the Liberals think they are entitled to the votes. I am suggesting that I find it offensive and presumptuous that people would think that all Liberals voters should be counted as anti-Conservatives/anti-Harper voters, and that if the Liberals were merged with the NDP that every single vote would transfer to the united left. Hence, we get the routine argument that more people voted against Harper than for thim. That's disingenous at best.

Talk about sour grapes. In my books, people putting forward this argument are rather sore losers.
 
I fully support electoral reform. Though personally, rather than PR, I'd like to see preferential balloting. That said, I find it rather distasteful that Liberals only talk about reform when the current system works against them. Ditto for the Conservatives too.
 
Another excellent article in the Globe and Mail series:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/andrew-steele/the-liberal-culture-of-defeat/article2011029/
 
I suspect one reason the Liberals lost 905 and much of 416 is summed up by Tip O'Neill's observation that "All politics is local." I lived in Boston for some of Tip's long tenure, and I was impressed by his ability to direct massive federal funding to Boston, both for expansion of the T (subway) and the Big Dig (burial of a Gardiner-style expressway). We elected Liberal MP's from the GTA for years and they never represented our interests, whether their party was in government or opposition. Having also lived in Montreal, I was struck by how much of the political conversation there is about securing money from Ottawa (paid for by people in Alberta and Ontario). Meanwhile, our GTA Liberal MP's seemed interested in just about everything but Toronto's welfare. Maybe that's consistent with the traditional Liberal identity as a party of the elite that brokers between Quebec and Canada. But unless the Liberals radically change that tune, I can't imagine why anyone who cares about the people of Toronto would support them in the future.
 
pman,

Fully agree. Having travelled a lot of Canada in my military career, I am always struck by how Canadians outside Ontario (or even outside Toronto) see the federal government. The fates of local MPs are routinely decided by their ability to bring home the bacon. Not always, of course. But voters certainly are more demanding than in the GTA.

It surprised me for years that the Liberals kept getting elected in Toronto with such strong pluralities in their ridings without really delivering much. Sure, the GTA got some goodies. But you would think the Liberals would have been grateful for a region that easily produced a good fifth of their caucus on a routine basis. Yet, other cities that were in play (like Montreal) certainly got more attention.

I look forward to what happens now that the GTA is divided between all three parties. And more stunningly, the 416 is divided between all three parties, with the Conservatives candidates finishing quite close in several ridings where the opposition won the day. For all the talk about national urban strategy and all that, the parties will now have to scramble to come up with a GTA strategy. This should get interesting.
 
I don't think the NDP could win a majority. They'd have to move quite a bit further right. The Conservatives can't be the government forever, so someway, somehow the Liberal party is likely to play that role.
 
kEiThZ said:
^ That also says that the Tories would have won anyway.

Personally, what I find offensive in this whole thread of thought about the split left is the idea that all Liberal voters would have automatically voted for single left party.

That's BS. I've voted Green as a protest vote. I've voted Liberal most often. And I voted Conservative once. I've haven't yet seen a reason to vote NDP. And I suspect, (with the exception of my Green ways), most Canadians are a lot like me. All those screaming that 60% voted against Harper (or that he doesn't have a real majority because only 40% voted for him) are being very, very presumptuous.
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If Libs/NDP merged, I'd vote Green.
 
pman said:
But unless the Liberals radically change that tune, I can't imagine why anyone who cares about the people of Toronto would support them in the future.
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The Conservatives have done nothing specifically for Toronto either, and they've just had a breakthrough in support here as a result. Knowing that we'll vote for them under those demeaning circumstances, why would they not take us for granted and do nothing for us in the future?
 
Bob Rae is the perfect choice to lead the Liberals into oblivion, a veritable "Model of a Modern Major General".

My apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan.
 
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