Electoral Reform

[Finder]

Well I just recieved a news letter from fair vote Canada which updated the progress of electoral reform in Canada. I cute and pasted the following because I thought we should all read it to be at least somewhat informed on where the canidates stand... or at least were one stands, one is interested in and another first lied and then won't really talk about it anymore.

LAYTON, HARPER AND HARRIS TALKING ELECTORAL REFORM (January 7, 2006)

Electoral reform is increasingly being identified as a core issue for negotiations among parties for a minority government.

At the end of December, NDP leader Jack Layton said “proportional representation will be a big part of any discussion” regarding support for a minority government. The NDP is calling for implementation of a mixed member proportional (MMP) voting system.

On January 4, Green Party leader Jim Harris announced that the Green Party will push for a national citizens’ assembly “to determine the form of proportional representation that best serves Canadians.”

On January 7, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper told reporters he would be willing to discuss electoral reform with the NDP, noting that “this is something our convention in March expressed some interest in, although we haven’t adopted any particular specific model.”

While Paul Martin continues to avoid the issue, Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs told the Winnipeg Free Press it is time to be “exploring some form of proportional representation”.

I keeo calling MMP, mixed, but I should really call it by it's real short name of MMP. Anyone who doesn't know what MMP is it's a mix of FPTP and PR. So far all parties have pretty much agreed more or less to be realitic that we'd end up with a pretty conservative MMP system in Canada. As this would make sure regional parties like the Bloc and the CPC would still have large blocks of MPs.

With MMP we would at least have one Green Party MP and a few more NDPers plus more conservative MPs from ontario and quebec and more liberal mp's from Alberta. So large blocks of minorities would no longer be ignored in the house.


Anyhow, even if your a supporter of FPTP but think our system has room for even a slight change in the electoral syste,. Like adding a limited number of PR seats I think you should consider join Fair vote Canada www.fairvote.ca This group has MP's from the NDP, Conservatives, liberal suppoerts, and pretty much any party you can think of as members. They also have many political sci, docs, and other professionals who believe in this group as members.

Consider making electoral reform apart of your vote. Even if it's only slight reform, your voice needs to be noted and the government and op-parties need to know this as well.


And if you think we need no change and think our system is perfect. Go suck a lemon. (just kidding)

 

[poligeek]

I'm so glad to see a topic not only on PR but also discussing the Fair Vote movement.

For those who think Fair Voting is only a small party issue, Fair Vote Ontario, and Fair Vote Toronto have also gotten a lot of Conservative support, especially with the Ontario Consultations on Democratic Reform that are currently taking place.

The hardest party to convince, and the longest hold outs on fair voting are the liberal party, because it is they who benefit the most from strategic voting which is what a FPTP (first past the post) system promotes.

The largest difficulty with fair voting is the huge lack of public information:
1) people are not aware of what our current system is.
2) people are not aware that there are other models.
3) when people hear PR they don't realize that there are literally hundreds of models of PR to decide among.

When British Columbia held it's referendum on PR, it got the support of 77 out of 79 ridings and it got 57.4% of the popular vote!

So, why does BC not have PR? Because our politicians decided that to change the voting system BC needed to get a double-super majority (60% of ridings AND 60% of the popular vote). BC obviously got well above the 60% of the ridings, but missed by 2.6% on the popular vote. They got this close despite very poor public education on the issue AND many voters not knowing about the referrendum and being surprized to see it on the ballot. This is outrageous considering it would have only taken 51% to split the country in the Quebec referrendum.

This is the fair vote site: www.fairvote.ca It has great information in the Dubious Democracy reports, detailing exactly how our current system works to elect members that are not representative of actual votes.

1 Minute Democracy Quiz

1. Every vote is equal - it doesn't matter who you support or where you live. (True or False)

2. Election results are fair, what we say at the ballot box is what we get. (True or False)

3. A party must win a majority of votes to get a majority government. (True or False)

4. Government is always formed by the party that wins the most votes. (True or False)

5. Voters who oppose the government are always represented by one or more opposition parties. (True or False)

6. Canada has more women in Parliament than either Turkmenistan, Laos or Eritrea. (True or False)

7. Canda ranked 108th in the world in voter turn out in the 1990's. (True or False).

8. Most older European nations use antiquated 12th century voting systems, Canda uses a modern 20th century voting system. (True or False).

I'll post the answers tomorrow, or go to the fair vote site.

BTW, they are an entirely self-funded citizens movement, and do not get any funding from unions, corporations or political parties. They could definately use some more members.

