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6,382 Kingstonians voted for Eric Walton in the 2008 general federal election.
This improved on the 2006 campaign by 1376 votes, a 22% gain, and a brand new record. Our share of the popular
vote jumped from 8% to 11%, a 37% increase. The Green share of the vote in Kingston
has grown in each of the last five elections, provincial and federal.
All of this despite widespread calls for vote splitting and "strategic voting". Independent projections had put popular support
for the Greens as high as 16% with a week to go in the election. Despite the limitations of
our antiquated voting system, with voters urged to vote for the "least worst" rather than
what they actually want, core Green support not only held steady, it grew significantly.
Cresting the 10% mark in popular vote is of great importance to the Kingston Greens.
Parties that gain over 10% of the popular vote within a riding are refunded 60% of their campaign expenses,
a huge advantage to the established, traditional parties, which do not need to fundraise
from scratch after each election. The Kingston Greens will be enjoying this assistance
for the first time, but not the last. The refund will allow us to contest the next federal
election stronger than ever. Planning has already begun.
Eric Walton and his campaign team would like to thank everyone who donated and volunteered
to the 2008 campaign. Every bit of support made a difference. And thanks to everyone who voted
Green, to continue raising the profile of Green approaches to the major challenges facing our
time.
It's just outrageous that the BQ with 10% of the national vote
should get 50 seats in parliament while the Greens with 7% get none.
We must pressure all parties in parliament to seriously pursue electoral reform.
Click here to view the 2008 Election Main Page.
Scroll down to view other interesting highlights of the campaign as it unfolded, and a look back at previous campaigns.
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From Fair Vote Canada http://www.FairVote.ca
The Greens deserved more than 20 seats - the voting system also punished New Democrats, western Liberals and urban Conservatives.
Once again, Canada’s antiquated first-past-the-post system wasted millions of votes, distorted results, severely punished large blocks of voters, exaggerated regional differences, created an unrepresentative Parliament and contributed to a record low voter turnout.
The chief victims of the October 14 federal election were:
- Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.
- Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.
- Urban Conservatives: Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.
- New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.
“How can anyone consider this democratic representation?” asked Barbara Odenwald, President of Fair Vote Canada.
Had the votes on October 14 been cast under a fair and proportional voting system, Fair Vote Canada projected that the seat allocation would have been approximately as follows:
- Conservatives - 38% of the popular vote: 117 seats (not 143)
- Liberals - 26% of the popular vote: 81 seats (not 76)
- NDP - 18% of the popular vote: 57 seats (not 37)
- Bloc - 10% of the popular vote: 28 seats (not 50)
- Greens - 7% of the popular vote: 23 seats (not 0)
Fair Vote Canada also has data for each province on the number of seats won and number of seats actually deserved by each party.
Odenwald emphasized that any projection on the use of other voting systems must be qualified, as specific system features would affect the exact seat allocation.
“With a different voting system, people would also have voted differently,” said Larry Gordon, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada. “There would have been no need for strategic voting. We would likely have seen higher voter turnout. We would have had different candidates - more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We would have had more real choices.”
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Support for the Green Party is also surging across the country, in part due to
GPC leader Elizabeth May's stellar performance in the televised debates. Polls
released by Harris/Decima show that positive perceptions of May have increased
to 45% so that more Canadians view her positively than do Stephen Harper.
Click the link above for more details.
Read this blog to learn more about the gains being made by
Greens in this election.
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As some of you may know, the Kingston & The Islands Green Party has deliberately chosen not to place lawn signs in public places (e.g. roads, at intersections, etc.) in this election. Instead we display them only on the property of supporters.
The "No Signs in Public Places" initiative began in the 2006 federal election when we challenged the other political candidates to join
us for the greater public interest of reducing visual pollution and wastage of materials. We wanted to avoid a silly sign war. After all, plastering signs everywhere does not indicate support, just excess!
Four of the five political parties running in the 2006 federal election agreed to this plan and left only the Conservatives seeking to gain an advantage by putting their signs up in public places. If the final result at the polls was any measure, it certainly didn't help.
In this 2008 federal election, we put out the same challenge to local parties, but regrettably they have all reverted to the
status quo. We go it alone this time -walking the talk. With two weeks left in the election it is already looking pretty ugly out
there and will no doubt get worse.
This is "brand marketing" theory taken one step too far and applied to the process of selecting political representation. It is one thing to attempt to make multiple visual impressions on a consumer so that they will reach say for a Pepsi instead of a Coke, but what respect is there for citizen awareness and informed choice when the same technique is applied to the democratic process?
If some voters were in fact more susceptible to this brand marketing approach then surely it would be more honourable to put campaign resources into informing those voters through media and literature, rather than diverting scarce and legally limited funds into simply more signs. It is an insult to both the intelligence of the voter and the ideals of the process. We aren't choosing soda pop!
The sign issue is no big thing compared to the crucial and fundamental debate on policy direction we need to have in this election
but it does serve as a glimpse into judgement, capacity for collaboration over excessive partisanship, and who will "walk the talk"
for the promises made to win votes.
I know where I stand - win or lose.
Eric Walton - Green Party Candidate, Kingston and The Islands
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Elizabeth May's whistle stop cross-country tour stopped at
Kingston station on Sept. 26th at 9:30AM.
Over one hundred Green supporters gathered
on the rail platform Friday morning to greet Elizabeth May as she arrives in Kingston
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Elizabeth May addresses the crowd with candidates Eric Walton
and Chris Walker at her side.
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