Elections

On the Internet, you will find sites that provide election coverage and detailed results from Canadian elections. As well, there are discussions on the need to reform the electoral system to produce fairer results. You can also find information about direct-democracy processes like referendums and recall. 

The first-past-the-post electoral system in Canada produces some strange distortions between the number of votes a party wins and its share of seats in the legislature. You can connect to graphs that show the difference between vote and seat share:  1997, 1993, & 1988 Federal Elections

1996, 1991, & 1986 BC Elections - notice that the NDP's share of the votes stayed fairly stable, but its share of the seats varied considerably.  In the 2001 BC election, the Liberals won 58% of the votes but 97% of the seats.

As a result of the distortions, some Canadians argue that we should reform our electoral system and consider adopting some form of proportional representation. One group campaigning for electoral reform is Fair Vote Canada.

Serious consideration is being given across Canada to replacing or reforming the current single member plurality system currently used in all provincial and federal elections. Visit the electoral systems page of this site to learn more about alternative systems. Several provinces are in seriously considering electoral reform:

  • The province that is in the most advanced stages of electoral reform is British Columbia. In 2003, the BC government of created a Citizens' Assembly (archived site), which met in 2004 to consider whether to change the electoral system used for provincial elections in BC. The Assembly's final report recommended that the province adopt BC-STV, a version of the Single Transferable Vote system. The matter was put to the electorate in a referendum in May 2005; although 58% voted in favour, the results fell short of the 60% that would have required the government to introduce enabling legislation into the legislature. The government has since announced that the issue will be put to the electorate again in 2008.
  • The PEI government created an Electoral Reform Commission whose report published in late 2003 recommended that the province should explore adopting some form of proportional representation; the two preferred options were identified the single transferable vote or mixed member proportional systems. As a result, the government set up the Commission on Prince Edward Island's Electoral Future with the mandate to develop an alternative mixed-member proportional system to be put to the electorate in a plebiscite.  However, PEI voters rejected the proposal in a plebiscite held on November 28, 2005 by a vote of 64% against.
  • New Brunswick has created a Commission on Legislative Democracy, whose mandate includes considering a new electoral system for the province.
  • The Quebec government has created the Secrétariat à la réforme des institutions démocratiques to review a wide range of possible reform to the political system, including the electoral system. In 2002, a committee of the Quebec National Assembly produced an interesting discussion paper on important questions surrounding electoral reform. A draft bill was published in late 2004, with the proposal for a radical re-structuring of the electoral system.
  • Ontario set up the Democratic Renewal Secretariat in 2003 to investigate electoral reform and other ideas to improve democracy in the province. The premier subsequently announced that Ontario would move to a 4-year, fixed-election schedule, beginning October 4, 2007.  As well, Ontario will set up a citizens' assembly similar to the one held in BC.

The Law Commission of Canada issued a report in 2004 calling for the adoption of a proportional representation system for federal elections.

Some useful material on different election systems can be found at the U.K. Electoral Reform Society, which has been campaigning for electoral reform in Britain since 1884. Also recommended are visits to the Canadian Elections site and to David Barnsdale's Elections site.  Wikipedia also provides a range of relevant material, including section on voting systems and vote-counting methods.

Prof Fred Fletcher of York University has written an interesting paper on reform of the electoral process, "Media, Elections, and Democracy." 

One popular model for change is the mixed-member proportional system, where some seats are filled from party lists, while others continue to be elected by a plurality in individual constituencies. Visit New Zealand Elections for more information about this system and the history of its adoption in time for the 1996 general election.

The Canadian Library of Parliament provides two useful research papers: The Canadian Electoral System and Electoral Systems. 

The Canadian Election Study team provides in-depth research on voters' behaviour in federal elections. A number of full-text research papers on voting behaviour are available in Adobe Acrobat format. The raw survey data from the 1997 and 2004 elections are available for the CES and for the 1984-2000 election studies from York University.  

The CBC Archives include a number of retrospective reports about federal and provincial election campaigns.

CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTIONS 2006

Canadians vote in a federal election on January 23, 2006. A wide range of information is available on the Internet to provide background information on the parties, issues, and conduct of the election. Elections Canada provides the validated election results for each constituency. 

Canadian Elections offers a table comparing the votes and seats won in 2004 by parties on a national and provincial basis. Links to all the registered parties and information on their leaders, candidates, and platform are available. As well, look up the summary results of all Canadian federal elections from 1867 to 2004. Links to profiles of each of the 308 ridings are also provided, as are annotated pages on women in politics, electoral reform, and the laws and policies governing the conduct of federal elections. 

A clickable map of the 2004 election results is provided by the National Atlas project of Natural Resources Canada. With this map you can zoom in on any province or municipal district to see the results of each constituency.

You can review the day-to-day developments in the 2006 federal campaign at the following media sites dedicated to the election: 



GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS AGENCIES

For useful information about elections, and especially about the rules that must be followed, you should connect to the official sites of the Chief Electoral Officers: 

Read the Canada Elections Act for the rules of the game at the federal level of government. 

ELECTION RESULTS

Wikipedia offers a selection of interesting material in its Canadian elections section. The University of Waterloo's Centre for Election Studies doesn't provide election results on-line but can be contacted for hard copy versions. 

Past Federal Election Results

Elections Canada provides the official results of the 1997 & 2000 general elections on line.

The Canadian Elections provides summaries of 1867-2000 election results

as well as historical data on voter turnout.

Provincial & Territorial Election Results

Summary results for elections since 1970 are available on the Internet for all provinces. And riding-by-riding results are available for a few recent elections: 

British Columbia: 1871 - 1986  and 1987 - 2001

Alberta: 1971 - 2001 Saskatchewan: 1971 - 1999 Manitoba: 1973 - 1999

Ontario: 1975 - 1999

Quebec: 1970 - 2003 New Brunswick: 1974 - 1999 Newfoundland & Labrador: 1949 - 1999 Prince Edward Island: 1978 - 2000

Nova Scotia: 1967 - 1998

Northwest Territories 

Nunavut Territory

Yukon Territory


ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES

Considerable attention has been paid in the last 10 years to trying to limit the disparities in size among constituencies. The redistribution of electoral boundaries is controversial. Added pressure has arisen because the courts have rules that the right to vote in the Charter of Rights includes the right to effective representation. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that citizens can only have effective representation if the discrepancies among ridings for federal elections are limited. See the Court's decision in the Electoral Boundaries Reference [1991]. 

DIRECT DEMOCRACY

Direct democracy occurs when all citizens vote on policy issues through a referendum. The Library of Parliament in Ottawa has a couple of useful research papers on referendums: Referendums: The Canadian Experience in an International Context and  Referendums in Canada: The Effect of Populist Decision-Making on Representative Democracy

British Columbia allows for citizens' "initiatives," where a province-wide referendum is necessary on an issue if a certain number of voters sign a petition; and "recall," where a sitting legislator's seat can be declared vacant and an election called if a certain number of his or her constituents sign a petition in favour of this action. But the conditions placed on the petitions to institute either a recall or an initiative make them highly difficult to use. Connect to Elections BC to read more about Recall or Initiatives in some detailed guides available on-line. Or you can read the details in the BC 'Recall and Initiative Act. 

Results from the 1980 & 1995 Québec Referendums are available on the Internet. 

For a different point of view on the value of holding more referendums, visit Canadians for Direct Democracy. 

GENERAL ELECTIONS SITES

RELATED LINKS

You can find more information on related issues in other sections of Nelson's Canadian Politics on the Web:  Legislatures and Electoral Systems Around the World.

Political Parties