For the past several years Canadians have been told that our electoral system, based on the British system of first-past-the-post, which means that the party receiving the most votes forms the government, is supposedly a dud. Invariably, it is pointed out that in the 1997 federal election, Liberal leader Jean Chrétien won a majority of seats with only 37 percent of the popular vote. The present system, it is argued, has led to such horrors as women making up only 21 percent of the elected MPs in the federal Parliament (as though women were idiotic enough to care how many MPs were female, as female voters sensibly look, as do men, to the candidates' policies rather than their gender). In Ontario, Conservative leader Mike Harris's election win in 1995, with 50 percent of the seats, occurred with only 40 percent of the popular vote. It is also argued that our present system is causing a decline in voter turnout at elections. Obviously, in view of these developments, reformers argue that a way has to be found to get around these perceived problems.
To solve these problems, it is being argued that another electoral system, called proportional representation (PR), or some variation of this system, should replace the present first-past-the post electoral system.
Before defining PR, it would perhaps be a good idea to first look at who is behind this new (for Canada) PR voting system. The advocacy group pushing for it is called Fair Vote Canada, which claims to be a non-partisan organization. One of its founders is feminist Doris Anderson, former editor of Chatelaine magazine. There are 32 members on its advisory board, chaired by former left wing Liberal cabinet minister, Lloyd Axworthy, who, when he was in office, was nicknamed "Pink Lloyd" for a very good reason. Other left wing members on the advisory board include:
Dr. Patricia Baird
Former chair of the Royal Commission on Reproductive Technology. The Commission made 293 recommendations including those in favour of the creation of embryos specifically for research (on human embryos of up to 14 days), and of lesbians and single women having the right to new medical technologies paid for by provincial health schemes.
Maude Barlow
Feminist Chairperson of the left wing Council of Canadians.
Dr. Sylvia Bashevkin
Feminist Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto. She has written a number of books dealing with women and party politics.
Patrick Boyer
Former red Tory Toronto MP. He chaired the House of Commons Equality Committee dealing with the implementation of the Charter of Rights. His Committee's report, released in October 1985, made 85 recommendations, including protection for sexual orientation in the Human Rights Act, employment and pay equity, and that appointments to the judiciary should reflect the composition of Canadian society ie. appointments be made on the basis of gender, ethnic, origin, race, etc.
The Hon. Ed Broadbent
NDP MP and party leader from 1975 - 1989.
June Callwood
Feminist author and vice president of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
Nathalie Des Rosiers
Past President of the Law Commission of Canada, who led that Commission's electoral reform project which recommended adoption of PR. While President of the Law Commission, she issued a report that same-sex marriage be legalized and/or marriage be eliminated entirely. Legalization of abortion and euthanasia were also recommendations made by this commission.
Linda Silver Dranoff
Feminist lawyer and legal reformer who has contributed to the expansion of women's rights in family law. She wrote a column in Chatelaine for 25 years, interpreting the law from a feminist perspective.
Dr. Margaret Fulton
Former president of Mount St. Vincent University, which, under her direction, changed from a Catholic women's university to a feminist only university. She is director of the North/South Institute, a left-wing organization working internationally.
Mel Hurtig
Left-wing publisher. He is the founding member of the Committee for an Independent Canada and one of the founding members of the Council of Canadians.
Tom Kent
Former advisor to Prime Minister Lester Pearson who comes from a socialist background in Britain.
Robin Mathews
An active member of the extreme left wing of the NDP called the Waffle Movement.
The Hon. Lorne Nystrom
Former NDP Member of Parliament who ran for the NDP national leadership in 1975 and 1995. He was NDP House leader until defeated in the 2004 election.
Dr. Sylvia Ostry
Left-leaning feminist, former Chief Statistician for the federal Liberal government and Chairperson of the Economic Council of Canada.
William Pitman
NDP MP and Ontario MPP, who also served as Deputy Leader of the Ontario NDP party. Former President of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
Judy Rebick
Former President of the feminist National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) and former Ontario provincial NDP candidate.
