"But for now Canadians have the party they voted for."

Wrong! The hell they do. ;-) They have the party that 37% of the eligible voters who actually went out and voted, voted for.

It is the peculiar nature of our first-past-the-post multi-party electoral system that allows 37% of the voters in a country to imagine that they are "a majority" or that the people they voted for represent one, JimLad. Such hubris! Or is it just the self-serving logic of convenience?

I would be in favor of a system that works on proportional representation...and furthermore, that requires at least a 2/3 vote of support in parliament to pass any piece of legislation. That would be much more honestly reflective of the will of the people than the system we have in place now...and it would require the parties to have some more respect for each other and make them willing to show some more cooperation and compromise than they are presently inclined to.

As soon as any one party gets a parliamentary majority in our present system, you have a parliamentary dictatorship until the next election. That's not good, regardless of whether it's the Conservatives or the Liberals who get to exercise it.

The necessity of a 2/3 vote to approve legislation would go a long way toward preventing that sort of dictatorial arrogance on the part of the governing party. Anything that cannot get the support of 2/3 of the people is probably not such a good idea anyway.