We Need Proportional Representation in Canadian elections
- Thread starter Lovehobby
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PR is a non-starter, but preferential voting in the form of a single transferable ballot would be a huge improvement over the status quo.
Fuji, I'd disagree with your third point insofar as magnifying voter intention isn't democratic when there are disparities between voter intention and distribution of power. Party discipline in traditional Westminster systems like that of Canada (and unlike that of the USA) mean that a small shift in voting can give a plurality (i.e., not a majority) of the population almost unfettered legislative and executive power. The wishes of the majority of the population have little to no representation in real terms under the Canadian electoral system.
Also, your second point is less than effective in light of the fact that local representation is largely non-existent in real terms under the present system. For better or worse, modern Canadian federal elections are for the most part de facto US-style executive elections in which voters decide based on support for the leader and party; the local candidates are a secondary or tertiary consideration in most ridings. And again, party discipline means that MPs outside of cabinet have virtually no power or authority whatsoever. Michael Chong's bill would address this to an extent, but "local representation" is a hollow joke as it currently stands.
Unfortunately, political evolution has created a Frankenstein's monster in our legislatures whereby the forms and functions no longer match the intent. Reform is needed, but PR isn't that reform.
Fuji, I'd disagree with your third point insofar as magnifying voter intention isn't democratic when there are disparities between voter intention and distribution of power. Party discipline in traditional Westminster systems like that of Canada (and unlike that of the USA) mean that a small shift in voting can give a plurality (i.e., not a majority) of the population almost unfettered legislative and executive power. The wishes of the majority of the population have little to no representation in real terms under the Canadian electoral system.
Also, your second point is less than effective in light of the fact that local representation is largely non-existent in real terms under the present system. For better or worse, modern Canadian federal elections are for the most part de facto US-style executive elections in which voters decide based on support for the leader and party; the local candidates are a secondary or tertiary consideration in most ridings. And again, party discipline means that MPs outside of cabinet have virtually no power or authority whatsoever. Michael Chong's bill would address this to an extent, but "local representation" is a hollow joke as it currently stands.
Unfortunately, political evolution has created a Frankenstein's monster in our legislatures whereby the forms and functions no longer match the intent. Reform is needed, but PR isn't that reform.
It would directly lead to a shift in power away from moderate voters, towards extremist voters, and away from voters in general and towards lobbyists.PR is a non-starter, but preferential voting in the form of a single transferable ballot would be a huge improvement over the status quo.
Forcing the government to be moderate relative to the population IS the goal in a democracy. Those parties achieve plurality by fighting over the middle, which is what FPTP forces them to do. Look at how the conservatives and the NDP have used party discipline to muzzle extremists.Fuji, I'd disagree with your third point insofar as magnifying voter intention isn't democratic when there are disparities between voter intention and distribution of power. Party discipline in traditional Westminster systems like that of Canada (and unlike that of the USA) mean that a small shift in voting can give a plurality (i.e., not a majority) of the population almost unfettered legislative and executive power.
The myth is that these plurality governments don't represent a majority of the population because they didn't win a majority the vote. That is nonsense, those parties are responsive to the interests of far more people than actually voted for them, they greatly over reach into appeal to the voters in the middle who ultimately voted elsewhere.
Under a PR system, including STV, parties run on narrow single issues, in effect encourages divisive policies small parties to differentiate themselves.
The result you can see in places like Israel where Netanyahu cobbled together his coalition reaching out to extremist parties the Knesset rather the moderates.
Under FPTP even before the election he would have had to craft a policy position reached out to the middle instead who knows, maybe we would had peace the middle east now.
False propaganda. FPTP parties do effectively represent far more people than voted for them. That is exactly the advantage FPTP has over PR, where parties only represent narrow interests.The wishes of the majority of the population have little to no representation in real terms under the Canadian electoral system.
The fact is under FPTP someone had to vote for you abd yes it's very significant. Parties lose seats when they run unpopular local candidates.Also, your second point is less than effective in light of the fact that local representation is largely non-existent in real terms under the present system.
How so? And please address the system I mentioned (STV), since I already acknowledged that PR is a non-starter.It would directly lead to a shift in power away from moderate voters, towards extremist voters, and away from voters in general and towards lobbyists.
I'm pretty sure no democracy in history has ever actually stated this as a goal. You're projecting here, Fuji.Forcing the government to be moderate relative to the population IS the goal in a democracy.
The US has FPTP and both parties increasingly disregard the middle in favour of pandering more and more to ideologues... to say nothing of the many nutjob Representatives and Senators that have infested the Capitol over the years.Those parties achieve plurality by fighting over the middle, which is what FPTP forces them to do. Look at how the conservatives and the NDP have used party discipline to muzzle extremists.
