This also provides me with the opportunity to shill for a PR voting system. In the last election the Green Party garnered 937,613 votes for 6.78% of votes cast, yet did not earn even a single seat in parliament, effectively disenfranchising nearly a million voters. The Bloc on the other hand "earned" 49 seats after receiving 1,379,991 votes or 9.98% of votes cast. In effect meaning that the votes of their supporters carried greater weight than those of all others.
Only with a PR voting system can all Canadian voters have their votes treated equally and just as importantly see themselves fairly represented in parliament. While there have been three unsuccessful referendums on PR, the options were all for obvious reasons, deliberately made overly complicated and were under promoted and explained by each of the three provincial governments involved. Given clear, simple and well explained options,I believe that Canadians would opt for PR in droves.
This table shows based on the 2008 results, how different our parliament would look with a PR system instead of the first past the post (FPP) system we use today. Which version do you think best represents the views of all Canadians?
Party | FPP | PR | Difference |
Conservative | 143 | 116 | -27 |
Liberal | 77 | 81 | +4 |
Bloc | 49 | 31 | -18 |
NDP | 37 | 58 | +21 |
Green | 0 | 21 | +21 |
Independent | 2 | 1 | -1 |
Total | 308 | 308 |
I have great difficulty getting behind a system where 'X' number of MP's sit in the House of Commons with no identifiable constituency.
ReplyDeleteWe already have MP's who are more beholding to the leader of their party than to the ridings that elected them and PR will only add to the problem.
SL, yours is a concern shared by many,however personally I don't have an issue with it for two reasons. One is that I feel that local ridings receive very little or no representation as it is, secondly I believe that the loss of local representation is a reasonable price to pay.
ReplyDeleteOne compromise that is sometimes proposed is a mixed PR, with a certain amount of seats allocated by riding and the rest on a PR basis. This can be accomplished with either larger ridings, more MP's or a combination of both.
I am not married to any one option, I just know that our current system does not, and by it's very nature will not ever work.
There are also preferential balloting and run off voting systems that are worth looking at as well
Additional loss of local representation is a huge step backwards in an area where we have already lost ground.
ReplyDeleteWe'd be better off with more and small ridings and the removal of the party leader to order MPs how, when, and even if, they can vote on any particular matter before the house.
and the removal of the party leader to order MPs how, when, and even if, they can vote on any particular matter before the house.
ReplyDeleteNow that is something we can agree on. The problem is how do we accomplish that in a parliamentary system which confers immense power on the party leaders, even to the point where they control who can even run for office.
Simple, we make it as illegal for a party leader to bribe, force, or intimidate MP's in the House to vote a certain way as it is for me to try and bribe, force, or intimidate you into vote in a certain way.
ReplyDelete