Significance of Liberal Defeat
Media had all but called the winner of the federal by-election in Toronto--St. Paul's on June 24 to be Liberal Leslie Church when, late into the night, with 189 of 192 polls reporting, the lead flipped to Conservative candidate Don Stewart who then won the seat. Final results gave Stewart about 42 per cent of the vote against the Liberal candidate Leslie Church, who got about 40 per cent of the ballots cast. The NDP got 11 per cent and the Green Party got 2.9 per cent. The candidates on the Longest Ballot received from 97 votes (Meñico Turcotte of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada got the third highest at 59), to no votes in the case of one independent. Total votes for the Longest Ballot candidates was 1079 (2.9 per cent).
Now that the by-election is over, news media are telling Canadians that Trudeau "has seen his popularity plummet as inflation, the cost of living crisis, high home prices and surging immigration levels drive voter discontent." No mention of privatization and pay-the-rich schemes, or Canada's integration into the U.S. war economy. No mention of Canada's flouting of international rule of law when it provides arms, settlers and support for the Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people. Let alone is anything said of the crimes being committed by NATO and the dangers of NATO expansion into the Asia-Pacific, into Canada's arctic or Canada's support for the neo-nazi regime in Ukraine and much more.
With just over 36,954 votes cast out of more than 82,891 eligible voters, it is difficult to accept the conclusion of Canada's cartel political establishment that two per cent less Liberal votes than the votes received by the Conservative candidate indicates a plummeting Liberal popularity and a surge in popularity for the Conservatives. A real stretch of the imagination of what goes for political discourse in Canada. It is deliberately aimed at diverting the attention of Canadians away from the need to renew the political process and adopt a new electoral law which ends party government, ends public funding of political parties, funds the electoral process not the parties and enables electors to cast an informed vote.
The language in the newspapers and on the air waves is hyperbolic to say the least. Hyperbolic statements are, in the words of one dictionary, "tiny dogs with big barks: don't take them too seriously." But their intent to declare which are "the issues" Canadians should vote on in an election is always evident. "Here is the verdict: Trudeau can't go on like this," Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre posted on X. "He must call a carbon tax election now."
As the results of the Toronto--St. Paul's by-election once again show, the first-past-the-post system of counting ballots to determine who represents a constituency makes a mockery of the very concept of representation. It is high time it is replaced with a system chosen by the people on the basis of which they can empower themselves.
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 6 - July 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M5400616.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca