Electoral Reform

Electoral Reform has been a hot topic in recent years for a number of reasons. As we saw in the most recent New Brunswick election, there have been a few elections that have resulted in the winner not winning the popular vote. Likewise in the 90s, the Liberals won three back to back majorities despite the fact almost 60% of Canadians voted against them. In the West, the Reform/Alliance won the overwhelming majority of seats even though the majority of Westerners voted against them and likewise the Liberals won almost 100% of the seats in Ontario with only 50% of the popular vote. This leads to the question should we move to some form of proportional representation or not. Off course proportional representation has a number of disadvantages such as permanent minority governments, fringe parties winning seats, and possibly lack of constituency representation under some forms of PR. I have divided this into two sections, House of Commons and Senate.

House of Commons

There are a variety of forms of proportional representation ranging from pure proportional representation as used in the Netherlands where whatever share of the popular vote one party gets, thats how many seats they get. Since this would mean no local representation, I disagree with adopting this system. There is MMP, which is used in Germany, whereby you elect constituency representatives, but then additional MPs are chosen from lists on top of constituency representatives to ensure results are proportional. Below I will explain my view on this in more detail. Finally there is STV (known as single transferable vote) where there are multi-member districts and one ranks the candidates and then if one candidate gets above the quota, their surplus is transferred to their second choice. Likewise the bottom candidate is eliminated and their votes are transferred to their second choice. This system is currently used in Ireland and was proposed in the most recent BC election by the Citizen's Assembly. I voted NO and plan to vote NO in the next referendum since this system is simply too complicated and therefore I don't believe it is appropriate to use a system where voters don't understand how their vote is being counted. Some countries have no minimum threshold, while others have a minimum threshold to keep fringe parties out, usually 5%. While proportional representation has many advantages to it, I am concerned about two things

1. Stability of government: While some countries like Germany have a long history of forming stable coalitions, no such political culture exists here and it would likely take ten to twenty years before rival parties were finally willing to work together. There is just too much animosity between parties and I cannot see this disappearing anytime soon.

2. Local representation: Any system that increases the size of ridings should be rejected in my view. Rural MPs already have enough trouble representing large ridings with varying interests so making ridings larger will mean even less local representation. In a country as large as Canada, local representation is absolutely essential if we want to ensure the best policies get adopted and ones that are regionally divisive don't.

The only acceptable form of PR for me would be to have the Senate done by PR as done in Australia, although not using STV. Another reform which isn't PR, but should be looked at is IRV (instant run off vote) as done in Australia. Here one ranks their candidates and the lowest is dropped off and their second choices are redistributed. This is done until one candidate has over 50%. In some cases such as rural Alberta, there would likely be no need to go to the second choices since in the case of Rural Alberta, the Conservatives almost always get over 50%. The benefit of this is it would reduce the need for strategic voting. If one is left of centre and likes the NDP, but is fearful of the Conservatives, they might vote Liberal to stop the Conservative candidate. Under this system they could vote NDP as their first choice so they can clearly show their preferences but at the same time block the Conservatives by having the Liberals as their second choice. Elections should be about voting for someone, not against someone. This system is one that should seriously be considered. At the same time it would be best to try at in one province first before adopting it federally.

Senate

There has been much debate as to how to reform the senate. My preference is to abolish it, but I will summarize briefly my opinions on other possibilities.

Triple E Senate: I can understand why some from the smaller provinces want this to block legislation that is harmful to their region. However, I am against the idea of one person's vote being worth more than someone else's. Already votes are heavily skewed in the House of Commons. This would just skew them even more.

Elected Senate: This may sound appealing on the surface, but I oppose it for two reasons
1. The senate would exercise their power more, meaning more legislation would be blocked leading to greater deadlock.
2. The West is grossly underrepresented. This would further not reduce Western Alienation.

Status quo: The status quo hasn't caused any major problems, but it is open to abuse. I believe anyone who has the power to make laws, ought to have some mechanism to hold them accountable. Under the current system, it relies on the goodwill of the senators.

PR Elected Senate: If we are to have an elected senate, this would be my preferred method.

I believe the best solution is to abolish it due to its high cost and the fact that we could do just fine without one. Our provincial legislatures work without upper houses, so why can't we at the federal level.

My next topic will be privatization. I am sure some Liberals will wonder why I am not a Conservative when they read my views here.