Politics · Federal General Election 2000 · Canada
Actual Results vs. a Proportional Model
Allocation of seats in the House of Commons, based on the election results:
Allocation of seats in the House of Commons as it would be:
The model shown is an assignment of available House of Commons seats per the Sainte-Laguë method with a cut-off of 2%, i.e., parties that received less than 2% of the popular vote are not assigned seats in the House; these fractions of seats (e.g., four hundredths of a seat) that cannot readily be assigned to fringe parties are allocated amongst the major parties. (The 2% cut-off was selected to match the threshold for public funding of political parties.) While Sainte-Laguë method is used by some modern democracies, its use here is simply to illustrate how different the outcome of the election might be in the House, not to suggest that this is necessarily the best method for Canada. Other proportional methodologies may yield slightly different results (see research at Elections Canada or the Canadian Library of Parliament, or an example in New Zealand).
This model highlights the diminished House of Commons clout of a party with limited regional appeal (e.g., the BQ), and the substantial increase in representation for alternative national parties (e.g., the NDP, more than doubling their seat count) at the expense of the Liberal majority.
See also similar illustrations based on the 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2011 elections.
| Party | Colour | Actual Votes | Actual Seats | Actual Seats Fraction | Actual Official Party? | Prop. Seats | Prop. Seats Diff | Prop. Official Party? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bloc Québécois | |
10.72% | 36 | 11.96% | Yes | 34 | -2 | Yes |
| Canadian Action | 0.21% | 0 | 0 | No | 0 | 0 | No | |
| Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance | |
25.49% | 66 | 21.93 | Yes | 80 | +14 | Yes |
| Communist | 0.07% | 0 | 0 | No | 0 | 0 | No | |
| Green |  |
0.81% | 0 | 0 | No | 0 | 0 | No |
| Liberal | |
40.85% | 174 | 57.81% | Yes | 129 | -45 | Yes |
| Marijuana | 0.52% | 0 | 0 | No | 0 | 0 | No | |
| Marxist-Leninist | 0.09% | 0 | 0 | No | 0 | 0 | No | |
| Natural Law | 0.13% | 0 | 0 | No | 0 | 0 | No | |
| New Democratic | |
8.51% | 13 | 4.32% | Yes | 27 | +14 | Yes |
| Progressive Conservative | |
12.19% | 12 | 3.99% | Yes | 38 | +26 | Yes |
| No Affiliation | |
0.43% | 0 | 0 | No | 0 | No |
Note: Official party status is granted to parties that secure at least 12 seats. It confers certain standing in parliamentary procedure and funding for parliamentary staff.
Source: Elections Canada Official Results; 12 997 185 ballots cast by the pool of 21 243 473 electors, for a turnout of 61.18%.
