With the interesting publicity stunt by 21-year-old former parliamentary page and performance artist Brigitte DePape with her “Stop Harper” sign held silently in the Senate during the throne speech last week I thought I would do a little research. While I am all for peaceful protest and the right to hold a variety of opinions I also appreciate it when people who use facts use them all or provide some context.

DePape trumpets the “fact” that while Harper won the last election he did so without 73 percent of Canadian’s supporting him (I assume she was referring to Canadians who voted because if you didn’t vote you really cannot expect to be heard). I have heard this sort of thing before as an attempt to delegitmize (I just made that word up) a newly elected government and it has always struck me as disingenuous. According to electoral statistics is is closer to 59.48 percent of Canadians that did not vote for the Conservatives (potato/potawto).

If people would carry their commentary to logical conclusions they would also be willing to note that 69.37 percent of voters did not vote for the NDP; 82.19 percent of people did not vote for the Liberals; 93.96 percent of people did not vote for the Bloc and 96.19 percent of people did not vote for the Green Party.

My point? No party had a majority of Canadians vote for it…but of all of them the Conservatives had the largest percentage of the vote and won the right to lead the country…it’s how our democracy works.