Stephen Harper has a lot to smile about. He won a majority government with only 39.6% of the vote – imagine if he would have had to try to get the 54% that he has in seats in votes… He doesn’t have to care about what his opposition thinks or says. The fact that he increased the size of government, which will give Canadians a new $9 million bill will likely be forgotten in 4 years.

Conservative-minded people are supposed to take a minimalist mind to government. Reduce state intervention, reduce state size, reduce state spending. Today, Stephen Harper unveiled the biggest cabinet ever and appointed 3 unelected ministers to the senate. During his term in office, spending  increased and Harper plans to spend more on prisons, corporate tax cuts and F-35 fighter jets.

The election results are barely a week old and the Globe and Mail Reports that the revised 2011 budget that will be presented next month will not show a surplus by 2014-15 as promised in the Conservative platform. This is the same platform that Flaherty tweaked publically and announced $11 billion in cuts to make the surplus appear a year sooner than that. 

There are a few pieces of irony that accompany this week’s news stories… These ironies consist of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to keep government documents secret, the promised surplus that won’t be seen in the upcoming budget, and the American mocking of Harper behind closed doors – as exposed by WikiLeaks – while publically supporting him. An ironic week indeed; let’s get started.

If you take the results of this election – percentage-wise and compare the actual seat count with the hypothetical based on proportional representation, you will see that the Canadian people have been cheated. With a governing majority based off of 40% of the votes, it doesn’t require much knowledge to realize that 60% of the population that voted – 61% – are not represented in this equation. This scenario means significantly less seats for the Conservatives, and a Green Party that meets the official party status with 12 seats. Maybe it is time that Canadians considered electoral reform to ensure their voices get heard. It is democracy, isn’t it?