Introduction
Recently my co-blogger
posted an opinion about creating support for electoral reform and
this has encouraged me to reexamine where we are in that regard. I
will in future posts also take a look at the other side of the coin,
that being parliamentary reform. Lets be clear here right off the
top, neither is going to happen in the foreseeable future. In fact it
is improbable that even any meaningful move will be made to either
study such options or to ask the citizens of this country if they are
interested in such changes. Changes to the way we elect our
representatives, be that federally or provincially can only come
about with the support of a majority of those very representatives
and far too many of them are, having been persuaded that they
represent the party rather than the people, are quite happy with the
status quot. The party apparatus will only support such moves if there
is something in it for them and thus it is very improbable that any
party in power will even bring up the subject, the best bet being if
one or more opposition partys promises to bring a referendum before
the people if elected - and then actually not only comes to power but
carrys out their promise!
It can be seen then
that from initial promise, to study, to proposal, to vote
and then to implementation could well take 10 years or more, and
thats if things go forward smoothly the first time around. As the BC
and Ontario efforts have previously shown that is improbable and will
probably entail not only the government of the day and the major
political partys creating much spin and confusion in an effort to
retain the status quot but the various folks who fully support change
splitting public opinion by arguing about which system is the better,
or that any proposed system is 'flawed'. Here is a news flash for
you – There is no such thing as a perfect electoral system any
more that there is a perfect system of government, we can but try and
improve upon what we have and try and eliminate obvious flaws without
screwing up and making it worse, and that folks is not going to be
easy given that we must do so with a reasonable amount of consensus
from both the political hierarchy and the citizenry who elected them.
Having said all that
the conversation about reform is non the less important, it will take
much public pressure to even start the process and the more we know
about vulgarities of the existing system and the options that may be
available the better equipped we will be to push for change. I will
deal with the various options in a later article, for the time being
I will simply review some of the problems we seem to be encountering
with the present system and potential problems that changes could
bring.
The first question is
of course do we really need change and if so , why? There are perhaps
two main indicators that something is wrong, the first is the oft
cited way in which a minority of electors can elect a majority
government, the second is the ever declining number of those who are
eligible to vote do not bother. Now it seems the very process of
where
to vote has come under attack by those who
would 'game' the election results. Most of those who feel electoral
reform is necessary feel that the resulting mix of parliamentarians
should better represent the popular vote, it cannot of course ever be
exactly proportional but we can indeed improve on the
proportionality, each of the various voting systems would produce
varying results in that regard and I will cover such details in future
posts. There are in my view two 'concerns' with a more proportional
system, firstly that with a multiparty system it may well result in a
series of minority governments being elected, for many this alone is
reason not to change things, this thinking is to me, totally wrong.
The problem with minority governments is not that they fail to give
one party absolute power but that our political partys and the
parliamentary system has evolved to the point where those that we
elect have forgotten that they all, no matter what party they belong
to, represent US not the party. They no longer will listen to
opposing points of view and try and find middle ground where
compromise and cooperation result in better legislation but insist it
'our way or no way'. Hence the need for parliamentary reform to
reduce the opportunity for such partisan games, but that's for
another post also. I will simply say that a electoral &
parliamentary system that dramatically skews the power that PM holds
away from that which the popular vote indicates the citizens want
must be considered flawed.
The second thing that
concerns me is that a proportional system, particularly in such a
large a varied country such as ours must have checks and balances to
ensure that minority populations, be that a Province or Territory,
those in a less populated areas within such boundaries, or some other
minority, have adequate representation. By enlarge our present system
of electoral districts along with previously determined lower limits
of representation for those provinces with small populations does
ensure this. Any proposed new electoral system should not
disenfranchise these areas of small population. With recent census
figures revealing that 35% or so of Canada’s population live in
just 3 metropolitan areas its clear that these urban citizens, whos
view of Canada may be far removed from that of say those in
Newfoundland or Northern Manitoba, are clearly in the drivers seat
when it comes to electing who is to govern.
These are not the only
concerns I am sure, but they do illustrate the need for dialog –
and the need for those pushing for change to seek common ground,
compromise & consensus early on in the process. That is after all
what, in my opinion, democracy is all about.
Next week – more
about the electoral options.
No comments:
Post a Comment