Rick Salutin
Left-wing columnist for the Globe and Mail. He is editor of the leftist publication, This Magazine.
David Suzuki
Well-known CBC broadcaster on the environment and other similar causes.
The Very Rev. Hon. Lois Wilson
High profile feminist former Moderator of the United Church of Canada. She is a Board member of Amnesty International and currently president of the World Federalist Movement (Canada); Vice President of the World Federalist Movement (International); and Vice President of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
At least 60 percent of the Board is comprised of left wing activists, with a heavy emphasis on NDP supporters and/or feminists. Obviously, there is something in PR that they believe serves their cause.
It should be mentioned, however, there are three known conservative members on the Advisory Board. They are Walter Robinson, former director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Ted White, former Alliance MP for North Vancouver, between 1993 and 2000, and red Tory Senator Hugh Segal, former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Mulroney. The political leanings of the remaining members of the Board are not known.
It is significant that Fair Vote Canada has organized a caucus called "Women for Fair Voting" which focuses on promoting PR as a means of increasing the number and percentage of women serving in Parliament and provincial legislatures. Fair Vote Canada notes, on its website, that a number of studies have shown that the lists used in all PR systems help facilitate both the nomination and election of more women than first-past-the-post systems.
What is PR?
PR is a system of voting whereby a party lists its candidates in a certain order and then if 10 percent of the seats in a 100-seat legislature, for example, are won by the party, the top 10 names on the list then sit in the legislature. Note - there are no nomination meetings as the party chooses the candidates whose name will stand for election. Understandably, there will be immense political pressure for parties to create lists that include an equal number of women ie. a female quota, and quotas based on racial and ethnic origin and sexual orientation. Quotas for women are currently included in the election laws of Costa Rica, Belgium, Mexico and France. We know that this type of electoral system is especially important for feminists, based on their international conference on the issue held in Ottawa in June 2004. According to this conference, changing to a new political system on constitutional reform would provide a "golden opportunity to try to tie in gender parity." (See Reality, January/February, 2005, p. 14, "Voting By Proportional Representation: Who Benefits?")
This system also raises other questions, such as the difficulty of balancing regional interests in PR. That is, how would northern or western regions, for example, be certain of getting their fair share of the seats if the names of candidates are selected by the party. These individuals could come from anywhere in Canada. The guarantees of regional representation and that local issues will be raised in an election campaign are a benefit of our first past-the-post system. This is an important consideration. In fact, under PR, just what would be the point of having local candidates anyway? There is, however, a way around this problem of PR in that candidates could run in individual ridings, as they do under the present system, and that only some of the seats would be reserved and awarded to parties accordingly to their lists.
Another problem with PR is that the system rarely leads to majority governments since it gives smaller parties a far greater degree of representation in a national Parliament. That is why the NDP is such an enthusiastic supporter of PR. PR guarantees that the winning party must make a deal with other parties to stay in power. Although it seems more democratic, the system, in fact, gives small parties more power, even if they are supported by only tiny pockets of Canadians, e.g., the Green Party and the NDP, each of which according to a Decima poll in late February, have the support of only 13% of the population. This could lead to the second most popular party in an election having no role to play at all. We only have to look to the fiasco that occurred in Germany in its federal election in 2005. Deal-making among the fractured parties took weeks to arrange. In the end, an ugly "Grand Coalition" of Germany's two leading parties, hated rivals, was the bizarre outcome. The Chancellor is a Conservative while the finance and foreign ministers are Socialists. Under PR, we could just as easily have Stephen Harper as Prime Minister, Jack Layton as Finance Minister, and Paul Martin as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Policy decisions would not come easily under such a configuration! Under our present system the party with the most votes can draw support from different parties on different issues, but under the PR system, the coalitions are formal, requiring prior compromises before the government is formed, which can result in an incoherent power sharing.
There is little doubt that the PR system leads to political instability. For example,
- Israel's mainstream parties have to make deals with radical and religious parties in order to create a coalition government, thus giving these very small parties power they may not deserve.
