Hurray for the Green Party
Cross-posted to BlogsCanada election blog.
As I indicated about a week ago, I voted for the Green Party today. As I said then, I had no illusions about them even securing a seat. They did, however, make vast improvements. As the CBC reports, in their last election, they received a laughable 1100 votes, about 0.08% of the popular vote (the CBC got it wrong, they received about 100,000 votes or 0.8%). In this election, that increased to about a half-million, more than 4% of the popular vote. Some of those votes may have been disillusionment with the major parties, but they mean signficiant money to work with for the next election. Just as importantly, it goes a long way to establishing the party’s credibility.
As Green Party leader Jim Harris pointed out, the Reform Party received all of 2.1% of the vote and one seat in their first election in 1988. In the subsequent campaign, they secured 52 seats. I’m not making any such predictions for the Greens, but it’s an encouraging result for this fledgling party.
In general terms, I’m satisfied with the election result. A minority will keep the Liberals honest, a Liberal-NDP coalition will extend the latter party’s influence, and the Conservatives didn’t get into power. In fact, the Conservatives lost a big chunk of popular support.
I’m also smugly pleased to see how badly wrong the pollsters got this election. Hopefully this is the last time I mention polls for at least a month or two.
