Canada Votes 2019

[EricHiggin]

SvennoJ said:

EricHiggin said:

I hate not being able to choose the P.M. separately. My riding would rather vote liberal as they tend to be better for farmers more often than not, but we clearly wanted Trudeau out, so were forced to vote for the next best thing which looked to be conservative. 

I don't think just a pop vote works though. It may work now still, but the rural areas don't grow yet the cities do, and the cities tend to favor liberal, so a pop vote by itself could be a problem eventually as well.

That's democracy though.... This election my vote didn't count at all with the winner takes all system. Which also influences people to vote for one of the big parties instead of one of the smaller ones they feel more aligned with.

It's customary that the PM comes from the biggest party, not much you can do about that. It would be weird to have a PM from a minority party. I originally come from the Netherlands which works with a popular vote system while also voting for the PM sort off. You vote for the candidate in the party you want to see as leader of that faction. The biggest party's faction leader becomes PM.
The disadvantage is that it makes it much easier for a populist party to take ground. Dutch politics are a mess as well.

Haven't thought to in depth about this yet, but Federally, what about if the Provinces (and Territories) had a popular vote, and whoever wins the Province, automatically holds power in all of it's ridings. Each Province also has an equal amount of seats (26?) towards Parliament. The ridings get redrawn in each Province so they match the number of total seats in the fairest way possible. Either that, or have final larger ridings (26) that make up the many smaller ridings we have now (not sure the best way to decide who get's the final seat in Parliament though). The party with the most Provinces won, forms Gov, whether it's minority or majority.

While this would mean that in Provinces like ON and QC, each voters choice wouldn't be as equal as someone from say AB or SK, it would mean each Province in the Country would have a more equal say in what happens when it comes to choosing the Federal Gov specifically. Since we have separate Provincial elections, which should be able to remain as is I think, I don't see why a partial popular vote wouldn't work Federally.