- Italy's 61st government since World War II fell in February because its coalition fell apart. Its deposed socialist Prime Minister Romano Prodi negotiated with members of the other parties to reach a "deal" to return him as head of the government. That is, horse-trading over issues took place in order to form a government. Mr. Prodi was successful in restoring his position, but he paid a stiff price to do so as he had to change direction on almost all the political initiatives undertaken in his first months in office.
On the other hand, it must be said that some social conservatives see considerable value in PR, as it is a way to get issues, such as abortion and same sex marriage, back on the floor of Parliament where there is currently an all-party consensus against revisiting these matters. Since MPs under PR are to be selected according to a party list, the candidates must, of course, agree to the party's position on controversial issues. Thus, there is no guarantee that the issues of abortion, same sex marriage and euthanasia etc. would receive any more support under PR than under the first-past-the-post system. It is, in short, a very tricky call.
Attempts to Bring in PR
Even though the PR electoral system may create difficulties, this does not mean it is not being seriously entertained in Canada. Paul Martin, when Prime Minister, made a half-hearted stab at electoral reform when he asked, in 2005, that his minister Responsible for Democratic Reform, Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa-Vanier) look into the issue. However, there was not much enthusiasm by the Liberals for electoral reform since reform would likely interfere with the accustomed and expected Liberal victory at the polls. As a result, the federal government decided to wait for the provinces to break the ice before deciding whether it wanted to test the waters on an alternative electoral system.
Provincial Reviews of the Electoral System
The provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and P.E.I. are at various stages in considering electoral change. British Columbia advanced the most quickly in establishing a Citizens Assembly, when 160 randomly selected individuals were selected by the government to examine the issue. In late 2004, the assembly came up with a rather exotic form of PR system called the Single Transferable Vote ("STV"). It is so complicated that even such a seasoned politician and newspaper columnist as Norman Spector (former Chief of Staff for Prime Minister Mulroney), now a Globe and Mail columnist, in his column on January 10, 2005 dismissed STV as "nonsense". A referendum was held on the STV in the 2005 British Columbia provincial election, and was supported by a surprising 57 percent of the voters, although this does not necessarily mean the voters understood the system. This, however, was short of the 60 percent required to have the referendum passed. British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell now says there will be another referendum held on STV at the time of the 2009 provincial election.
In November 2004, Ontario randomly selected 103 individuals (one per riding in the province) to deliberate on proposals for electoral reform there. The assembly is advised by a 13-person panel of experts who, with only one or two exceptions, reads like a who's who of advocates for PR. The results of the assembly's deliberations are to be announced on May 15, 2007 and a referendum is to be held on its recommendations, coincident with the October 2007 Ontario provincial election. The Ontario government also requires a super majority 60 percent for the measures to be approved.
A Solution to the Problem
There is no doubt that the present first past-the-post electoral system is flawed. As Britain's Winston Churchill once stated, "the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." A variation of this occurred when the elitist Liberal party leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff (National Post, February 24, 2007) described, as "moments of torture," his inability to watch the World Cup Soccer game, because he had to endure those "… hilarious meetings with people in bars - I mean serious meetings with potential supporters …" Obviously he doesn't have a very high opinion of ordinary people, or perhaps it's just that he has a very high opinion of himself.
This brings us to the real problem with our electoral system. It's not the process, but rather the arrogance of those in power, i.e., a long series of Prime Ministers and their staff who invariably centralize power into their own hands. Even Cabinet ministers are nothing more than yes-men. Individual MPs have no strong role to play in the development of policies and MPs do not represent their constituents because their vote is most often "whipped" ie., ordered by the leader to vote a certain way, with failure to comply leading to negative consequences for that MP. More free votes, relaxed party discipline and a strong role for caucus in determining policy are all necessary in order to make Canada more democratic. Once we finally have a genuinely democratic government, only then should we consider looking at changes in the electoral system. |
