Canada election results

John Fund comments on the Canadian election results:

The surprising thing about Canada's election yesterday was the extent to which the country's ruling Liberal Party was NOT decimated. Beset by scandal and running a sloppy campaign that never saw it come out on top in any single 24-hour-news cycle, the Liberals nevertheless won 31% of the vote, only about six points behind the winning Conservative Party.

Canada remains a far more collectivist country than its giant neighbor to the south. The Liberals and the socialist New Democrats together won more seats in parliament than the Conservatives.

No kidding, look at the results for yourself. To me an interesting story is how the smaller parties performed -- the leftist bias is incredible. The sum total of votes for the Green Party of Canada, Progressive Canadian Party, Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, Canadian Action Party, Communist Party of Canada and Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada is 699,011. In contrast, the sum total for the right-leaning parties -- the Christian Heritage Party of Canada, Libertarian Party of Canada and Western Block Party is 29,670.

Think about it, in addition to the 8,618,804 votes and 183 seats won by the Liberals, Bloc Quebecois and NDP -- leftist parties all -- there were a further 700,000 votes cast for other left-wing parties. If Canada wasn't a parliamentary democracy it would basically be a one-party state.

Update: I'm dumb. While Canada is a parliamentary democracy, it uses a "first past the post" system with members elected from electoral districts (or, in Canadese, "ridings"). Which is why, despite receiving 4.5% of the vote that the Greens didn't win any seats.