Report To the Parliament

By Sebastian Palencia
Background
On may 2
ND
2011 a Federal election was held
Result:

-From the voter results we can come to a
conclusion that the results seem very inaccurate
and an individual who is not familiar with the
Canadian election system could say that the votes
were fixed.
-With the conservative party winning 39.3% of the
votes the seats. They won 167 seats; which is a
ridiculous amount of seats compared to the
percent of votes they received.
- Not to mention the voter turn out of 61%.
Meaning 39% of eligible voters in Canada did not
vote.
-This raises the question of how healthy is the
democracy and citizen engagement in Canada?

Problems
-The 2011 Federal election raises the question of
how healthy is the democracy and citizen
engagement in Canada?
-Did the election of 2011 really represent the
citizens of Canadas desire for political change?
-How can we increase citizen engagement
-What can the government do to make election
more fair and accurate


Fist-Past-the-Post
Canada uses a form of representative
democracy known as First-past-the-post.
where each riding is contested by political
parties elects one representative on the basis
of simple vote. the candidate only need to
receive more votes than the other candidate
even my a miniscule amount in order to win.
Basically winner takes all
Unbalanced system
In the 2011 election conservatives won almost 40% but
due to the way the votes went in the individual ridings
they got 167 seats in the parliament . Creating a
majority government with minority rule.
This inaccurately represents what Canadians what for
political change. Since 60% wanted something else but
nad no other choice because conservatives had all the
power. This outcome fails to represent the will of the
people.
Citizens feel like their voices are not being heard,
voting becomes meaningless as a result voter turnout
dwindles and dwindles thus creating voter apathy.

This video on the next slide clearly shows the
problems that occur from the method first
past the post.


Solution
A solution to FPTP is to reform to
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is basically the
number of the members in the House of
Commons representing a political party
accurately reflects the popular vote party
received in the election
If party A wins 30% the means they have 30%
of the seats in the House of Common
Proportional representation
This method eliminates most of the major problems
that FPTP bring up
This evens out the balances scale because it evenly
represents what the citizens what for the government.
PR uses a system called Direct Party and
Representative voting or DPR
Voters have two votes on their ballot
1. the candidate they would like for parliament
2. the party they want to govern the country
This allows the voters to vote for candidates they
prefer rather than party loyalty



This electoral system provides citizens a voice
and give importance to voting. Allows
assurance that each votes does count and the
more higher voter turn out the better job the
parliament will do to serves its people.
Voter turn out
FPTP vs. PR

Voter Turn out

problems

Solutions

teens

Out come