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It sometimes surprises me how infrequently Canadian elections produce a popular vote majority government and just how small popular vote minorities can be and still win enough seats to form feasible minority or even outright majority governments.
People complain a lot about how undemocratic outcomes in the US are related to the Senate and the Electoral College but it's shockingly common across the democratic world to have governing majorities in parliaments elected by popular vote minorities -- even very small ones! Relatively few countries seem to consistently product popular vote majority coalitions, like Germany, although some countries like Israel or the Netherlands have a habit of building coalitions that are just under 50% of the popular vote.
It's because regionalism has essentially baked ~30-40% of the seats for each of the Liberals and Conservatives -- swing ridings in (particularly) Northern Ontario and (somewhat) Quebec decide who will govern.
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In a Westminster system where voters are used to the existence of more than two parties, a plurality party can only win a majority of seats with <40% of the popular vote if voters don't hate them enough to vote tactically against them. In 2005 and mostly in 2010 it was taken for granted by intelligent left-wing voters that you don't vote Labour in a Con-LD marginal and you don't vote Lib Dem in a Con-Lab marginal. By 2015, the left hated the Lib Dems more than they hated the Tories and voted accordingly.
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It's just crazy to me because of the way the majority party in the British Parliament has more or less unlimited power to do whatever it wants, without limit outside expectations of facing election, and yet you can get quite substantial majorities with <40% of the overall vote. Democracy truly is a cultural institution there. There are no safeguards and yet they do OK.
In the US, if we had multiple parties like the 2.5 parties in the UK, more popular vote minority control of the House would happen, probably (something that's actually rather rare in American history; when it does happen, it does indeed tend to produce a minority House, but never less than a 40% vote share), although perhaps not quite to the same degree. Third parties in American history have tended to be geographic or regional parties, which limits the damage they can do to the two main parties.
The Senate, of course, has nothing to do with the national popular vote. The relationship between the Senate winner and the popular vote is mostly mediated by whether the class of Senators up for election includes a California Senator or not. Who wins the Senate or how the Senate composition ends up being determined is going to be a total wild card in this scenario, I think.
The Presidency would be interesting. The Electoral College has an absolute majority requirement, with the alternative being a contingent election in the House. Since the House votes by states and not by member, this would leave the outcome more or less entirely divorced from the national popular vote. Believe it or not, this is how the Framers originally saw Presidential elections going most of the time, with the EC failing to find a majority and the election being forced to the House, except when a 'man of national renown' (read, at the time of the Philadelphia Convention: Washington) had the charisma, fame, and respect to garner an outright EC majority. Partisan politics ensured this never happened but, if you moved to more than two parties, it would become more common, I think.
Well, we did okay until the Coronavirus Act 2020 created rule by decree - executive was able to create new laws without input from parliament.
And 1824 is the only time this actually happened, right?
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I think a lot of the wierdness of the US Constitution is explained by the fact that the Framers knew that Washington would be effectively unopposed as the first President, and assumed that he would be de facto President for life rather than stepping down after two terms.
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Yeah its very weird because theory suggests that everything should trend toward a 2-party system, and yet...
Quebec is particularly crazy at the federal level: Literally 4 competitive parties. Look at the Quebec vote breakdown, how doesn't it result in 2 parties joining to win handily?
Quebec is very unusual. Look farther back.
Basically it's quite socially separate from the rest of Canada. Most identify more as Quebecers or French than as Canadians.
So it's very common for Quebecers to vote federally in terms of what Quebec or their district will get instead of ideologically.
In Canada ministers are chosen from the elected members. But cabinet ministers are expected to have representation from Quebec.
So if the Conservatives win, and they only have a handful of small town members of parliament, then those members are basically guaranteed to be in cabinet.
Quebec ends up having big swings.
In 2000 the NDP got 1.8% of the vote in Quebec.
In 2011 the NDP got 42.9% of the vote in Quebec.
In 2019 the NDP got 10.8% of the vote in Quebec.
The two party system in the US is pushed by factors missing in Canada.
First, separate executive elections with multiple elections on the same day. A Florida's state representative's campaign will get to piggy back on GOTV from the national presidential campaign. Even if there are ideological differences there's a huge reward for tying yourself to a presidential candidate.
The other big thing is state run open primaries. In Canada candidates are decided by votes by members of Electoral District Associations. That is, the party members in that district. It tends to be a small group of people running it. It's easy to keep outsiders out.
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