More Canadians want proportional representation

Letter to the Editor, The Toronto Star:

The surge of NDP support gives new hope that Stephen Harper’s abuse of Parliament may finally end. Youth are voting. Canadians are motivated, disgusted with politics as usual, and desperate to avoid another Harper government.

Three in five Canadians have never voted for Harper. In 2008 the combined NDP and Liberal vote swamped the Conservatives in ridings like Mississauga-Erindale, Kitchener-Centre and Kitchener-Waterloo, yet their votes meant nothing. By as little as 17 votes Conservatives MPs were elected, supporting Harper’s denial of affordable daycare, fair taxation, and shaming us with inaction on climate change, in defiance of the 65 per cent who voted against them.

Similar split votes elected separatists in ridings like Gatineau. In many ridings like Brampton-West and Brampton-Springdale, even as a million more Canadians vote against Harper, a higher NDP vote will only defeat Liberals and deliver Harper a majority.

Something is terribly wrong when votes for the Greens and the NDP elect Conservatives. Last election, Green support ran as high as 21 per cent in Ontario ridings. For every six votes Harper got, Elizabeth May got one. Where are the Green seats in Parliament? Without electoral reform, when progressive voters vote their preference, Harper wins.

By electing regional MPs through proportional representation, every vote would count. Co-operation would become the norm. No more bullying. The NDP surge would mean NDP seats, and the Bloc would not have a lock on Quebec.

In 2008 the Greens received one out of every 15 votes cast. A million Green votes ought to count for something.

Alt Altman, Canada.com:

The most important issue that is being overlooked in this election is the electoral system itself.

In Canada, we use a first-past-the-post voting system and have done so since 1867. Whichever candidate wins the most votes in a particular riding wins the seat. It's a system that is straightforward and easy to understand. It's also a system that produces electoral results that do not reflect the will of voters, year after year.

In 2008, almost 1,000,000 citizens voted for the Green Party, which received no seats in Parliament. That should sound an alarm that something is amiss in our democracy – a new party emerges, manages a find a good deal of support across the country, but doesn't elect a single representative. That same year, The Bloc Quebecois received 10% of the popular vote, but got 15% of the seats because their vote is regionally concentrated. The NDP received almost double the number of votes as the Bloc, but only got 12% of the seats. And the problem isn't limited to distortions among the smaller parties.

Ask a Conservative supporter living in any large city outside of Alberta how it feels to cast a vote. And recall the 1993 election, when the Progressive Conservatives only received two seats despite receiving 16% of the popular vote.

It's not just a case of the numbers not matching up to voters' preferences. Our system also lets political parties get away with targeting only certain voters. In a winner-takes-all system, parties focus their campaign efforts on swing voters in winnable ridings, and ignore every other segment of Canadian society. For example, since the Conservatives are a lock to win by a huge margin in Calgary, not a single party leader has visited during this election except for Elizabeth May. Under our current system, it's a waste of their time.

Which countries still use a first-past-the-post system? Here is a comprehensive list: Bangladesh, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, Malaysia, Mongolia, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, the United States, the United Kingdom, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and a number of small Caribbean and Pacific island nations. I've listed them all to illustrate exactly the electoral company we keep – most of the countries are relatively new democracies, and many of them are not especially well-known for having stable or representative political systems.

The only other industrialized countries that still use first-past-the-post are the United States and the United Kingdom. The UK, the original source of our own system, is holding a national referendum on May 5 to decide whether they should stop using first-past-the-post. As for our neighbour, two parties have completely dominated US politics since 1912, and the American political system has devolved into an ineffective partisan nightmare. Public confidence in Congress has dipped to historic lows of 11%. Most Canadians do not regard their system as one worthy of emulation.

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