The Purple Party Paradox

Let’s imagine a new Canadian party. They pick purple as their colour because they are a perfect blend of red progressive human rights and blue conservative economic stability. Their platform has four pillars: cost of living relief, housing, healthcare, responsible immigration, and energy security with environmental stewardship. Each pillar balances compassion with fiscal responsibility.

Now let’s imagine that the Purple Party is second-past-the-post in each of Canada’s 343 ridings. How many seats would they win in the House of Commons? Zero. Yes, zero!

Map of Canada Public Domain/Horse Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

 Even though they won more of the popular vote, as the Conservatives did in 2019 and 2021, it could still be shut out of Parliament entirely. That's the fundamental flaw of first-past-the-post—millions of votes can result in zero representation.

Electoral reform with proportional representation would solve this unfairness. If the Purple Party won 35% of the vote, they would win 35% of the seats. Imagine knowing that your vote would count, help elect someone, never be wasted or split the vote, and make every riding matter in every election.

Unlike Canada, most OECD countries use proportional or mixed electoral systems. When votes are translated into seats, you are more likely to believe your voice matters. That belief builds trust in democracy. Trust creates a stronger sense of belonging, where you feel less ignored or shut out. A democracy you trust is more likely to stay united.

Support electoral reform with PR. Visit FairVote.ca or CharterChallenge.ca to learn how.

35% votes = 35% seats—simple math, fair representation

The Real Math of Representation

What did you think about the unusual wave of floor crossings? In the aftermath of Conservative MP Gladu’s floor crossing, Prime Minister Mark Carney said, "If you really want to unite the country, you want people with lots of different views." This applies most clearly to elections, when diversity within a party is built transparently. After elections, when diversity is gained through defections, it can raise questions about legitimacy.

When someone crosses the floor, it blurs the connection between how people voted and who governs. That dynamic is sharper under first-past-the-post, where even a small shift can have outsized effects on power. This strengthens the case for proportional representation (PR), where seats reflect how people actually voted. Similar shifts would be less likely to dramatically alter who governs because power is usually shared among multiple parties and coalition agreements.

Image created by ChatGPT 9-Jun-2026

While majority governments elected with less than majority support may “get things done,” the policy lurch that follows can undo those gains and create uncertainty. GPC Leader Elizabeth May points instead to Lester B. Pearson’s minority governments, which worked closely with Tommy Douglas and the NDP to help deliver Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, and major expansions of social programs.

Canadians cast ballots for representation, not surprises. PR would make sure the democratic math still adds up after election day.

Support electoral reform with PR. Visit FairVote.ca or CharterChallenge.ca to learn how.

35% votes = 35% seats—simple math, fair representation

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

Do you remember when Google’s code of conduct included “Don’t be evil”? Let’s define evil as intentionally causing harm. Social media platforms did not set out to cause harm. Yet their algorithms optimize for profit by amplifying negative emotions, with no awareness of the harm they cause to individuals and democracy.

That gap between intent and outcome reflects how these systems are built. They are trained. Training an AI model is less like writing code and more like shaping a developing brain. Algorithms guide how connections change with experience. Even if we could map every one of those connections, we still couldn’t reliably predict what the system will do. Artificial superintelligence (ASI) would be trained the same way and it would be beyond our ability to fully predict or control.

Concerned AI experts and others warn that mitigating extinction risk from ASI should be a global priority alongside pandemics and nuclear war. This sounds like science fiction. But imagine a Mayan warrior watching Spanish ships approach, unable to conceive that the men aboard had technology that could kill at a distance. Even without a physical form, ASI could exert real-world influence by exploiting the interconnected technologies we already depend on. We will be the Mayan warriors, outgunned before we even understand why.

Modified images by Niran Kasri/OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

The authors of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies say many leaders see the danger but stay silent. When we speak up, we give them the mandate to act. Tell leaders to act now to build treaties and prevent any ASI.  

The Boulder Kids Can’t Dodge

Are you familiar with the song line, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all”? It is very applicable to the Saskatchewan Child Poverty Report Card 2026 by Simon Enoch (PhD), a Senior Researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) in Saskatchewan. Before diving into the report, let’s build an analogy for child poverty using a boulder dropped in a stream.

Author Ed Smith explains that an early critical chance event in your life is like a boulder that diverts the course of your stream, changing it forever. Child poverty is a proven cumulative disadvantage: each effect builds on the last, narrowing the channels of possibility at every stage.

Image by N Carswell from yayang art and OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay 

Let’s follow the childhood poverty stream path over time. As an infant, limited access to nutrition, healthcare, and stimulation can restrict physical and cognitive development. In early childhood, this shows up as lower school readiness and weaker academic performance. As the child grows, openings to engage in holistic growth activities like sports or the arts are limited. In adolescence, growing up in under-resourced environments can heighten stress and feelings of insecurity, while also limiting access to supportive social connections that are vital for coping, learning, and emotional growth. By adulthood, the stream has narrowed further with lower educational attainment limiting access to stable, well-paying work.

Without intervention, the constricted stream of opportunity carved by child poverty threatens to shape not only one life but the course of the next generation as well. Enoch’s Saskatchewan Child Poverty Report Card 2026 gives the Saskatchewan government a failing grade. Here are some grim Saskatchewan poverty statistics:​

·     Children living in poverty 27.1% with children under six 30.39%

·     Children in northern regions over 60%

·     Lone-parent families 49.4%

The report explains how government transfers combat poverty and urges the Saskatchewan government to prioritize anti-poverty strategies to prevent long-term harm to children. These include:

·        Use rent caps to prevent sudden increases in housing costs.

