There is a measure of truth in this article. We don't do as well as we should outside of the urban centres. If we are going to thrive in the future we need to build stronger roots in suburban and rural areas:
http://natpo.st/q5bAIi
Kelly McParland, National Post
Examine the map of Thursday's election results in Ontario and you get a picture that isn't evident from the headlines alone.
The province appears to be divided in two, split between the NDP in the north (huge geographical area, itty-bitty seat count) and the Progressive Conservatives everywhere else. Other than a dozen or so splotches of red, you wouldn't know the Liberals were even in the game.
5 comments:
That is because Dalton McGuinty and co. either are unaware of the feelings of those of us in rural areas or don't care, possibly both. The London Free Press stated that seven ridings voted P.C. because of wind turbines. A proposed power plant in Oakville got cancelled because the urban residents didn't want it near them, but rural residents have windmills put next to them whether they want them or not.
And then there is the mega quarry proposed for Dufferin County!
I read the farmers were paid to have them on their property ..there is an awful lot of hype about The Turbines making people sick, which is false..maybe the odd person, but not thousands!
The map distorts reality, which is that the Liberals and Tories each gathered around a third of the votes - far below a healthy 50% share. The centre-left was once again split between the NDP and Liberals.
The FPTP system distorts the results; PR would be more democratic.
A further distortion is the undemocratic weighting of rural seats - you can become an MLA with far fewer votes in rural and suburban areas than in city ridings.
It really is time for a political party to adopt and implement a program to make Canada democratic, at all three levels of government.
The vast majority of the population of this province lives in that area along the shore of Lake Ontario between Hamilton and Whitby. Yes, the Liberals do have to do better in rural areas. Yes, the Cons might one day have a leader and platform that connects with GTA voters. But, in a democratic system where the majority rules, there is no shame in winning over the majority of the population.
Canadians are, sadly, used to seeing exaggerated regional differences in our federal elections.
On May 2 this year, 256,167 Conservative voters in Saskatchewan elected 13 MPs while 627,962 Conservative voters in Quebec elected only five MPs. Similarly, 129,310 Liberal voters in Alberta elected no one while 130,577 Liberal voters in Nova Scotia elected four MPs.
Now Ontario has joined this parade of stronghold politics.
In two-thirds of Ontario’s ridings, Liberal strongholds — the GTA, Ottawa, Hamilton-Niagara and the North — it took only 26,000 Liberal voters to elect an MPP. Elsewhere it took 53,156 to do so. In the rest of Ontario, 36 of the 107 districts, PC strongholds, it took 25,667 PC voters to elect an MPP while elsewhere it took 73,858 to do so. In the Liberal stronghold regions it took 44,818 NDP voters to elect an MPP, while in the PC stronghold regions it took 153,966 NDP voters to elect an MPP.
In Ontario’s outgoing cabinet of 28 members, nine were from those 36 districts. In last week’s election only nine Liberal MPPs were elected from those districts. Will all nine be in cabinet, including rookie Teresa Piruzza?
Federal Liberals need proportional representation. John Gerretsen knows Ontario Liberals still do, and said so publicly just last month. Clearly he was right.
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