 

[the caracal kid]

i looked at them a couple of years ago, but admitedly my ideals are too ideal to fit well with their goals.

 

[FiveParadox]

Mixed-Member Proportional

I think, Finder, that you know where I stand on this issue; I support the First-Past-the-Post system (which you're probably aware of by now, heh), but would be interested in approaching the House of Commons with a more "balanced" approach, implementing a conservative take on Proportional Representation, perhaps listed members, in supplement to the Members elected in ridings.

Lots of bugs to work out in the details, though, of course.

 

[poligeek]

Re: Mixed-Member Proportional

I think, Finder, that you know where I stand on this issue; I support the First-Past-the-Post system (which you're probably aware of by now, heh), but would be interested in approaching the House of Commons with a more "balanced" approach, implementing a conservative take on Proportional Representation, perhaps listed members, in supplement to the Members elected in ridings.

Lots of bugs to work out in the details, though, of course.

Never having viewed PR as a left or right agenda (despite the fact that it has recently beomce labelled a small party left wing agenda) I'm interested in one things:

Why do you think it is in a conservative interest to support FPTP, there is a tonne of statistical evidence that the Progressive Conservative party in Ontario, and the Federal Conservative party (and certainly the former Reform party) would have been some of the largest beneficiaries of an MMP (mixed-member-plurality) PR system (this is one kind of PR that typically uses lists)

Also, as an FYI, I should mention that a common assumption about PR is that it is an all or nothing system (i.e. that a PR system by definition would mean that votes line up directly with the popular vote). This is rarely the case, as it typically does not serve the best interest of countries with regional differentiations (as most countries do have).

Another myth that I have encountered that seems to concern a number of people that defined themselves as traditionally conservative is that PR would by definition increase the number of small parties in parliament. This is also not true, most PR systems use some form of threshold that parties must meet to obtain seats in the government. When a comparative study was done of PR countries and FPTP countries it was shown that the average PR countries have 4.3 effective political parties (effective political parties was defined as parties that have a certain level of support and political sway... well the definition was much better, but much too long... i.e. the marijuana party would not be an "effective political party").... While Canada has 2.3, US 2.2 and UK 2.9.

The suggestion that you mentioned where there are still constituent candidates with a top-up of list members from each party that are elected on a proportional basis is the most common form of PR, used in Germany and in New Zealand. The New Zealand model is particularly interesting.

 

[FiveParadox]

Meaning of "Conservative"

I meant conservative in the real sense of the word, not in the name of any party. I meant to say that I would like to, more-or-less, conserve the system as it is, while enabling smaller parties to be represented in the House.

 

[poligeek]

Re: Meaning of "Conservative"

I meant conservative in the real sense of the word, not in the name of any party. I meant to say that I would like to, more-or-less, conserve the system as it is, while enabling smaller parties to be represented in the House.

I'm interested in which parts of the system you want to "conserve".... i.e. the ability to have a local representative? or the winner-take-all majoritarian format?

 

[FiveParadox]

Benefits of FPTP

I am in favour of retaining a system where each person has one Member of Parliament that they can consider "their own," so to speak. Also, one benefit of the First-Past-the-Post system that may become more difficult to come by under a mixed or pure PR system would be a lack of majority Governments. While I support minority Governments in times of uncertainty, indecision or things like that, most of the time they're simply inefficient.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I'll post the answers tomorrow, or go to the fair vote site.

I dunno about #6 and #7 but all the rest of them are false, and I'd bet pretty long odds #6 and #7 are too or they wouldn't be on that list.

I think some kind of electoral reform is long past due. I'm tired of seeing governments in Parliament that only 42% or less of us voted for. Any form of proportional representation would pretty much guarantee an endless succession of minority governments, but I don't think that's a bad thing. It'd just mean MPs and the government would have to pay a little more attention to each other and work a little harder to make Parliament work. Those people get pretty generous pay and benefits, I have no problem with making them work a little harder. Much of the social programming we Canadians hold so dear, and rather smugly sometimes use to distinguish ourselves from the great republic to the south of us, was enacted by Lester Pearson's minority Liberal governments with NDP support in the 1960s. And they were all originally NDP (okay, CCF for you purists) ideas to start with.

