Comments:

Dr. J. - 2004-06-29 11:50:02
Why, I'd be pleased to oblige your curiosity. All cities/towns/communities are split up into sections by population. These sections are called ridings. I don't know if that's your whole question. Is it? Anyway, each riding has a member running in each major party. Whichever party has the most votes in that riding gets a seat in the House and their person goes. So basically only the winning party's votes count; it's not exactly proportional representation. Was that confusing? I'm listening to music and I can't be held responsible for the addling it does to my brain.
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poolagirl - 2004-06-29 12:16:55
I don't know about Canada, but in Ireland, "ride" means to have sex.
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who the fuck cares how i swing it? - 2004-06-29 13:49:52
can't...stop...laughing, but why??? :D
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mmm summah time crack yissss - 2004-06-29 13:54:35
Soooo poolagirl baby, if I said to you, "Let's go for a ride in my ride it's gonna be a bumpy ride," and you yelled out "SHOT-GUN!" what does that mean in Ireland? :confused:
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Cookie - 2004-06-29 14:52:18
If the Shakers don't shake it, then how do they produce little Shakers? Nevermind, I don't want to know.
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Christina - 2004-06-29 18:24:34
Dammit! I want to be the one to answer all of my American friends' questions about Canadian politics (I just wrote a long comment in someone else's diary about it... I'm all kinds of lame) but, dammit, Dr. J beat me to it here! Now I'm sad.
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Morgan - 2004-06-30 00:33:51
I can be even geekier and tell you that each riding (there are 308 for a country of 31 million). There are ~50,000 people in each riding. There are multiple ridings in Calgary, but the Yukon territory only has 1. For more geek info try: http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/candidatesridings/index.html
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Aaron - 2004-06-30 00:37:55
Definition by comparison is what an American wants...a riding is like a congretional district here. The difference is that instead of voting for both the local rep and the top dog (president here, prime minister there) their parties each have a leader who becomes PM if his or her party wins the most ridings...this means that there's never the sort of gridlock we have, which can be good and bad. If there's a majority government, especially like the ones Chretien's Liberals enjoyed, they can basically do whatever they please on the national scale. The check in Canadian politics isn't a seperate layer of federal government, but the provinces, which are a lot more powerful than the US states. Is this too much? Sorry. A riding is when you take your bike out...for a riding.
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