Well in case you missed the title, it’s… Parliament!
WOO WHOO! Nothing spells fun quite like the idea of studying government and Canadian politics!
(Pick up on the sarcasm here people.)
For most this is standard knowledge, after all you watch CBC every night at 6:00pm, how could you NOT know Stephen Harper is the leader of a minority conservative government.
But for those who have never caught the evening news, don't get the National Post delivered, or prefer to listen to music during their commute instead of 1010, it is quite possible you do not know what Canadian politics looks like.
Allow me to illustrate.
Literally.
After going over Canadian politics for a couple hours and researching parties and their platforms and how our current government is divided up, I - with the help of a more politically-familiar coworker - decided the best (and simplest ) way to explain was with a diagram, hence the above image.
Let's briefly go over the "Seats In Parliament" bit.
The way our Prime Minister (PM) is elected is actually indirect. We never submitted a ballot saying "Stephen Harper lead my country".
Each province is broken up into electoral regions (or constituencies/ridings) and one member of parliament (MP) is elected for each of these regions.
From there, which ever party has the most members elected becomes the governing party, and their leader becomes the PM.
So the Conservatives had the most MPs elected - filling 144 seats. This makes them the governing party, but with a minority government. (Minority gov is when the total of all the other parties seats is greater than that of the governing party.)
Minority Government - Good or Bad?
Bad because it makes it more difficult to get things done. If there was a majority government the governing party would always have the most seats, therefore the most votes, and could pass the legislation they wanted. Because they do not have the most seats/votes they need to convince other seat holders to vote with them or nothing will get passed.
Good because in order to convince people who are otherwise against you to vote with you, you need to come up with genuinely good ideas.
Politics in My Social Life
(A tangent)
So the evening after I'd studied this, in my excitement with my new-found knowledge, I was talking to a friend about where I think I'd place myself on the political spectrum. I figured I'd be somewhere between Liberal and Conservative.
Well no no no. My friend assured me that made no sense seeing as they were at complete opposite ends of the spectrum.
This, ladies and gentlemen, was the moment I realized learning about boring stuff actually does pay off.
See my friend is the type who knows a lot, and enjoys correcting poor, uniformed people, when they make silly mistakes, like I had.
But I hadn't! And the gratification of saying "Oh, actually, you're wrong." well let's just say it felt very good to really know and understand what I was talking about.
Of course I wasn't yelling from a mountain "HA HA I AM SMARTER!" but it made me feel like I had accomplished something that might have some value and application in everyday life.
Knowledge is power - or at least a good feeling.
I then politely, and delicately so as not to harm the very fragile complex of a know-it-all, explained what I had learned. (And suggested they take a look at my blog - self promo, yea!)
In truth, thinking Liberals and Conservatives are complete opposites is pretty common. I'll admit if you would have asked me to guess where I thought each party was on the political spectrum 2 weeks ago it would have looked something like this...
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But now I know. And so do you. (Or maybe this was all review.)
So congratulations. You've successfully passed Parliament Hill: 101. (Not saying it's an A+, but at least the understanding is there.)