It won't be a simple process though. There are probably an infinite number of different ways to do it, so it'll take some careful study and thought to design an electoral system that'll work for us. Not the least of the problems will be public education. An NDP minority here in Saskatchewan formed a formal coalition with the Liberal Party to create a provincial government a few years ago, even to the point of taking a Liberal member into cabinet. Perfectly legitimate, there was a formal agreement in place, it was all fully consistent with the forms and institutions of responsible government as it's defined in Canada. But the outcries about betrayals and traitors were...um, well, somewhat unseemly for a supposedly civilized place. Coalitions like that are routine stuff in many European parliaments, but nobody around here seemed to have a clue how they work except a few crafty old NDP members, who frankly took the Liberals for a ride they haven't come home from yet. But it was pretty entertaining politics, and that's something else that seems to be missing from the national stage.

Edited to correct a grammatical error. I hate it when tense and case don't agree.

 

[poligeek]

Re: Benefits of FPTP

I am in favour of retaining a system where each person has one Member of Parliament that they can consider "their own," so to speak. Also, one benefit of the First-Past-the-Post system that may become more difficult to come by under a mixed or pure PR system would be a lack of majority Governments. While I support minority Governments in times of uncertainty, indecision or things like that, most of the time they're simply inefficient.

I think the MMP system does a remarkable job of balancing the need to retain local representation, while also introducing members at large though list choices. The lists also seem to work to get parties to balance out their slate in-so-far as gender and race.

I was a little worried about the removal of the majoritarian system in-so-far as how would policy work when I first started looking into these systems, however once I saw the statistics on policy they floored me.

I can't remember the exact name right now (and I really should be going to bed, but I'm too much of a political junkie not to try to reply to this).... it's Andrew last name starts with an "L" sweedish starting, you can find it on the Fair vote site.

Anycase, he does a study of 40 countries (PR & FPTP) over 40 years and compares economic policy and social policy across a number of factors including how much policy got passed, how congruent was the policy with popular opinion, satisfaction rankings for government policy, and consistency of policy.

PR systems got much higher public ratings and actually passed more policy than FPTP and the consistency rankings to public opinion were really good.

What was most surprising to me was the fluidity in economic policies. One thing that economists have hammered politicians on is that when governments switch there is usually economic bumps as fiscal policy changes. Because PR means more participatory government (ie. one majority government can't make one policy that will be completely reversed by the next majority government), the bumps in the economy trended to even out on a national level as economic policy became more fluid.

For me, I think the big factor in minority government is it forces the politicians to work on their negotiation skills and holds them more accountable. We cease to elect a de-facto dictatorship for four years by electing a majority.

I think it is always important though to empahsise that an MMP system works much differntly than a pure PR system.

There is also another (notquite as) popular (not pure PR) option whish is the Single Transferable Vote (STV).

 

[FiveParadox]

STV Details

Yes, I am familiar with the workings of the Single Transferable Vote system. In British Columbia, a referendum in respect of the implementation of the system was defeated by less than three percent of the vote (sixty percent was required).

 

[Finder]

*cringes* one of the reasons' BC didn't get that 2% more they really needed was because the system they were going to wasn't MMP, but was STV *cringes* I really don't like STV as it can make a complete winner out of a complete loser.

Now when you look at the history of STV in Canada you see it made the least popular party (social credit) the winning party because it was both the conservative voter and liberal voters second choice.

MMP with strong FPTP is the best system.

Paradox you should consider joining. A lot of people who are members are anti FPTP, but thats the pure system. MMP will be Canada's system, maybe not in the next 4 years but I'd say we are with in ten years of this system. I don't see Canada having a PR/PV system as our nation is too large with too many regional distingitions. If we ever did go pure PR it would be by province for sure.

Also often in the New's reporters will often call MMP/mixed as PR/PV but they are wrong as MMP often leans closer to FPTP. In PEI where MMP was voted down only 1/3 of the seats were going to be from pop vote.


Also Paradox ment conservative as in being conservative not the conservative party. As conservative meaning slow to change/traditional and so on. Also you may say PR/PV is Radical which gives every single person in a sence a say. Kind of like direct democracy in a sence. Where as MMP is more liberal. A mixture of both worlds. Of course MMP can lean either way by adding more PR seats or FPTP seats. Thats what Paradox ment I believe. He is conservative in the way he would support MMP as long as FPTP seats where more then PR. I'm the same way but Paradox is again more reluctant to support change at all it would seem. lol. I think he fears change because of the possibility of pure PR. But I think his worry is over nothing since I've heard nobody talk about pure PR in Canada. Only some news casters who didn't know what they were talking about.

 

[poligeek]

I think the biggest challenge for electoral change is that most newscasters only have a quick glance at what it would mean, and then make assumptions about one form that hardly consideres that there are other forms.

Personally, I think considering the regional and geographical differences in Canada that MMP is the way to go, for me the only question is the finer points of how the PR seats should be balanced against the FPTP seats.

