The case for serious electoral reform is strong. Over the past century, Canada has had 16 majority governments — but only four of them have actually received more than 50 per cent of the popular vote. With only 39.5 per cent of the popular vote in the 2011 election (plus an unquantifiable amount of hubris), the Harper government has exercised 100 per cent control over Parliament, using that power to sabotage international efforts on climate change and implement a whole range of other policies at odds with the values of most Canadians. Even before winning its majority, Harper’s Republican-style Conservative party — well to the right of Canada’s traditional Progressive Conservative Party — managed to win minority governments with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote. Now, in the heat of an election year, the current dynamic in Ottawa and the intensity of the popular desire across the country to break Harper’s hold on power may finally create sufficient political momentum to put in place a more democratic electoral system based on proportional representation (PR). There are many variations of PR, but it boils down to the notion that the number of seats a party holds in the national legislature is determined by its share of the popular vote. If a party gets 25 per cent of the popular vote, it gets 25 per cent of the seats in the legislature. The most widely-supported version of PR for Canada — called Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) — is used in Germany, Scotland and New Zealand, and has the advantage of combining local representation with a seat count in the legislature based on the popular vote. MMP was recommended by the Law Commission of Canada in a 2004 report on Canadian electoral reform. It has the support of nonpartisan groups like Fair Vote Canada and the Canadian Electoral Alliance. What matters, of course, is what kind of support it has among political parties. And on that front, there are grounds for encouragement. ipolitics.ca/2015/01/14/the-case-for-proportional-representation-your-move-mr-trudeau/
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 03:39:07 +0000