Welcome friends. This is Richard Wolff from Democracy at Work
responding to another Ask Prof Wolff question from our Patreon community.
This one comes from 'Ken Cappy' and Ken asks me to comment on, to respond to,
what he calls the "grand, legally binding, leftist coalition" recently announced in Canada.
Now, this is a very important event.
Not just for Canadians but for the United States as well. As I will now try to make clear.
First of all, Canada's notion of elections
and what democratic elections mean is starkly different from that of the United States.
Canada is also different politically. In that it has always had multiple political parties,
not just two. What that means these days is that the current leader Justin Trudeau
has the support of his own party (the Liberal Party) in Canada, but it's not enough to govern.
In order to govern and have a real majority, he has to ally with somebody.
And what he has just chosen to do is to ally with a party sharply to the left of the Liberal Party.
Namely, the NDP - the New Democratic Party. Which is, in Canada, supporting the kinds of things
that Bernie Sanders, AOC and that progressive wing of the Democratic Party, supports here.
But everything is important in this story. Above all, that Canada has multiple parties
(we only have two) and that Canada believes in what is called proportional representation.
And here's what that means: if you're a political party and you get 15 percent of the people to
vote for you, the idea is you ought to have 15 percent of the votes in the legislature.
So that the 15 percent's perspectives articulated by this party
can play their role in shaping the politics, the laws, and so on.
It would be undemocratic in this view to exclude a party of 15 percent (even though that denies
voice to those 15 percent) by saying it's kind of a winner-take-all. Whatever the election is,
the one who gets the most votes is the only one who gets to go to the legislature.
That's how we work it in the United States. If you win the seat in your district you go and represent
it. The party that lost doesn't have anybody to go and represent it. It has to count on the opposing
party to represent it's views, too. And that's something very few people would take seriously
as a proposition. However, that's the way we do it in the United States for general elections.
A clue to the shakiness of this is we don't do that in many states with primaries
when three or four people run. To be President of the United States, for example in a primary,
many states say if one of the candidates gets 30 percent and another gets 20 percent,
30 percent of the delegates going to the convention to select the candidate will
come from the one, 20 from the other. That's proportional representation.
So, let's analyze Canada. In order to govern the center - Justin Trudeau is
a centrist politician - had to make a deal with the left. And that will give
the left all kinds of power and leverage in deciding legislation, in deciding policy.
You know, the middle in politics is everywhere in trouble.
The Republicans got rid of their middle by going to the extreme with Trump.
The middle in the Democratic Party Mr Biden is constantly repressing. And denying
the needs and desires of the progressive wing. They don't have their own party in this country
so they can't cut the kind of deal that the NDP just cut with the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau.
It turns out that it matters if you don't have your own political party
and it matters if you don't have proportional representation.
Mr Biden can deny the progressives all kinds of influence that Mr Trudeau
couldn't do before he made this deal. And can do even less after he's made this deal
It is very important because it may help teach the American people not only that their own
democratic elections aren't as democratic as other people's (including our neighbor
Canada.) But that there are real costs - particularly for progressives in being denied
the influence they ought to have given the size of the population they represent -
because of the structure of the two parties that operate a monopoly in our electoral system
And you know monopolies are not only something we exclude by law from our economy but monopolies
ought to be excluded by law from our political system as well. The multiple parties of Canada,
the kinds of deals that have to be made to give parties that already have power in the legislature
power in the government (when they are part of governing coalitions -
as is happening in Canada) is a lesson that Americans could and should take to heart.
This is Richard Wolff for Democracy at Work.