Dude, they've always had a stronger voice in Canadian politics than other provinces.
When you look at the BQ ridings, like Ahuntsic, they won by a little over a hundred votes. And the voices being muted are those of the people voting for parties that can't ever get enough seats because they carry provinces with fewer ridings. A percentage wouldn't mute those peoples voices, as they have higher population density, which is why they have more ridings in the first place, and as such would end up with more BQ elected than if, say, there was a Manitoba Party that only ran in MB.
The system means that, no matter how strongly Canadians as a whole make a choice about the party they want in charge, they can't get that party unless the ridings manage to work out in their favour. It means that small parties, like the Greens, Communists, etc never get a seat, even when they get more of the vote than a party like the BQ.
I think that allowing a party that runs in a single province to have a higher share of seats despite it's low vote count and meaninglessness nationally is hurting the voices of Canadian voters. I think the BQ has a right to exist, and I think people should vote for them if that's what they want to do, but I don't think that they should have a more prominent place in politics than parties who have more votes than they do and work for ALL of the country, some of which don't even get a single seat to represent their share of the Canadian political mind.
I also think it's silly that other parties, the Cons or the Libs, can scoop up huge numbers of seats in some elections despite not being that far ahead in the numbers, because that happens too. With proportional representation, my vote could actually mean something. On a national scale! My city has 8 ridings. The riding I'm in ALWAYS goes liberal. It wouldn't matter if I never voted, it's a liberal riding. That feels... depressing as hell.
To turn it around: If the NDP can gain 20% of the vote, shouldn't they at least have some more seats? To restrict it to ridings which are always in the favour of one or two provinces is restricting the vote of the rest of Canada, and also ensuring more majorities or heavy minorities for parties that don't deserve it.
In the 2006 federal election, more than 650,000 Green Party voters across the country elected no one. Meanwhile, fewer than a half-million Liberal voters in Atlantic Canada alone elected 20 MPs. In the prairie provinces, Conservatives won three times as many votes as the Liberals, but were given nearly ten times as many seats. But more than 400,000 Conservative voters in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver couldn't elect a single MP. The NDP attracted a million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 51 seats and the NDP 29.The last election, the BQ won a seat for every 31000 votes cast. The NDP won a seat for every 111000 votes cast. The green party? They won ZERO seats and got 580000 votes. That is just *wrong*
It's wrong that we end up with governments that do not represent the votes of the Canadian people. We end up with governments that represent the riding distribution.
http://www.fairvote.ca/en/about_fairvotingCheck it out. Your access to democracy should not depend on which part of the country you live in.
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