Congratulations Canada!

Your political system is just as messed up as the US! (I'm leaning towards more...)

DISCLAIMER: I really don't know exactly how the system works. The following information was gathered from different resources - Ian, Media (heh), and Wikipedia. I'm probably going to get a lot of it wrong... but the basic jist is still the same - it's a messed up system. A note in this disclaimer: I hate politics, no matter what country.

Let me break it down. (Yeah, I SAID IT!) There are 5 political parties in Canada.

• Conservative Party of Canada (referred to as PC or Tories): Currently hold power. Their leader Steven Harper is the Prime Minister.

• New Democratic Party (NDP): They are *GASP* a socialist party. Socialism is currently a dirty word in the US... but probably for all the wrong reasons. Their leader is Jack Layton.

• Liberal Party of Canada: You guessed it - they are liberals. I don't pay a lot of attention to the political news here but the liberal party seems to be the most vocal. Their leader, up until last night, was Michael Ignatieff.

• Bloc Quebecois: Their ideology is left wing... but as you can probably tell from the name, mostly concerned with Quebec's interests. Their leader, up until last night, was Gilles Duceppe. (Side note: I call them a party but according to news reports, they didn't win enough seats in the House of Commons to be considered a party anymore.)

• Green Party: Oh, Ralph Nader would be proud. There is a tree hugging party up in Canada. They are led by Elizabeth May but have as much of a chance at leading Canada as Ralph does of the US.

As I mentioned a couple times above... there was an election last night. Ian just recently explained that voters do not vote specifically for Stephen Harper or Jack Layton. The election is to vote in specific members of parliament (308 spread over the country). The majority party's leader becomes Prime Minister. Here is the part where Canada gets classified as messed up. The winning party last night won by getting 36% of the vote. The winning party was PC and their leader, Stephen Harper is once again the Prime Minister. See below.

That's right - this GOOBER is Prime Minister once again. I don't know what it is... but he just... looks and sounds like giant GOOBER. I am sure after last night he has said something along the lines of "The Canadian people have spoken." Really? REALLY? 36% of them?

I can't see why the NDP and Liberal Party can't figure this one out. You can't split the vote 3 ways. Canada is a socialist/liberal country. But if they keep splitting the vote, it will always be run by a Conservative Party. It's very simple! Politics here are the same as in the US though... attack ad after attack ad. The NDP leader, Jack Layton, once spent some time at a massage palor 15 years ago *GASP*. The former Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff, lived outside of Canada for too long. The Prime Minister is a GOOBER. It's all the same - all very tiring.

Last point. Elections cost money. Money paid by taxpayers. This was election came early because a vote of No Confidence passed in parliament. But it didn't matter because the two parties wishing to overthrow the Goober's Government wouldn't join together.

[In a last minute fact checking run... I see different reports about the winning percentages - some 36.. some 39. Either way, NDP was 30% and Liberal 18%. Do the math and you get a more appropriate majority government. Also, there are "other" parties as I am sure there are in other countries. But when I looked at the list... a few awesome ones jumped out - The Rhinoceros Party, The Pirate Party & The Marxist-Leninist Party. The full list is below~]