In other news: not one to allow the Americans to monopolize the stage with their exciting Osama thing, Canada attempted to revolt against Bush, Part II Harper, forced an election and tried to throw him out. While the voter turn-out was still disappointingly low, there was amazing excitement in young voters for the first time in ever and Canada saw a campaign and response similar to the "Rock the Vote" youth movement that went down in the USA a few years back, ending in Obama's victory. We definitely had stars in our eyes that our revolution against fuckwadery would end in the same success theirs did...
... And instead the bastard was not only re-elected, but won majority government.

Our electoral system is fucked: 60% of people voted to throw the guy out and miraculously he wins bigger, so now he actually has more power than he did before this whole thing even started. Splits all across the country in major ridings essentially handed the position to him.

Although several historic things happened that we all are appreciating:
- The NDP party crushed the Liberals and we all saw orange for the first time.
- For the first seat went to A GREEN PARTY LEADER which has never happened in Canada's history. In fact, she beat out an incumbent Conservative who has been in his seat for something like 14 years. I mean... what? Seriously? When she showed up for her victory speech she honestly looked as shocked as the rest of us.
- The Bloc Quebecois seem to be toast, and even though the province has been fiercely loyal to the Bloc since they came together in the mid 90's, they completely turned and voted a jaw-dropping 64 seats to the NDP.

For those of you scratching your heads through this, you aren't alone. Most of us can't figure out what the fuck is going on with our electoral system either, and despite being taught this stuff in school for several grades I only really started understanding Canada's politics and leaders in the last 5 or so years. You guys in the USA have a pretty simple system from our perspective: two opposing parties weed themselves down to a choice leader of each, and then the polls open to the public who then choose who they like best and whoever gets the most votes wins the White House. Plus, something about Ralph Nader...
But us? Not that simple:  we have a multi-party system that's supposed to give a number of platforms the chance to get elected, but we end up more like a two-and-two-halves party system consisting of the Conservatives and Liberals as the main contenders, then the NDP (New Democratic Party) and the Bloc Quebecois as the halves who just sort of sit back and look pretty. Going down another few steps we have the Green and various write-ins or Independents who wish they were real parties, but barely qualify to fetch coffee for the big guys. As for the politics of the two main parties: Conservatives are self-explanatory, but the Liberals are actually far more central than liberal, so don't be fooled by the name.
The Liberals have pretty much been running things since they began somewhere around 1920; but after losing majority government in 2004 they started giving serious ground to the Conservatives, and now the Cons are in power under Stephen Harper. Who is George Bush a massive fucking douchebag.

Who shows up on your ballot depends on your area: one riding may be voting between Conservative and Liberals while another may also have Green, Bloc and the Rhinoceros party to choose from. The latter being a party that claims to be spiritual descendants of a Brazilian rhino that was elected to city council in Sao Paulo*.
We don't actually vote for our Prime Minister in elections, we vote for the person in our riding (aka: electoral district, constituency) that we want to be an MP (member of parliament). That part is pretty straight-forward: each party leader in that riding campaigns for votes, people vote for who they want, whoever gets the most votes out of any candidate (plurality) - rather than who got 50+% (majority) - wins. That person becomes an above-mentioned MP and gains one of currently 308 seats in the House of Commons. Each party has already elected its leader, and whichever party has the most MPs/seats... their fancypants is now the Prime Minister, even though the people never voted for them specifically (except in his or her own riding).

Now for that whole 'majority/minority' thing, which I suspect a few of you have already figured out:
A majority government happens with 155 (?) or more of those seats are filled by a single party, in this case the Conservatives. A minority is when the seats are more randomized and no single party holds 50% or more of the House. In general, minority governments are nicer to have regardless of who is running the show because it forces the parties to create alliances and work together more effectively. The Canadian people get more representation, and the smaller parties that otherwise wouldn't be heard can have a voice. Majority government means we're all sort of stuck listening whoever got the most seats and the Prime Minister gets to put everyone else at the loser table if he feels like it.

We have officially unfixed terms, as far as I recall, but we generally do elections once every 4-5 years and Prime Ministers or riding leaders can be re-elected what seems like FOREVER provided their party continues to get the most seats and no one has removed them from their position.
Follow all that? Neither did I. Now back to what I was saying.

Despite how it turned out, I've never been more excited to vote. I showed up a half hour before the polls closed and there were still people in long lines trailing out the door. My dad was there at 8am to beat the crowd and waited 45 minutes for his turn.
Curtis was also able to vote for the first time, as a permanent resident of Canada. I wish I'd been able to take a picture, because he looked like a kid on Christmas morning as he walked back with his little paper ballot and immediately stood exactly 10.6 inches taller.

A lot of people are pissed over the results, obviously, since the Conservatives didn't get the popular vote. There's also a lot of reports of voter fraud, particularly in ridings where the Conservatives were not polling well. There were incidents like people getting phone calls or emails and letters that told them their polling area had changed so they traveled across town or otherwise went way out of their way only to find out they couldn't vote and no longer had the time or capability to get to the right location. We personally witnessed three such incidents when we went in to vote, but were unable to offer rides to the affected women because they required an accessibility vehicle. Harper also broke the rules by campaigning on the radio on election day. Everyone just keeps getting away with this bullshit, and yet I was just reading that Canada's system is ranked #1 in the Americas and really high when compared to the rest of the world. It kind of makes me want to scream.

Anyway... all hail Harper, Bush's long lost brother, who is slowly trying to turn us into America Part II. The USians out there can try and forgive me for not being too thrilled about that.