Fair Vote Canada in an
open
letter sent to the Prime Minister has come out
strongly for
the Democratic Voting Task Force to involve citizens from the
beginning on Trudeau's pledge to have reform studied by an all-party
committee, that is as it should be. However as with the NDPs platform
pledge (
and
now even the Greens) they then say, while
calling on the Task Force to conduct wide-reaching consultations,
that Fair Vote Canada is clear - the government must come down in
favour of some system of proportional representation (PR).
Having been looking at electoral reform options for a number of
years now, and having previously come out in flavor of MMP (Mixed
Member Proportional, the only truly proportional system) I now, after
further study, am not at all totally convinced that a fully
'proportional' system is practical or even desirable in Canada.
Something that more closely reflects the voters wishes is most
certainly desirable, as is some modernization to our voter
identification and balloting systems. Given the way our system works
it would certainly be nice to be able to separate somewhat our
wishes as to the local representative and our wish for the party to
hold power but what of the problems that such a system may bring. Is
the solution worse than the problem?
Several countries use a form of
Mixed
Member Proportional voting however few if any
the size and diversity of Canada. There is a great deal of difference
between adjusting for proportionality in a country the size of say
New Zeland at 268,000 sq km, a population of 4.5m and 71 electorate
seats, and Canada with almost 10 MILLION sq km and a population of
36 million and 338 ridings!
In the debate about proportional representation you will see a lot
of arguments that go something like this.....
Winner-take-all gave Canada a House of Commons in 2011 of 166
Conservatives, 103 New Democrats, 34 Liberals, 4 Bloc Québécois,
and one Green. TOTAL 308
Instead, the proportional results would
have been roughly 127 ( 41% ) Conservatives, 97 (31%) New Democrats,
56 (18%) Liberals, 17 (5.5%) Bloc Québécois, and 11 (3.5%) Greens.
TOTAL 308 MPs
That is NOT however how it works, irregardless of what
'proportional' system we use based upon the national vote (or a
separate vote for party) the local MPs will be still elected for each
riding (using a first past the post method) and thus cannot / will
not loose their seats in order to make the results proportional thus
the final make up of the HoC would look more like this....
166 ( 41% ) Conservatives (the number actually elected), 125
(31%) New Democrats, 72 (18%) Liberals, 22 (5.5%) Bloc Québécois,
and 14 (3.5%) Greens. TOTAL around 400 MPs
(rough figures / rounding errors
/ no partial MPs!) Note that the Greens and the Bloc would 'appoint'
more MPs than were elected! (I also note we now have more than 308
ridings to start with!)
Having established that with this
system we will have to have more MPs, let us examine the way they
would be selected. Two basic methods exist, Open List where your
'extra' vote goes to an individual proposed by the Party of your
choice and Closed List where your additional vote goes to the Party
of your choice. Within these two options there are multiple ways in
how such lists and choices are made, I will not try to fully explain
each of these (check out the following links for more on that) but
will try and outline some of the possible problems and potential
solutions.
All Open
List proportional voting systems chose from
preordained list of 'extra' candidates provided by the party however
there are several methods by which voters may chose said candidates
and how such choices translate into who on the list actually is
chosen.
The ballots can become quite
complex with some such systems with the necessity to list not only
the local candidates but the party lists (chosen by the party
hierarchy) of each of the partys vying for power. A national list for
our system could have to contain as many as 25 names per
party but even if chosen on a
regional basis the ballot could contain 20 or more names in total,
with some folks complaining about the delays at the voting booth to
just select one candidate this could become an issue. Even if reduced
by having party lists for each province it is still will take longer
to vote and remember there is no guarantee that any or all of these
folks will ever see the floor of the HoC and how does one choose
which province (or district) has the extra MP(s) if and when needed
for top up? Presumably by the ones that get the highest number of
vote (first past the post!) and would that mean that those in more
populous Provinces / districts would get their choice over and above
less populous areas.
