Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

You can stop feeling smug now

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 2:00pm - 15 Comments

Our respective elections this year would appear to represent the first time since 1896 that voter turnout in the United States surpassed voter turnout here in Canada.

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  • Mike T.

    Drat. Now I will have to content myself with gay equality, gun control and health care.

  • Ti-Guy

    Well, we can always hope that Harper will screw up Canada as badly as Bush did America so we, too, can be similarly motivated to rush to the polls in great numbers.

  • Two Hats

    I’m all for stopping feeling smug, but I have to note that everyone (almost) gets registered to vote in Canada; the numbers of eligile-but-unregistered voters in the US is higher. So the same apparent turnout (ie #votes/#registered) in the US as Canada means the US turnout is lower. In fact, of course, the US number is slightly higher this time around, so the best you can say is that we’re more-or-less equallly pathetic.

  • http://kitchenersown.blogspot.com/ Lord Kitchener’s Own

    Mike,

    Ha!

    Plus, we’re only fighting one war, we have oil, our economy’s not nearly as bad, our national pension plan is reasonably solvent, our crime rates are ridiculously lower…

    Remind me again why I’m supposed to stop feeling smug.

    Oh, right, the most historic U.S. election in my lifetime resulted in slightly higher voter turnout than the most boring Canadian election in my lifetime.

    Somehow, I think I’ll get over it.

    :-)

  • http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

    Smugness is in our DNA apparently and many Canadians will never stop feeling superior to Americans and others.

    Mike T is perfect example: making jokes about special needs kids while claiming Canadians are better than others because of gun control laws and our broken health care system.

  • Blues Clair

    Oh how I miss Canada’s broken health care system.

  • Wayne

    What I am getting a real kick out of is that a lot of left wing nut anti-harperites out there are suffering from a strange delusion that Obama is bad news for Harper. ROFL LMAO – such maroons. O contraire folks if anything has anyone noticed who was at the democratic convention from canada having lot’s of up close and personal meetings with Obies crew? Guess who (Cannon and Prentice wink wink nudge nudge and guess who is now in the cabinet all of a sudden – tangled web woven here)-I think that my boy Stevie now has an opportunity to do what usually is a death march for a PM who wants to get close to a President after all one moment he will be the Bush buddy and the next Obie and Stevie will be the best of buddies (this will drive left wing nuts crazy) I can’t wait! Especially when we start to see some policies coming out that we conservatives couldn’t get before but wil be able to now as so many people support Obama – I love politics imagine a conservative\democratic coalition in the americas with the Liberal\Republicans being left out in the cold brrrr.

  • Mike T.

    The joke was about Republicans but it unfairly maligned special needs children.

    but you knew that. Troll.

  • Blues Clair

    wayhnee, u b a weirdo, ROFL!

    why r we lefties such maroons LMAO!

    Though I do find it interesting that NDP partisans have taken such a shining to that Liberal warmongering Obama.

  • Jenn

    I don’t know what you’re talking about, Wayne, but I’m thrilled that Harper plans to be such good friends with Obama.

    It wasn’t that I didn’t want our Prime Minister to be close to the American President, it was that I didn’t want our Prime Minister blindly following the lead of a stupid crazy man.

    I don’t think Obama is crazy or stupid, so that’s a much better role model for Harper to follow.

  • T. Thwim

    Beats John Howard, anyway.

  • Ti-Guy

    Remind me again why I’m supposed to stop feeling smug.

    You’re not supposed to stop feeling smug. You’re supposed to feel chastened and guilty and accept the proper hectoring and scolding our mediocre elite (media, business, political) never stops serving us up.

    Ever wonder why, when you’re travelling abroad, being all smug and everything, that the most common sentiment expressed by foreigners is that they never hear anything about Canada? Gee, I wonder why that is?

  • http://phantomobserver.com PhantomObserver

    I’m trying to remember if there was any Canadian feeling smug about voter turnout. So far, I can’t think of any.

    Besides, given that the US has ten times the population, 20 times the press saturation, an administration that polarizes public opinion to such a high degree and a Democratic candidate who’s good on the stump, why wouldn’t their voter turnout be higher?

  • Sisyphus

    I think it was still below 60% !?

  • Andrew

    I suspect it is as much a problem of measures (inches vs. centimeters) as actual difference. A little like unemployment numbers, where the US tends to undercount vs. StatsCan’s method.

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