Quote Originally Posted by CFH View Post
The more I think about this, the less I like it. Putting aside my personal views on our version of "democracy", the Conservatives were elect the same way as any other government in our recent history. In my mind, as much as I dislike them, they've done nothing which justifies this kind of drastic action. If successful, this will undermine our political system and disenfranchise a great number of Canadians.
From a (continental) European perspective, this isn't _that_ unheard of. It happened here in Denmark in 1993 at least (yeah, quite a long time ago now, but we've only had one other prime minister since, so it's still relatively fresh). Sparked some (a little) controversy, but more so in political circles (i.e. among the defeated) than among the population. I'm fairly sure it has happened other places as well.

Anyway, it is a characteristic of a parliamentary democracy, with all the benefits that that brings with it. This may be one of the deficiancies though.