Forbidden Planet

Today is the Ontario provincial election. I voted for the Green Party. Not because of any ideological attachment to them (although, listening to the Green Party leader on CBC radio two weeks ago, he was far more reasonable, coherent, and less inflammatory and divisive than the main party leaders). No, I voted for the Greens because it was a strategic vote. I suppose I could have spoiled my ballot, but I have grown tired of that. I reckon the politicians ignore it and assume I am an idiot who doesn't know how to mark a single X next to a candidate's name. I figured it was better to give my vote to some non-mainstream party in the hope that it will spur greater choice and genuine debate. (At least in the Federal elections, doing so makes sense, since parties are funded according to the number of votes they get - assuming the cross a 3% of popular vote threshold. I believe that only the province of Quebec similarly funds its political parties). The hot button issue for this electi...

It stands for Mixed Member Proportional. In the upcoming Ontario provincial election, we are also asked to vote on whether or not to change our current electoral system from a first past the post to a mixed member proportional system. As far as I can recall, this is the first time I have ever been asked to vote for a new government and in a referendum simultaneously. In Canada and all the provinces and territories, our electoral system is a representational system. That is, the region involved in the election is subdivided into smaller regions (for this election, Ontario is divided into 107 regions or seats). Each region elects a representative to the legislature. In general, representatives belong to one of the 3 major political parties in Ontario (Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, and New Democratic Party). There are other parties, but they are small and generally don't account for much of the popular vote. On occasion an independent candidate will be elected, however, he (c...