I did two very Canadian things April 28.

I voted and I filed my income tax return. I know I should do that earlier … maybe vote in the advance poll next time. But file my income taxes early? Can’t see that happening anytime soon.

And now that the dust has settled on the federal election it’s time to editorialize it all. The late-great columnist Alan Fotheringham once opined that editorial writers are like the folks they used to send in after the battle to kill all the wounded.

So, spear in hand, here goes.

What can I say about Pierre Poilievre that hasn’t already been said? He, and his party, blew a big lead. They are dressing it up as a win pointing out that the Conservatives increased their seat count and vote count, which is true.

All parties were victim of the vagaries of our electoral system.

The Conservatives secured 42 per cent of the vote which, ironically, is more than the 39 per cent Stephen Harper did to secure a majority. The irony for the Mark Carney and Liberals is that they secured the largest percentage of the popular likely ever, at 49 per cent, but could only manage a minority government.

When the New Democrats were a force and we truly had a three-party system, 38 or 39 per cent of the popular vote was enough to win. That was true for either the Liberals and the Conservatives. In fact, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won big in 2015 with only 39 per cent of the vote. This time, with the collapse of the NDP, that previous benchmark just wasn’t enough.

It was more of a two-party race which means the benchmark to win, was elevated.

Which brings me to one of my favourite topics … proportional representation. I have always been a proponent of proportional representation. Personally, I favour the much-maligned BC-Single Transferable Vote system devised in this province years ago. It got defeated twice, not because it isn’t a good system, but because it is complicated.

So what would have happened if the federal election would have been run under a proportional representation system? Not a lot. The result would largely have been the same, but with a more precarious minority (which is what opponents of proportional representation hate).

The Liberals garnered 43.7 per cent of the vote. With 343 seats in the House of Commons, 43.7 per cent translates to 150 seats, considerably less than the 169 they won. The Conservatives captured 41.3 per cent of the popular vote, which translates to 142 seats … two less than the 144 they actually secured.

The Bloc Quebecois captured 6.3 per cent of the popular vote, which, under proportional representation, would have been 21 seats. They actually won 22 seats.
The New Democrats’ support vanished with 6.3 per cent of the popular vote. Under proportional representation, that would give them 22 seats … the same as the Bloc.

The Green Party secure 1.2 per cent of the popular vote, which would equate to four seats, up from the one they did win. However, most proportional representation systems have a minimum percentage of the popular vote needed to actually win seats. That is often somewhere between five and 10 per cent, meaning the Greens might even have been shut out more than they are.

The reality of our election is that, even though we still have a minority government, voters are more evenly split on who they support than the seat count suggests. Proportional representation reflects that reality while first-past-the-post does not.

Wouldn’t it be better if our House of Commons reflected reality?

Born and raised in Fernie, Bill Phillips is an award-winning journalist and columnist. He was the winner of the 2009 Best Editorial award at the British Columbia/Yukon Community Newspaper Association’s Ma Murray awards, in 2007 he won the association’s Best Columnist award. In 2004, he placed third in the Canadian Community Newspaper best columnist category and, in 2003, placed second.