Loss of minority government in Nova Scotia is too bad

With the orange crush felt by Nova Scotians Tuesday night as the NDP there swept to a majority government, Canada no longer has any provincial/territorial minority governments and I can't say that's good for democracy.
As I have often advocated in these pages, I think minority governments are good for citizens and democracy in this country as a whole.
Minority keeps a government in check. It forces the government to work more with the other parties to deliver a more balanced agenda, instead of one driven by the ideologies of one party that often doesn't have a majority of the popular vote even if it has a majority of the seats.
Through most of the last two decades of the 20th century, Canada didn't see much in the way of minority rule. Across the country, majority governments did what they wanted until they were either reaffirmed or rejected by the populace, after four or five years.
However, at the end of the last millennia, Canada started to have at least a few of its legislatures in the grasp of a minority rule. Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, the Yukon and Quebec have all had some form of minority rule over the last decade, as well as in Ottawa. And I think there has definitely been some benefit there.
But now, except for Ottawa, minority control has officially been erased in the country's provincial and territorial legislatures.
Quebec Premier Jean Charest regained his majority last December, after a year with a minority. And now Nova Scotia, which has been under minority control for six of the last 10 years, is officially a majority zone.
It's unfortunate, but this is a product of our voting system. The parties with the most votes tend to receive a percentage of seats that is disproportionately higher than the percentage of votes it received. For example, the Nova Scotia NDP received 60 per cent of the seats with 45 per cent of the votes.
And it's the system of rewarding the higher-ranking parties and punishing the lesser parties that has left most of Canada's provinces with only two viable parties.
It's my hope that this country embraces new voting systems that encourage more parties and leads to more minority governments.
But that's not the way it is at the moment and now we have 11 provincial and territorial governments (two of the three territories don't have party politics) that are free to do what they want until the next elections.

Jason Small can be reached at 691-1255.