STV died. Democracy died a little bit, too.

Vox populi, vox dei? Well, it depends. Sticking to the world of secular politics, without venturing into murky waters of religious debates, the Latin phrase usually freely translates as “the voters have spoken”. Riding along this particular interpretation, the decision of British Columbia’s voters to reject electoral reform has to be respected and supporters of the current first-past-the-post system will trump it up all the way down to Ottawa.

There are many reasons why BC voters rejected electoral reform that would replace ancient first-past-the-post system with the proportional representation. Campaigning of the anti-proportional camp is one thing and it was hard for the pro-side to fight the propaganda that could simply hitch a ride on the “tradition” of the first-past-the-post system. Even the name of the particular proportional system, Single Transferable Vote, acronymed as STV, had very little chance to become another ATM.

The outcome of the Tuesday’s BC referendum reaffirms the rejection of the proportional election system from 2005 and that means the reform on national level is very unlikely. The nation has spoken.

On the other hand, the will of the same nation, its decisions, are being ignored during every single election on any level. Seven million votes were not counted in the last year’s federal election. Voters did vote, but thanks to the magic of the first-past-the-post system, their votes did not count. Earning 49.9 percent votes doesn’t guarantee a single seat in the parliament (1987 New Brunswick election). On the other hand, a majority government can be formed by a party that comes second in popular vote and, in effect, lost the election. 1,379,991 voters elected 49 MPs for the Bloc Quebecois, 2,515,561 votes were enough only for 37 NDP parliamentarians. Bloc earned only 2 percents of the popular vote more than the Green Party which ended up without an MP. Nearly million Green Party voters were disenfranchised.

Canada will continue to function according to a medieval voting principles and will exercise its democratic deficit as a reminder of the colonial legacy. Yes, the nation has spoken and rejected the proportional representation. Chances are that at the next election the nation will speak again and those who advocate it’s right to speak and be heard now will deny the same right to the same nation. Again.

Amazing Harper

Unfortunately, after Jim Prentice, Canadian environment minister, said that “this attempt by the coalition, the separatist coalition is undemocratic”, he didn’t go on to explain which coalition he meant. Resolving the validity of the word “separatist” is a question of realizing that the Bloc Québécois is not the part of the Liberals/New Democrats coalition. Yet, the Conservatives continue to use pseudo-patriotic rhetoric and compare the cooperation with the Bloc Québécois to a treason.

Branding a coalition formed in the democratically elected parliament by the legally elected MPs as undemocratic would send any government minister in any parliamentary democracy right down to the political cemetery. Coalitions are normal part of multi-party parliamentary democracies and if the Conservatives can’t get it, they are probably not happy with Canada being a multi-party parliamentary democracy. Their attempt to ruin opposition financially by tailoring the legislation to suit them was certainly very suggestive in that matter.

Meanwhile, Stephen Harper relies on the lack of knowledge of political system Canadian citizens are displaying and fosters the false idea that Canadian citizens elect prime ministers and the governments.

Studying how parliamentary democracies work would reveal, to both Harper and Canadians, that if you form a minority government, you usually try to secure some kind of support from one or more opposition parties to stay in power and to run as much of your program through the parliament as possible. Instead, Harper did all he could to alienate the opposition. Now he has very little ground to accuse the Liberals for refusing to cooperate on budget with the Conservatives because he never made the offer.

Instead, after loosing legitimate arguments, he went to an overdrive of populism, creating a sense of national unity being threatened and now he’s appealing to calm down the very emotions he deliberately created. Another danger is that by demonizing Quebec, and indirectly Eastern Canada, the Conservatives are profiling themselves as a regional Western political party.

In the evening, Harper made a televised address to the Canadians. Instead of coming up with a plan that would involve all political parties, he went on to repeat the mythology about the Canadians choosing governments and giving mandates to a particular party to govern. Another interesting point was accusing the coalition of changing the results of election which was simply ridiculous.

Harper tried to put himself into a role of defender of democracy. However, by saying that the opposition didn’t have the democratic right for a coalition he proved exactly the opposite. On Thursday, he will visit the Governor General with only one plea. To prorogue the parliament until the end of January to avoid non-confidence vote he will lose. Or would he go directly for the new elections?

(Written for World Business Press Online)