in the way the change is being proposed
Stephen Taylor @stephen_taylor
Warren Kinsella explains...
I was on a CTV panel when the Speech from the Throne was read out. This part wasn’t a surprise, but I was surprised the Liberals were doubling down on it:
“The Government will . . . take action to ensure that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.”
There are ten reasons I can think of, off the top of my head no less, why they are wrong to ram this through, as they seem intent on doing. Here they are.
1. The government has no specific mandate for any specific change. They need to go and get one. Four sentences on page eight of a glossy campaign document that was likely read by only a few hundred Canadians isn’t sufficient.
2. A change – whether to ranked ballots, or proportional representation, mandatory voting, online voting, or whatever – like this is very big. Any government who wishes to make a change to the way our democracy actually functions needs to be acting (and seen to be acting) in a way that is quintessentially democratic. Refusing to listen to critics isn’t being democratic.
3. The likely changes seem to be weighted in favour of the incumbent Liberal government. That’s wrong. It renders the whole thing illegitimate from the start, and possibly illegal.
4. It’s being rushed. A wholesale and undefined revision of voting laws by 2017? Is any group of people clamouring for that much change, that fast? Is it possible to revise approximately 150 years of voting rules in about 15 months? Maybe – but if you have a solution to a problem, you need to persuade the people (who are the bosses, after all) that they have a problem that is worth solving.
5. Several provinces, including Ontario during an election in which I was involved, have sought a mandate to change election rules. Every one of them went down to defeat. The federal government needs to pay heed to that – but they’re not.
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Ten reasons why it’s wrong to change our electoral system in the way the change is being proposed | Warren Kinsella
Stephen Taylor @stephen_taylor Warren Kinsella explains...
I was on a CTV panel when the Speech from the Throne was read out. This part wasn’t a surprise, but I was surprised the Liberals were doubling down on it:
“The Government will . . . take action to ensure that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.”
There are ten reasons I can think of, off the top of my head no less, why they are wrong to ram this through, as they seem intent on doing. Here they are.
1. The government has no specific mandate for any specific change. They need to go and get one. Four sentences on page eight of a glossy campaign document that was likely read by only a few hundred Canadians isn’t sufficient.
2. A change – whether to ranked ballots, or proportional representation, mandatory voting, online voting, or whatever – like this is very big. Any government who wishes to make a change to the way our democracy actually functions needs to be acting (and seen to be acting) in a way that is quintessentially democratic. Refusing to listen to critics isn’t being democratic.
3. The likely changes seem to be weighted in favour of the incumbent Liberal government. That’s wrong. It renders the whole thing illegitimate from the start, and possibly illegal.
4. It’s being rushed. A wholesale and undefined revision of voting laws by 2017? Is any group of people clamouring for that much change, that fast? Is it possible to revise approximately 150 years of voting rules in about 15 months? Maybe – but if you have a solution to a problem, you need to persuade the people (who are the bosses, after all) that they have a problem that is worth solving.
5. Several provinces, including Ontario during an election in which I was involved, have sought a mandate to change election rules. Every one of them went down to defeat. The federal government needs to pay heed to that – but they’re not.
more
Ten reasons why it’s wrong to change our electoral system in the way the change is being proposed | Warren Kinsella