In closed
list systems, each political party
has pre-decided who will receive the seats allocated to that party in
the elections, so that the candidates positioned highest on this list
tend to always get a seat in the parliament while the candidates
positioned very low on the closed list will not. The party executive
or party leaders generally control the list; consequently closed-list
systems transfer political power to the un-elected persons who author
the party's list of candidates. The choices at the ballot box would
be simpler with just selecting a local candidate and a preferred
party but I seriously doubt that many folks will not select the party
that the candidate belongs to, unless perhaps an independent is
running. It should be noted that in this, and most other,
'proportional' systems there is normally a limit set as to the
minimum popular vote below which the 'party' will not be considered
for 'top up' MPs. Where should this be set, 5%, 10%, higher , lower?
The problem with both open and closed list MMP systems
is that a candidate who perhaps has received considerable support
from his ridings voters but not quite enough to be elected would in
some situations be replaced by an individual, put on a short list by
the party hierarchy, who many of those voters do not know from Adam.
Who does this individual represent and is accountable to, the party,
the district, the province in which he resides or who? It is obvious
that it will be the party thus increasing the already overly amount
of power the party bosses hold over our MPs.
One possible
partial solution to some of these problems is to
use
Local
Lists, that is to NOT have any pre
ordained lists but to choose the extra MPs from those in the party
who were not elected but received the highest proportion of the votes
in their riding as compared with all other ridings. This would reduce
the party control over the choices, at least use individuals that
stood for election in the usual fashion and received an endorsement
from many of his or her local citizens. Of course this still brings
into question as to who they represent and are accountable to, and
adds the perception that said riding has two MPs, a situation that
would probably also occur to some extent with party list choices. It
would however somewhat balance the desires of an area that was
strongly in favour of party 'A' when the national popular vote
favoured part 'B' by giving that area a greater chance of getting
some of those 'extra' MPs! As noted previously in all of the above
variations a lower limit is set below which a given Party would
receive NO extra MPs, the setting of this threshold could have an
enormous impact upon the outcome. For instance in the example above
if set at 5% the Block would retain their 22 MPs but the Greens would
be reduced to just one, all of a sudden its NOT proportional! I also note that in some MMP systems there is also an upper limit on the percentage of 'list members' that can be appointed in relation to the directly elected members 20% , 39% etc.. These little 'details are important.
With the number of MPs varying depending upon results and possibly
as many as 20-25% extra MPs having to be 'nominated' (and
accountable to an unspecified authority) this is not an acceptable
situation IMHO, the cost to the taxpayer alone, never mind the high
percentage of 'appointed' MPs and where to put them, should make
these systems (MMP, AV-PLUS) subject to a great deal of detailed
study to see if the “cure” is worse than the problem. Any of
those who openly promote “proportional voting” must in the same
breath specify exactly which method of PR and which variation of said
method they favour, anything less is meaningless. This is no less
true of any of the alternative somewhat less proportional systems!
Non of the above will solve the real problem which is the
apparent inability of our leaders and our MPs to drop the partisan
rhetoric and work together for the good of the country (something
which, given the probability of minority governments under PR they
must learn to do) and the lack of any consequences (other than
getting turfed from power when the electorate finally wakes up) when
they fail to do so. We need parliamentary reform as much, if not
more than electoral reform, let us hope that the new government will
also work on that in the coming months and years..
Given the strong feeling about the various options, many of
which unfortunately have been formed more upon the wish to change the
results rather than any real knowledge on how such changes work in a
practical sense, I expect my comment count to increase dramatically
on this one. Please remember I am all for electoral reform (which
encompasses far more than just the voting system) and more equitable
results but see more problems than solutions in this option. Please
dont shoot the messenger but do discuss the options.
The systems are many and varied and I hope to cover them in more
detail in the future but for now check out the basics in my
previous
post on electoral reform here.
For much more information and opinion
check
out these post
