6,201 Reasons to be Frustrated

While doing some light housekeeping in my blog, I noticed I had this draft from May 5, 2011 that I had not posted. 7 months later, I'm still pissed, so I decided to post it. 


DISCLAIMER: This work is not my own. A friend shared it on Facebook, and I will follow in her footsteps. This makes it glaringly obvious how flawed our current electoral system is. 

6,201 reasons to get frustrated.

by Matt Peters on Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 10:16pm

Matt Peters and Ryan Boldt decided to dust off their calculators this afternoon and do some 'rithmatic.  They were appalled at what they discovered.  Time for some sobering statistics.  You might want to prepare a barf bag: 

• 6,201.  Friends, this is not the title of the newest Rush album.  This is a number we need to remember over the course of the next four years and especially during the next election.  6,201 is the COMBINED margin of victory across the 14 most closely contested Conservative ridings in Canada.  The COMBINED margin of victory. This is how close the election actually was.  In each of these races the Conservatives had a margin of victory of less than 800 votes.  Most margins were much, much smaller. See below for a statistical breakdown.

• 14. You need to remember this number for two reasons.  Firstly, it is the number of seats the Conservatives currently have above and beyond their majority.  In these 14 contentious races, if there had been even a slightly more focused effort by the parties on the Left to consolidate their voter bases we could have easily swayed the balance of power away from the Conservatives and prevented their majority (only 6,201 votes total were needed, spread across 14 ridings).  14 is also significant because, if you can believe it, 14 votes was the actual margin of victory for the Conservatives over the Liberals in the eastern Ontario riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming.  In this riding 11,357 people voted for the NDP or the Green party.  27,887 registered electors didn't vote at all.  Only 14 votes were needed to defeat the Conservatives.  Let that sink in. 

Here are the numbers in each of the 14 most closely contested Conservative ridings.  The vote splitting is very disturbing:

  Riding:                 Labrador (Newfoundland & Labrador)

Conservatives             Liberals           Margin of Victory           NDP/Green Combined

4,234                            4,003                       231                               2,235

                                       Nipissing-Timiskaming (Ontario)

Conservatives             Liberals           Margin of Victory           NDP/Green Combined

15,507                         15,493                    14                                     11,357

                              Bramalea-Gore-Malton (Ontario)

Conservatives             NDP                  Margin of Victory           Lib/Green Combined

19,907                          19,369                    538                                    18,149

                                         Etobicoke Centre (Ontario)

Conservatives             Liberals           Margin of Victory           NDP/Green Combined

21,661                         21,635                      26                                     9,185

                         Saskatoon Rosetwon biggar (Saskatchewan)

Conservatives             NDP                  Margin of Victory           Lib/Green Combined

14,652                      14,114                         538                                      1,323

                              Elmwood-Transcona (Manitoba)

Conservatives             NDP                  Margin of Victory           Lib/Green Combined

15,280                      14,996                          284                                     2,678

                Montmagny-L'islet-Kamouraska-Riveire-du-Loup (Quebec)

Conservatives             NDP                  Margin of Victory           Lib/Green/Bloc Combined

17,220                      17,110                           110                                       14,861

                       Lotbiniere-Chutes-de-la-Chaudiere (Quebec)

Conservatives             NDP                  Margin of Victory           Lib/Green/Bloc Combined

22,460                      21,683                           777                                      12,183

                                

                               Don Valley West (Ontario)

Conservatives             Liberals           Margin of Victory           NDP/Green Combined

22,992                         22,353                      639                                      7,983

                         Mississauga East-Cooksville (Ontario)

Conservatives             Liberals           Margin of Victory           NDP/Green Combined

18,782                         18,121                       661                                    9,989

                           Winnipeg South Centre (Manitoba)

Conservatives             Liberals           Margin of Victory           NDP/Green Combined

15,468                          14,772                       696                                    9,332

                                         Yukon

Conservatives             Liberals           Margin of Victory           NDP/Green Combined

5,422                             5,290                       132                                     5,345

                 Desenthe-Missinippi-Churchill River  (Saskatchewan)

Conservatives                NDP              Margin of Victory           Lib/Green Combined

10,504                          9,715                        789                                     1,706

                                  Palliser (Saskatchewan)

Conservatives             NDP                  Margin of Victory           Lib/Green Combined

15,850                      15,084                         766                                     2,892

                           Total numbers for the 14 ridings 

Conservatives        2nd place                Margin of Victory               Rest of the left

 219,939               213,738                 6,201                        103,873

       You'll notice that these ridings are evenly distributed geographically throughout the country and the split affected the NDP and Liberals equally.  Also, this list only represents the closest races.  This is not a regional issue.  It is indicative of what occurred throughout the country. 

       Across Canada 7,867,870 people voted Liberal, NDP or Green.  5,832,401 voted Conservative. This is a difference of over 2 million votes.  Do not believe the hype.  A government with 39.6% of the popular vote should not have a mandate to drive through fundamental changes in policy.  

       The Progressive Conservatives and the Alliance had the wherewithal to "unite the right" in 2003 and it seems that until the Left are able to arrive at a similar compromise or agreement they may very well be doomed to repeatedly collect 60% of the vote and wield 0% of the power.

6,201 reasons to get frustrated.

We can not let this happen again.  Get the word out. 

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