I just realized when writing this post that we’re probably in something resembling the home stretch for the 42nd Federal election. While we’re still talking about some issues, I’ve noticed that we aren’t talking about the actual electoral system. In two weeks from today, I’m going to guess we’re going to start debating if we’ve outgrown first past the post. It works for a two-horse race but I’m not convinced that FPTP works when there are three parties. I’d say it’s almost a certainty that the result of the election in terms of seats won’t accurately reflect the popular vote. Maybe that means we need to consider a mixed electoral system that adds proportional representation seating on to the traditional FPTP seats.

Anyway, we can argue that after we get evidence the system is broken. For now, it’s time to do the links. Since we’re talking Canadian politics, let’s kick off with Canadian actress Nina Dobrev.

Harper says pot is “infinitely worse” than tobacco. Experts say there’s “simply no evidence” that’s true. Blogger says Harper is infinitely worse than the alternatives. Experts say there’s simply all sorts of evidence that’s true. (National Post)

My name is Steve and I may be a second-class Canadian citizen because my dad was born in Scotland. I’m one of nearly 900,000 second-class Canadians in Harper’s Canada. (Vancouver Sun)

An agreement has been reached in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks. This is bad news. This may be worse than another Conservative government news. (BBC)

Continue reading →