-TSS-

I guess that guy won't need bodyguards. LOL.

Heh, the leading Finnish daily, Helsingin Sanomat, had an article today about the new Canadian minister of defence who is a Sikh and has a military background and has a reputation of being a badass.

They wouldnt tell us it was a bomb unless they had soundproof evidence which they havent released yet because of security reasons. They? The UK-government of course. There can possibly be no other more trustworthy or immune to lies an organisation than the UK-government. Just think of their integrity and honesty in 2003.

I don't know your posting-history but I assume you are being sarcastic. Very funny I must admit.

Canada and Switzerland are a couple of genuine democracies in this world. The USA is a total plutocracy when as the EU is a kleptocracy. It must also be pointed out that a Canadian province or even a US-state have much more control over their own affairs than a member country of the EU.

Somerimes when I read this site I forget that Canada is a federal state where the provinces have very large powers to influence their matters. I mean these posts about how a new government in Ottawa could change Canada.

We in Finland are due to have next parliamentary elections in 2019 but due to the chaos of the migrant crisis my firm bet is that by that time we will have a state of emergency declared and elections cancelled.

No, we have PR here in Finland.

How about a compromise: A run-off in constituencies, or ridings as you call them, where none of the candidates has received more than 50% of the votes?

It's a very cultural thing which sport catces on in which country but I have always said that we Finns would be excellent at rugby if we just found the sport. It would be an ideal summer-sport as opposed to ice hockey especially as we suck at soccer.

FPTP can only be defended when it really produces a majority-government. When it even fails to do that as it has been the case in a couple of the Canadian elections or in the UK in 2010 and yet those results have still been hugely disproportionate compared to the share of the votes cast, one can rightfully call into question the very legitimacy of governments formed out of such elections.

New Zealand is to rugby like Canada is to hockey; they reign supreme.

I'm glad you people in Canada still have faith in democracy. Here in Europe we are exhausted. Perhaps your democracy is stronger than ours and ours is fragile. Well, I can only speak for Finland rherefore excuse me for likening an entire continent with an unimportant country. Namely, I have never ever in my adult life since I was first allowed to vote in 1991 been this disillusioned with the state of democracy in this country. Of course this all boils down to the EU which is on its mission to destroy the nation-states the latest episode of which is this "unexpected" flow of refugees. I know that one shouldn't give in to apathy because that is exactly what those cynts wish us descend into but it is very difficult to not fall into apathy.

1/3 or is it even half of the world's population living north of the 60th degree latitude are Finns. The corresponding latitudes in Sweden and Norway are much more thinly populated and the vast areas of Northern-Russia and Northern-Canada are mostly very sparsely populated tundra barely fit for human inhabitation. We have been reminded time and again and made guilty for our geographic location as we are told living this north is very unecological and to maintain a standard of living of a western country creates a huge carbon footprint. We really have heard of that ad nauseam. I just wonder why all that has recently been forgotten as all of a sudden high population growth into this place of a huge carbon footprint isn't a problem at all as those people posing as refugees have finally found this place back of the beyond. Does the presence of Iraqis produce a smaller carbon footprint than that of the Finns? Just wondering.

How long can a new government blame the previous government for any problems? The new government obviously carries on with it as long as they can get away with it. They keep on saying that they are doing their best but they inherited difficult conditions from the previous government and one electoral term may not be enough to fix all the damage so you need to re-elect us in the next election. Sometimes people even believe this and re-elect the government but in the second term they can no longer blame the previous government and if things don't get better the government loses the third election. After that the new government says that they inherited difficult conditions from the previous government and .....

Ok, perhaps saying "a lot of times" was exaggeration but at least four times: In 1991 Keating beat Hawke In 2010 Gillard beat Rudd In 2013 Rudd beat Gillard In 2015 Turnbull beat Abbott.

Btw, has it ever happened in Canada that the leader of the governing party, ie. the PM, would have faced a serious leadership-challenge while being PM? I think not and certainly has never lost such a challenge. A question of political culture there. The party-folks of the governing party stand behind their leader as long as they are the governing party. A bit like in the USA where an incumbent president seeking re-election doesn't have to worry about primaries. If he faced a challenge it would be embarrassing for the whole party. A different political culture in Australia where it has happened a lot of times that the leader of the governing party has lost a leadership-challenge and the challenger automatically becomes PM as well as party-leader. Happened last time last month and the previous time 7-8 years ago even twice in the latter occasion the previously toppled PM and party-leader challenged the party-leader and PM and the got his revenge and rose as PM again.

25000 is a trickle for a country the size of Canada. Imagine that Sweden receives 190000 asylum-seekers this year but that is going to bankcrupt their country and Germany receives 1.5m.

Elections under FPTP are very exciting and entertaining with their dramatic shifts and ensuing single-party majorities. They are like sporting-contests. Of course it can be asked whether the purpose of an election is to be entertaining and like a sporting-contest or to express the will of the people.

Never been to Canada myself but what I've heard about your country is that in contrast to the big cities there is a multitude of small communities of 5000-10000 population and all very viable with full services. A stark contrast to Finland where the government policy is to destroy small communities and force people living in the bigger population-centres. Can you imagine in Canada that in a town of say 10000 people if there is an incident which needs police to be called in the police arrive from 100km from the nearest bigger town? This is reality in many parts of Finland and Finland is only 1/30 the size of Canada.

In Finland the detention-centers for the asylum-seekers has been outsourced as a privately run business and the business-dealers collect al the profits while the government covers all the costs and the government of course means the tax-payers. It is so outrageous it really makes my blood boil and I'm not the only one. This in a country which is according to some surveys the least corrupt country in the world. You can only imagine what ordinary people think of such surveys. This kind of scam could never happen in any other country. In any other country those profiteers would be beaten the hell out of but not in Finland. Here we accept everything and just grin. You may ask why am I not up in arms about this outrageous travesty instead of just moaning about it behind a computer. That's because I'm a Finn and we Finns are sheeple.

Some people are making good money out of this mindless refugee-business. If that weren't the case this wouldn't be happening.

In these discussions about the electoral-systems the main argument against the FPTP is that it only produces middle-aged middle-class men as mp's while the main argument in favour of the FPTP is exactly the same.

Why not introduce a system of a run-off in those constituencies, or ridings as you call them, where none of the candidates receives more than 50%?

I looked into the history of Canadian elections last night and one thing which caught my attention was that John Turner who became PM only for two months just to be defeated in a landslide election by the Tories led by Mulroney in 1984 yet the same Turner wasn't ditched and he was given the extraordinary pleasure to be defeated again in 1988.