• BlairMahaffy@lemmy.ca
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    13 hours ago

    Except the Constitution doesn’t stipulate FPTP. It defines how seats are allocated based on population and provinces and all but doesn’t say how to decide what MPs go in what seats. It doesn’t mention parties either.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      3 hours ago

      What? Really? I guess it’s in the Elections Act, then.

      Yup, checks out. There’s certain ridings and they all have to produce one member, but it doesn’t say how. Wonders of living in a country that wasn’t really a democracy originally, I guess. One member representing each riding limits options quite a bit, but there are proportional systems that could be made to work that way.

      It doesn’t mention parties either.

      Which isn’t necessarily unusual. It wasn’t a designed part of the US system, for example - if anything it undercuts the original intention of the system. Proportional systems have to recognise them at least a bit, though.