What are the advantages and disadvantages of Canada's single-member plurality electoral system?

Among the advantages are its simplicity, the direct link it creates between voters and their single representative, its ability to frequently create a majority government which can potentially enhance the accountability of government to the people and ensure stable governing, and, finally, its ability to create a simple party system by excluding small (and often extreme or narrowly focused) parties from representation in the legislature. Among the disadvantages are its distorting effects in the translation of a party's votes into representation. This can potentially result in a party that is unpopular among the majority of voters becoming the governing party and can make the opposition to the governing party ineffective. It can regionalize the party system particularly by rewarding parties with concentrated support and by depriving national parties of representation from all regions. It can limit or prevent the representation of significant minority viewpoints in the legislature, if parties representing those viewpoints do not have geographically concentrated support. SMP systems also may hinder the representation of women and minorities as compared to proportional representation systems.