POLS 1400 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Third Party System, Second Party System, Social Democracy
11 Apr 2017
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Document Summary
Elections must be conducted in the most fair and free way possible. Everyone should be able to vote, every vote should be equal and every province should be fairly represented in the house of commons. Canada"s electoral system is flawed in terms of proportionality. The function of an election is to allow citizens to choose their parliamentary representatives and their government leaders. Elections inform the public and political parties try to aggregate interests. Voters legitimize the power of those elected by agreeing to be bound by their decisions. Elections integrate the country by putting them through a common national experience. Each member of parliament represents a different constituency. The electoral process begins by dividing the country into single member electoral districts called redistribution. The search for a fair means of distributing the 308 seats in the house of commons has been a long and unsatisfactory one. One seat is given to the northwest territories, nunavut and yukon.
