As I promised, for the next 25 days I will be writing on and off about the election coming up in my Canadian province of Ontario on Wednesday, October 10th.
I’ll be talking about the voting system we have now and the opportunity we are being given to change it.
At the moment we operate on a system called "First Past the Post". That means that the candidate who gets the most votes wins. On october 10th, we’ll have a chance to vote yes or no on a referendum question concerning the way in which we elect our representatives. If we want to, we can change the system to one of "proportional representation". It’s called "Mixed Member Proportional" (MMP).
What that means – basically – if we vote for it – is that the representatives elected to our provincial parliament will reflect approximately the percentage of votes each political party gets in the general election. I’ll explain more about that in future posts. But put simply, it means that if a political party receives 38% of the popular vote, it will be awarded approximately 38% of the seats in parliament. It’s a more representative system and in my opinion a lot more democratic.
In Ontario we have 3 main political parties.
The Liberal Party, which now forms our government, led by Dalton McGuinty.
The Conservative Party, which is presently in opposition to the government, led by
John Tory, and the other main one,
The New Democratic Party led by Howard Hampton.
Then there’s The Green Party, led by Frank de Jong; the Greens typically get about 5-7% of the popular vote, but never gets a seat in parliament
and therefore does not have a voice with which to speak for the hundreds of thousands of citizens who regularly vote for it.
Then there’s a smattering of smaller parties and independents.
You can read more about the recent Leaders’ Debate here.
Keep explaining. Here’s something I found on http://www.voteformmp.ca/about_mmp/more_choice
“The provincial legislature will have 90 riding MPPs and 39 at-large MPPs.
If after the 90 riding seats are filled, a party has fewer seats than its portion of the party vote, that party wins some of the additional 39 provincial (or at-large) seats to ensure it has its fair share of the total seats. These at-large representatives are elected from provincial lists of candidates nominated by each party in advance of the election. Voters can judge these at-large candidates, as well as local candidates, and vote accordingly.
…..
Here’s an election example: Party X gets 30 per cent of the party votes, but when riding results are tallied, they have a share of seats that is 10 short of the 30 per cent of the seats they deserve. In that case, Party X will also gain 10 at-large seats, with their top ten at-large candidates winning those seats. “
Why didn’t the Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform come up with something by Ontarians, for Ontarians?
How much did it cost Ontario taxpayers to have this Assembly timidly propose and recommend the models of Israel, New Zealand and Germany who all have problems with sometimes unknown List-members being popped into seats in parliament to toe the party line forever after, which is what they did so well before?
Were all the alternatives investigated?
For instance if Queens Park was to mandate that each riding association have a two-candidate runoff for nomination, one being for the most significant Party-loyalist and the other for the guy having the best hard-workin’ track-record, maybe even a dissenter with Party HQ when it comes to the best interests of his/her voters?
These Party-loyalist candidates would then be presented to HQ to be “Listed”…. the authority and the candidates coming from the ridings to the wonks, not the other way round.
Another scenario. If this whole process is to correct low representation in parliament due to the “first-past-the-post” system…… why not legislate “Balance” or “Fairness” votes in proportion to the imbalance?
For instance if a party has only 6 seats when its numbers should give it 10, it gets 4 extra Party votes, and so on.
Incidentally…. what will the function be of those List MPs who aren’t used to correct the FFTP imbalance, other than collecting their political plums?
In both these scenarios the electoral power would remain entirely in the hands of voters, where it belongs. And would cost a lot less to implement.
All I can say is that The Citizens Assembly recommended a system that is far better than the one we have.
If the parties nominate political hacks for their list, we just have to get out there and work hard to expose them.
I am happy that at least MMP will be an improvement over what we have now. If it keeps a questionable leader from having 100% of the power with only 38% of the vote, I’m happy for the time being at least.
The Citizens’ Assembly consisted of randomly chosen electors and I think that whatever the cost, it was worth it if we can have just a little more democracy.
I have read your positive comments on MMP, and even though our current system is flawed, I do not see the proposed system as the best alternative.
The first issue I have is it will create 26 more overpaid ideologues. Non of who will be independent MPPs, all of whom (plus the 13 seats lost from ridings) follow party policy for the big 3. We never get to vote on new riding boundaries, the ruling party plays that game, to its benefit. All riding boundaries from this system should be put to referenda, in the affected ridings
The next issue is the loss of 13 ridings. I drove yesterday from Kincardine,to Woodstock, and realized it took me almost 2 hours to leave my riding. Bruce Grey is not the biggest riding in Ontario, but like all ridings it has a diverse population, being represented by one person. Rural ridings are already too large, and do not need to increase in size.
One of the problems in our thinking, is we always seem to be faced with the party, and not the candidate. If everybody picked the best candidate for your riding, then Queens Park would be filled with all the “best” candidates, regardless of party. The result would be the best government.
Regardless of the increased cost and bother, I would prefer to see a system that, increases the ridings, (but not by 25% as in this proposal) with an effort to reduce the geographical area that a candidate represents, and uses a run off system so that in each riding the successful candidate would have a minimum of 50% of the vote +1. In this way the popular vote would always by 50%+
There are other issues with this British parliamentary system that need to be addressed also. The leader of our province is the premier, and very often, as in the case of Ernie Eves, inherits the position, by the vote of only the party faithful, certainly this was followed by an election, but… the leader of a province or country should never be appointed by a privileged few.
As you can tell I will not be voting for this change. I see that an elite few made a bad recommendation with little or no consultation at the local level.
Ok, this is one promise the Liberal party has kept.
In the last election, if I’m getting my info straight, both the Liberal’s and the NDP proposed a review of the electoral system. Well, one can say it has been reviewed. But the timing of the information campaign and the choices given has me wondering. Is this whole thing some ill-advised but well meaning attempt or a way to say; “we did something, kept a promise and now that’s over with”? Is there real care at Queen’s Park about the issue?
I am still of two minds about the question and am frustrated that I feel like it is a no win situation.
The alternate electoral system is somewhat insulting to the Ontario electorate. Under the rules set out, if the MMP system passes THEY, the party, will tell US, the voters, who will speak for us.
Why? Because we are too what?? — uneducated, simpleminded, misguided, or perhaps they are afraid that a more open-ended balanced political system that gives real voice to the people would actually cause huge numbers of voters to become engaged and get involved in a process that in recent years has been behind closed doors.
Wouldn’t it be nice if 70 to 85% of registered voters acutally took the time to have their say and gave a true mandate to any government.
In its favour the MMP system will allow for alternate voices from smaller parties and encourage the voter to spilt their choice to broaden the perspective of government. I trully want that.
It is the how and why that drives me crazy. I really, really want to vote for a more porportional system. I don’t want to lock my children, who are newly-minted electors, into a system that may take another 140 years to review.
In New Zealand the people had the choice of several systems and the one with the most support was put in place. I want to know if this is the only kick at the can and why such a limited option was decided on.
I am extremely gun-shy of anything that tells me to go-for-it without all the details in place. The make-it-up as we go attitude is too scary yet the status quo has got to go. ARRGGHH!!!!