They say the Liberals are the Natural Governing Party of Canada, and there’s evidence to support this. They flop amorphously across the broad middle of the Canadian spectrum (which is placed, in U.S. terms, at the left margins of the Democratic party)….

The Conservatives, who in U.S. terms would like to be seen approximately as Kerry Democrats

Pluses and Minuses The electoral districts here are drawn in a nonpartisan way, which means that you get lots of interesting, close races (good). On the other hand, it’s a pure first-past-the post unicameral (in effect) Parliamentary setup, which means that a party with a majority gets to run an elected dictatorship, none of that checks-and-balances stuff (bad). We have more than two but (most years) less than five significant political parties (good). Way more than half the voters live in the Montreal-Toronto corridor, so most elections get decided by a tiny chunk of the country’s geography (bad). The whole election, start to finish, is over in less than three months (very good).