[Dog Gone]

30% of the vote in Canada gives you more clout than 100% of the vote in an independent Quebec.

Another example of why parliamentary democracies differ from the one in America.

Yours is more complex, and arguably more democratic. Yet it gives extraordinary power to fringe parties in close elections, which is arguably far less democratic.

[familyop]

"Yours is more complex, and arguably more democratic."

...not in at least one part of the Government up there (lawmaking, IIRC). Canadian senators are essentially appointed by their Prime Minister, if I read correctly on that (corrections welcome again). And Trudeau started that policy, IIRC.

[beaver fever]

I don't think the citizens of Montana would argue that they have "extraordinary" power because they have a 3 to 1 electoral advantage over California in the electoral college.

In the American system population is trumped by the electoral system. In the Canadian Parliamentary system population means everything. If you don't have the votes you don't have the power.

That's why Alberta with it's huge energy resources has less power than Quebec.

But it's important to remember if you don't have the votes you don't "get" to have the power, regardless how resource rich you are.

In that sense the Canadian system is more representative than the US which is why it is more complicated and unpredictable.

Having said that, even the Canadian system is not truly representative because when you vote here you vote a federal party ticket and the party chooses the leader. No referenda and no local issues appear on federal ballots.

It does make for simpler and less controversial elections. The last time I voted the ballot had five parties and five names and it was a paper ballot. Pretty hard to mess with that or be confused by it.

By the way thanks, for the response it's nice to here from someone who actually wants to understand how things work up here.