...of whom some 39 percent voted for a Conservative candidate in the last election. The blinkered Sun Media worldview is alive and well here in Canada, and even if it doesn't represent a majority opinion, our first-past-the-post electoral system means it can carve out a majority in the House of Commons and form the government.
As that system has done with six exceptions since confederation (Laurier in 1900 and 1904, Borden in 1917, Mackenzie King in 1940, Diefenbaker in 1958, Mulroney in 1984). In fact ruling parties having over 50% of the votes in Canadian election is the exception rather then the rule.
The only way to make sure the general populace vote = ruling party is to have an American style two party system, and frankly, I've heard very few good things about that. IMO Canada has a decent balance; parties on the fringe either adapt or assimilate, and all parties gravitate to the political centre if they want success. It saves having two powerful parties for long, and prevents the dog breakfest of some countries where there's 15 different names on the ballot.
> The only way to make sure the general populace vote = ruling party is to have an American style two party system
I offer as counterexamples all the industrialized liberal democracies with various forms of proportional representation, in which the composition of the government actually does reflect the general populace vote. They may not be countries in which a single party forms the government, but there's no reason a single party has to form the government, particularly if no party receives more than 50% support among electors.
I have a lot of respect for the parliamentary system, in which voters elect the House of Commons, the House appoints a Prime Minister, the Prime Minister appoints a Cabinet, the PM and Cabinet are accountable to the House. I appreciate that this system has historically included parties, or formal associations among members of the House of Commons to vote more or less along party lines.
However, the parliamentary system also has a long tradition of coalitions among parties, and even of governments being formed by parties that did not win a majority of seats. The basic unit of legitimacy for a parliamentary government is that the government enjoys the confidence of the House.
I was really frustrated during the 2008-2009 constitutional crisis over the widespread public ignorance over how the parliamentary system works. It's frighteningly clear that most Canadians don't understand their own government, which makes the system a ripe target for abuse. Since the 1970s, Canadian ruling parties have steadily concentrated power more narrowly in the PMO, to the point that Canadians have forgotten that they vote for the House, not for the Government.
As a result, governments have increasingly snubbed their nose at the House of Commons - to the extent that the Harper government actually deployed a handbook for disrupting and marginalizing parliamentary committees and absolutely refused to share budget numbers with MPs, triggering an election over their Contempt of Parliament.
During the constitutional crisis, and following the lead of the Conservative Party, far too many Canadians argued with straight faces that a government appointed by a coalition of parties representing more than half the seats in the House and more than half the votes cast would be somehow anti-democratic, while an appointed government that refused to face a confidence vote - the most fundamental litmus test of legitimacy in a parliamentary system - was somehow upholding democracy.
We can no longer afford a system in which a single party with a minority of votes can enjoy a majority of seats and more-or-less absolute power to pass legislation during its term in control of the government. You write, "all parties gravitate to the political centre if they want success", but the current government is busy passing one-sided ideological legislation - like the omnibus crime bill and the new copyright bill - that most Canadians oppose.
If they held seats proportional to their popular support, they would have to cooperate with another party to achieve majority support in the House and we would see more balanced legislation.
