Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Six. Part One

    Statistics and Politics by Dave Jaffe. Part One




    "There's lies, damn lies and statistics," I heard one person say a few years ago. Maybe this is true but statistics or more accurately percentages unlocked the key for me to Canadian politics. They also pushed me out of any involvement in politics. In the long run this too was a good thing.
     In Canadian federal elections the centrist Liberal party usually wins a little over 40 per cent of the total vote. The right wing Conservative party comes in second with about 35 per cent of the total vote. And somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent of the voters cast their ballots for the left leaning New Democratic Party or "the N.D.P.' as it's referred to. Then there's the Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois who pick up the rest of the vote. To-day these two parties are distinctly minor parties. Elizabeth May, for instance is the sole elected Green Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. The Bloc Quebecois which once formed the official opposition now only wins a handful of seats.
      So with a first past the vote system of voting, the Liberals usually win a majority of seats in the House of Commons and forms the federal government. The Conservatives most of the time sit in the parliament as the official opposition. Once in a while they beat the Liberals and form the government. Then the N.D.P. win 25 seats or less of the 338 seats in the House of Commons. They're usually squeezed into a corner of the House.
     In British Columbian politics there's also an underlying pattern to voting that rarely changes. The N.D.P. in B.C. usually gets 40 per cent of the vote in a provincial election. Yet they rarely win more than this two-fifths of the vote. Three out of five voters will never put an X or a tick besides an N.D.P. candidate. "I'm a free enterpriser," says Frank a big chunky 50's something bus driver. "I'm against socialism and won't ever vote for the N.D.P."
     Frank's not alone. 60 percent of the voters agree with him. So since about 1933 most voters on the right vote for a right wing party. At one time between 1933 and 1940 that party was the Liberals.  From 1940 to 1952 a Liberal-Conservative government ruled the roost. After it collapsed, the Social Credit party became to  the choice of most conservative voters. Now these voters once again prefer the Liberals.
   Every forty years or so, the conservative voters switch to a new or old right wing party. A  new
or old time political party comes along and takes votes from the incumbent conservatives. Once again the N.D.P. stay in opposition as the conservative group wins one election after another. "Forget the hoopla," one N.D.P. organizer once pointed out to me " and just study the percentages. That' all that counts.." Once I did this, I realized what federal and provincial politics were all about. Yet once I did this I also realized how little I could change B.C. or Canadian politics and swing them to the left.