Proportional Representation

Picking up on yesterday's post, here's an interview with federal NDP Leader Jack Layton, from the October edition of the Institute for Research on Public Policy's Policy Options magazine. In the interview discusses the current Conservative minority government, and also muses about proportional representation and how Canada would benefit from reforming our grossly outdated electoral system.

If we had a proper proportional representation system, if every vote counted equally, minority government would’ve become the norm a long time ago, like it is in Europe, where, by the way, you’ll find the highest standards of living, the least inequality, the best health outcomes, the most productivity in ...the economy and all kinds of other good measures of what it takes to have a society that’s working well. Fortunately for them, they decided to make sure that their electoral system was relatively modern. We’ve decided to keep a system that was invented before the telephone. Now if you made that proposition to Canadians and said, “Do you think it would be right, if we had an electoral system where a government could have a majority of seats, even though a majority had voted against them?” I’ll bet 90 percent would say, “Well no, that would be wrong.”

Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any video out there of Layton discussing the issue, so here's Max Lombardi, an NDP candidate in the last federal election, federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, and Ralph Nader endorsing proportional representation: