How much longer must Canada wait for reform?

From Fair Vote Canada:

British MPs spending scandal and distorted election results sparked UK electoral reform debate and action.

Dramatic events in Britain in recent months provoked a full-blown public debate on electoral reform. The UK may soon scrap the antiquated first-past-the-post voting system, as most modern democracies did last century.

Now it’s time for Canada to do likewise, says Fair Vote Canada, a national multi-partisan citizens’ campaign for voting system reform.

“In Britain it took a shocking scandal on MPs’ spending and then an election with ridiculously distorted results to set the stage for serious discussion about electoral reform,” said Bronwen Bruch, President of Fair Vote Canada. “Do we really need to wait for more scandals and distorted elections here in Canada before we begin an electoral reform process? Now that we are 10 years into the 21st century, could we simply agree it’s time to replace our current voting system, which was developed in the 11th century?”

“Winner-take-all voting is killing Canada,” said Larry Gordon, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada. “How many examples of the destructive effects of our dysfunctional voting system do we need before moving forward?”

Fair Vote Canada cited these examples from recent elections:

• The recent series of minority governments have been unstable and volatile because the voting system generally gives a majority of seats to a party with just 35% to 40% of the votes, which removes incentives for parties to build stable long-term working relationships with one another.

• Distorted election results have significant political consequences. For example, in the last election more than 60% of Quebec voters cast votes for federalist parties but the voting system gave two-thirds of the seats to a separatist party.

• 940,000 Canadians, many of them young people, who voted for the Green Party gained no representation in Parliament, simply because they were not geographically concentrated; meanwhile far fewer Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 Conservative MPs.

• Parliamentary caucuses do not reflect their supporters from all parts of the country. The Conservative caucus has no MPs from Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver, despite receiving more than a half-million votes in those major urban centres. Westerners are similarly under-represented in the Liberal caucus.

“A credible electoral reform process should focus on core Canadian democratic principles: voter equality, fair election results and legitimate majority rule. A reform process should include public and expert consultation and an objective assessment of the alternatives. This process might include an all-party Parliamentary committee, a commission and/or a citizens’ assembly. The important point is to commit now to building a fair voting system for 21st century Canada,” said Gordon.