Tyler Johnson, a Fredericton constituent, filling out his voter registration card

So the day of polling is finished and the millions of dollars have evaporated. And we have another minority conservative government.

Frederictonians elected Keith Ashfield as a Conservative MP, so the city is on the winning side of parliament, but not much else has changed.

However, the local election was still an interesting one. This is because of the margin Ashfield won by, and the surprising performance of Mary-Lou Babineau.

“We’re absolutely thrilled with the green party’s performance; we quintupled our votes over last year. … and we’re hoping to continue this support to the next election,” she said.

In the last election in Fredericton the green party had less than 900 votes. This time around they had almost 4,700, the second most votes for a Green candidate in any riding east of Ontario.

“Support is up everywhere and we’re excited about that. … The bad news is that it’s difficult in our current electoral system to have that support translate into seats,”

The Canadian electoral system isn’t just hurting the Green party, every party on the left seems to be at a disadvantage. In Fredericton, 24 thousand people voted for leftist parties (Liberal, Green and NDP), meaning Keith Ashfield won his seat with a minority of votes (about 18 thousand).

Richard Myers is a political science professor at St. Thomas University.

“I had anticipated that the Conservatives would win the riding. … It seemed to me that there were very strong candidates for the NDP and for the Greens who were likely to drain a lot of votes away from the Liberal party.”

This was basically the picture across the country. Most Canadians (61.2 percent) voted left but the right-wing Conservatives got a minority government with only 37.6 percent of popular support. This was largely brought on due to vote splitting on the left.

Mitchell Messom is a Conservative supporter and political science student at St. Thomas University. He predicted the results more or less as they turned out.

“Talking to some liberal supporters, they weren’t feeling too confident. Being in the conservative camp, we were cautiously positive, I’ll say that. …You knew the (NDP and Greens) would be relegated to third or fourth place.”

But he was surprised by the amount of support drained from the Liberals.

“When the results came in, I think a lot of conservative supporters were actually surprised by the margin Ashfield won by. We thought that Innes would put up a tougher fight.”

Mitchell Messom, a political science student at St. Thomas University.

Messom doesn’t mind that the conservatives didn’t get a majority

“It’s not bad to have another minority government; it kind of slows things down.”

Thanks to that slow minority, Messom says Frederictonians won’t have many issues to worry about.

“(Conservatives) really don’t have that many policies, maybe the youth crime bill and that’s it. … Outside of that I really don’t think there’s much to argue about now except keeping the economy afloat.”

Jesse Travis, NDP candidate for Fredericton, is also happy with the elections results. He says his party performed well in the city, getting a large portion of the votes without spending much money. He’s even happy that Ashfield won.

“He did a lot of work, he had a large head start and you have to appreciate that. …He’s going to be supportive of his community in the government. There are problems with the Harper government and how they treat New Brunswick and hopefully Keith will represent the community, and I think he will.”

But not all of Fredericton’s residents were happy with the election’s results.

Robin Nathanson is a Fredericton constituent, and an NDP supporter. Like Messom, Nathanson was surprised at the power of vote splitting.

“I expected the liberals to lose less and the NDP to gain more,”

Locally, Nathanson couldn’t believe what happened.

“I was disappointed by (the election). I know that Andy Scott wasn’t running again but I thought David Innes would win. I’m shocked that the Conservative candidate won.”

Nathanson knows Ashfield won with a minority of votes, but he thinks our electoral system is fine the way it is.

“Although he (Ashfield) did have a minority of the votes, he did have the most of any candidate. That’s the way our system works so be it.

I’m glad that we live with the system we do have, especially with the fact that a minority government can have a no confidence vote.”

Travis disagrees with Nathanson. Although he thought the Fredericton election ended well, he wasn’t that the conservatives won a minority with such low popular support.

“Statistically that isn’t the grounds for a government. That really isn’t the grounds for a mandate.”

Both Travis and Babineau want change in the Canadian electoral system.

“We’re brainstorming about what to do between elections. I know personally I plan to remain involved in

Karlie Hanoski (left) and Jack Thomas (right) watching election coverage at the Cellar Pub in Fredericton.

the community, and to continue to talk to people about the Green party,” Babineau said.

She said proportional representation, where parties get the same percentage of seats as their percentage of the popular vote, is the only proper electoral system for Canada. It would give smaller parties, like the Greens and NDP, a bigger share of parliament. It would also make it much harder to form a government without popular support, and help curtail vote splitting.

“At this point we have almost 1 million votes and no seats. That’s a million Canadians that don’t have a voice in Parliament.”

Travis agrees.

“It’s a fairer system. It doesn’t make the people who do vote feel like their vote is wasted.”

This article originally appeared in HERE Magazine