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Originally Posted by Wolven
In 2021 they made it to 840K votes, which is a big step up from the 2019 election but still below the 5% mark. But even if they make it to the 5% threshold in a MMPR system, that just means they get a seat in government. It does not mean that they automatically get party status, which is currently defined as needing 12 seats (and that party status requirement is likely to go up if we add more seats in a new government system that has more seats to it). Without party status, they would essentially be sitting in the house like Independents. The Green party has been showing us for decades how ineffective holding 1 or 2 seats can be, so again I am not entirely sure what the concern is?
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If the PPC got a hair short of 5 per cent of the vote in a FPTP system, they undoubtedly would have gotten more in a proportional system where every vote counts. A 5 per cent threshold clearly wouldn’t keep extreme parties out of parliament.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolven
Having said all of that, I think the cure to these kinds of parties is education. An educated population can see through these parties and their culture war BS.
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Canada today has the most educated populace in the country’s history. In 1970, fewer than 70 per cent of students graduated from high school. Today, that figure is 88 per cent. In 1970, only 22 per cent of Canadians had post-secondary education, compared with 58 per cent today. And yet here we are with the highest support for populist politics in living memory.
People aren’t blank vessels that you just pour education into to make them enlightened. Unless we want to lower standards in post-secondary education even more, we’ve pushed up against the limits of participation.