I think it was a huge mistake for the BC citizens assembly to have to recommend STV over MMP, but then the rules of the citizens assembly tied their hands. From the outset they were not allowed to propose a model that would alter the number of seats that the BC legislature would have (which would be critical to being able to implement an MMP system).

I still think it's remarkable that with the general lack of publicity and the fact that it was the MMP model proposed that they missed by such a small margin, and that of course is considering that a higher threshold (double 60% ridings & popular vote) was set for changing the electoral system than for breaking up the country.

 

[poligeek]

Because I know you've all been waiting for the answers....(this issue is obviously where my nickname becomes earned)

1 Minute Democracy Quiz

1. Every vote is equal - it doesn't matter who you support or where you live. (True or False)

False - Voters are not equal with FPTP voting. For example, in the 2004 federal election, more than half a million Green Party voters elected no one at all. Meanwhile, fewer than half a million Liberal voters in Atlantic Canada alone elected 22 MPs.

2. Election results are fair, what we say at the ballot box is what we get. (True or False)

False - The current voting system routinely distorts results. A party winning 40 percent of the vote may get 60 percent of the seats. A party winning 20 percent of the vote may get 10 percent of the seats, or none at all.

3. A party must win a majority of votes to get a majority government. (True or False)

False - In fact since World War I, Canadians have had only four majority governments elected by a majority of Canadians. In 1993, the Liberals won a majority of seats with less than 39 percent of the vote.

4. Government is always formed by the party that wins the most votes. (True or False)

False - In the 1990s two provincial governments were formed by parties that came in second in the popular vote.

5. Voters who oppose the government are always represented by one or more opposition parties. (True or False)

False - under the current voting system, the opposition almost always has fewer seats than deserved. In the 1987 New Brunswick election, not a single seat went to opposition parties that were supported by 40 percent of the voters.

6. Canada has more women in Parliament than either Turkmenistan, Laos or Eritrea. (True or False)

False - Canada has only 21% women in the house of commons, far less than comparable Western democracies and many other countries using Proportional Voting Systems.

(According to "Equal Voice" Canada ranks 43rd in the world, after Pakistan and Lithuana, before Portugal and Latvia)

7. Canda ranked 108th in the world in voter turn out in the 1990's. (True or False).

False - It's even worse. Canada rankes 109th and turnout continues to decrease with record lows being set in the last two elections.

8. Most older European nations use antiquated 12th century voting systems, Canda uses a modern 20th century voting system. (True or False).

False - Most European countries moved to various types of proportional voting systems over the last 50 to 100 years. Canada, along with Britian and the US, remain the only major Western democracies still using the antiquated FPTP voting system.

 

[Finder]

I really don't think STV is a good system for any Canadian province or Canada. Also STV would change little in our democracy and most likely make the Liberal party much more stronger really. If you look at it this way the Liberals usually have a large minority 35%-50%, plus most conservative voters will pick Liberal most likely as there second and a lot of NDPers would do the same. STV would keep the Liberals in power forever

MMP, though it is not completely a "fair system" if you think PR is completely fair because of the numbers and FPTP is not fair, MMP gives you the best of both worlds. Also MMP systems tend to make stable governments and governments with parties usually who have a ally among a smaller party. BUT MMP systems are also know for magority governments as well around the world.

The systems I would not like to see in Canada is LIST, STV and Pure PR



Paradox, I ask you to look up the MMP system and look it up in the Canadian context too. I think you will agree with it. Even if you believe in it conservatively as I do, You should get envolved. The only way you can make sure the system you think is best for Canada is adopted is by participating. Even if you are conservative in this you should push for what you believe in, even from with in the movement wanting to change it. With your views being noted, or your emails sent to the leaders of these movements they can generally know where Canadians are coming from and can change there tactics if need be. As you can see many Canadians are already members or supporters and not all of them agree on the system but they all agree that FPTP needs to be addressed. MMP does not kill FPTP it fixes FPTP.

EDIT
Paradox the reason I thik you should but really any Canadian should is because you are that good at articulating your comments and debates. You are truly a Patrician when it comes to the englash language, opposed to my self admitted Plebian and heated usages. People like you really need to be in the heart of these matters.

 

[Finder]

http://www.fairvotecanada.org/fvc.php/

Just wanted to let anyone who is interested in the results of the election, and what fair vote canada has to say about it. For those of us who support PR, MMP, STV and or fair FPTP should read it. Draw your own conclusions, I know few can change my mind about this problem.