·        Create a Saskatchewan child benefit to supplement federal support. ​

·        Ensure social assistance benefits covers basic utilities and are indexed to inflation

·        Increase the minimum wage

·        Boost provincial transfers, including tax credits and sales tax rebates. ​

·        Continue commitment for universal affordable childcare

Let’s start working upstream and make sure that no bad luck boulders of poverty divert children’s lives. Ultimately, their bad luck is bad luck for all of us.

(This is longer than a 250 word letter to the editor.)

The Canadian Wealth Chasm in 30,000 Seats

Have you lived a million seconds? Most likely if you are reading this as you pass a million (M) seconds during your 12^th day. You have lived a billion (B) seconds if you have lived 32 years—yes, years. We can do the math, but it is hard to grasp the magnitude of big numbers. The Oxfam report “The Rise of the Super-Rich: The State of Inequality in Canada” uses big numbers. To make these numbers tangible, let us look at using a 30,000-seat stadium.

Graphic by N Carswell

In this stadium, the 1% wealthiest Canadians, each with a net worth of around $7M, take up 300 seats. The 40% of Canadians with an average net worth of just under $87,000 occupy 12,000 seats. Move the 300 wealthy onto the field, which is 100 metres long and 60 metres wide, or 6,000 square metres (m²). They hold 25% of Canada’s wealth, giving each person about 5 m², roughly the size of a walk-in closet. You could picture them standing with room to stretch and walk around.

Now try fitting the 12,000 people from the bottom 40% onto the same field. They hold only 3% of the wealth, 180 m² in total. That is just the space of a hand spread out for each person. Even if six people squeezed into a square metre, m
ost would still have to stay in the stands, barely touching the field.

The top 0.01%, only 3 people in our stadium, occupy 3 seats but hold 5% of the wealth. On the field, they would each have 100 m², about the size of a large apartment.

As the report emphasizes, the inequality gap in Canada has become a “wide, expansive, echoing wealth chasm.” Out of the 30,000 people in our stadium, over 3,000 are living in poverty, and 7,500 are food insecure. This divide is not just numbers. It erodes trust in institutions, weakens democracy, and deepens political polarization, leaving many Canadians feeling excluded from decisions that affect their lives. A few rich people control the media, leaving many voices unheard and making inequality worse.

But inequality is not inevitable.

Canada and Saskatchewan could take decisive steps to close this gap. The report recommends a progressive wealth tax on fortunes over $10M, closing offshore tax loopholes, and supporting international efforts to curb tax avoidance. These steps could raise billions for healthcare, affordable housing, and child care making the economy fairer and giving more of us a chance to thrive.

Inequality is not just a statistic, it affects everyone every day. You can make a difference. Contact your MP and/or MLA and tell them that Canada needs fairer policies now. Speak up, demand action, and help turn these numbers into a future that works for everyone. 

(This is longer than a 250 word letter to the editor.)

Vote and Voice

At an elementary school event, I witnessed a great example of nurturing parenting. The parent announced it was time to go. One child protested and pleaded. The parent listened attentively and responded to the child’s words while playfully herding their two children to the door. The parent’s listening was not a surrender of authority, but a way of guiding the child through frustration. Nurturing parenting often means giving a child a voice, but not a vote.

Our first-past-the-post electoral system offers an opposite example. Even when your vote helps elect an MP, that MP often has no voice. As Andrew Coyne explains in The Crisis in Canadian Democracy, MPs historically used their voices to “consider, refine and pass” legislation. Increasingly, they are whipped by party discipline (and/or personal ambition) to keep their party in power. Omnibus bills and truncated debate times further muzzle our MPs, reducing Parliamentary voting to a rubber stamp.

Proportional representation (PR) would change this dynamic. Coyne also explains how PR governments promote stable, consensus-based policy. Those consensus-based policies are because MPs have a voice. Also, because the votes a party gets translates into seats, voters have a voice.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images and OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.

Which raises a timely question: if PR converts votes into voices—both in Parliament and across the country—would Alberta be holding a referendum on leaving Canada at all?

Support electoral reform with PR. Visit FairVote.ca or CharterChallenge.ca to learn how.

35% votes = 35% seats—simple math, fair representation

From "Can AI?" to "Should AI?"

If you had asked me five years ago if my instructional design work could be done by artificial intelligence, (AI), I would have said no. Now, I would say yes. The question has changed from can AI replace human workers to, should it?

The recent federal budget cuts the federal public service by adopting AI tools. Imagine at 65, you defer your OAS benefits because you are still working. Then your checks start arriving. Your local Service Canada is closed. The automated phone menu is a maze. Your online My Service Canada Account is equally confusing. You give up trapped between AI systems with no human help.

Image by Alicia from Pixabay

Giving up has financial implications for you as OAS benefits are taxable. However, the larger harm is psychological. Being at the mercy of AI algorithms is likely to produce stress and alienation, undermining your wellbeing and civic trust.

Canada needs long-term AI policies that keep pace with technology and protect humans. But under first-past-the-post (FPTP), parties chase short-term wins, ignoring future consequences. Even if the current government implements good policies, the next government may change it to align with their politics.

To harness AI safely and for the common good, we need policies that prioritize humans and lasting solutions. Electoral reform with proportional representation (PR) fosters collaboration and consensus, encouraging long-term policymaking that benefits everyone. Support electoral reform with PR. Visit FairVote.ca or CharterChallenge.ca to learn how.

35% votes = 35% seats—simple math, fair representation