I'd also argue that the Conservatives have been ineffectual in muzzling extremists: Cheryl Gallant is still the MP for Renfrew-Nippissing-Pembroke, Mark Warawa is still the MP for Langley, both were known extremists before the last election and the election before that, both still spout their extremist bullshit on at least an irregular basis. Now, if you meant the Conservatives have done a good job of neutralizing their extremists in order to reach to the middle, I'd agree.
The NDP, to my knowledge, has done nothing of substance to mitigate their extremists, but since they're not in power they don't have to.
No, Canadian parties are reaching into the middle to appeal only to those voters who they know are at least somewhat amenable to their core platform. Both the Liberals and Conservatives know full well that they don't have to appeal to the majority of all voters, only to their own bases plus enough of each others' soft support to win a plurality that is nothing close to a majority -- and then they have unfettered power to enact their agenda.The myth is that these plurality governments don't represent a majority of the population because they didn't win a majority the vote. That is nonsense, those parties are responsive to the interests of far more people than actually voted for them, they greatly over reach into appeal to the voters in the middle who ultimately voted elsewhere.
You are aware that STV has nothing to do with PR, right? Can you give me an example of an actual STV, non-PR system that produces results anything like Israel or Italy?Under a PR system, including STV, parties run on narrow single issues, in effect encourages divisive policies small parties to differentiate themselves.
False propaganda. FPTP parties do effectively represent far more people than voted for them. That is exactly the advantage FPTP has over PR, where parties only represent narrow interests.
Sometimes they do, more often they don't. OTOH, frequently parties run candidates with very high personal approval ratings and lose elections to parties with less personally popular candidates but which have stronger party support in a given riding.The fact is under FPTP someone had to vote for you abd yes it's very significant. Parties lose seats when they run unpopular local candidates.
You also haven't addressed the point that under the current system of rigid party discipline plus centralized control of party candidacy, local representation in our system (the one that exists in the real world of 2013, not in a high-school textbook) is all but extinct.
You will get a shift towards the extremes because you eliminate the FPTP imperative to fight over the middle. Parties can go after niches which will be less moderate and then cobble together alliances that reach towards the right or left edge of the spectrum rather than center. This happens under ANY system that removes the need to get plurality, including STV.How so? And please address the system I mentioned (STV), since I already acknowledged that PR is a non-starter.
You will get a shift of power away from voters towards lobbyists because you remove the amplification of voter intention that FPTP creates. Those small shifts in votes that result in big shifts in government emphasize the importance of winning at the polls, as opposed to funding. So voters lose, lobbyists gain.
And note that those small shifts that matter ALWAYS relate to the most moderate voters, the ones right in the middle, where a 5% shift from one party to the other has a 10% impact (subtract from one, add to another) as opposed to a shift from the center to the extreme, which has only a 5% impact. In a race between the Liberals and the Conservatives, a voter shifting from L to C matters more than a voter shifting from L to N.
FPTP is an excellent system because it focuses the politics of the nation on the moderate center, which really is what you want in a democracy. You really don't want to empower the extremes. The actual GOAL of a democratic system is to have a government that is responsive to the majority of voters. That necessarily means a center left, or center right government, as opposed to a left or right government.
That's just nonsense. US elections are incredibly competitive, frequently coming very close to being 50/50 results. They are very much locked in battle over the most moderate voters. The rhetoric is about getting out the vote, but their policy platforms are squarely aimed at the average person.The US has FPTP and both parties increasingly disregard the middle in favour of pandering more and more to ideologues...
Yeah, the US is way further right than Canada. The US Democrats are right of the Canadian Conservative party. But within the context of US elections, they are aiming at the swing votes.
Nah both the NDP and the Conservatives have been effective in muzzling their extremists. The Conservatives have managed to completely shut down every actual attempt to get abortion or same sex marriage on the agenda. Yeah, the extremists sit over in a corner and shout loudly, and the media picks it up and runs all their crap. But they are not getting any of their agenda on the roadmap.I'd also argue that the Conservatives have been ineffectual in muzzling extremists: Cheryl Gallant is still the MP for Renfrew-Nippissing-Pembroke
Over on the NDP side, they are championing tax cuts for small business and the merits of the free market, and absolutely silencing the party wing-nuts who believe in socialism.
Sorry but STV is just a watered down PR system, designed to create a proportional result with a transferrable ballot rather than a party list. It's slightly better than PR in that the people who get elected actually had someone vote for them, rather than party list stacked with cronies from candidate 5 on down.You are aware that STV has nothing to do with PR, right? Can you give me an example of an actual STV, non-PR system that produces results anything like Israel or Italy?
But it still suffers from the fundamental fatal flaws in PR by encouraging candidates to run on less moderate, more extreme platforms.
Although to be fair STV moves in the PR direction by an extent that probably doesn't matter in 19 out of 20 elections. It also doesn't produce results that are any less distorted than under FPTP. STV produces broken results just as surely.
Suppose that 49% of voters prefer the Conservatives, 26% prefer the Liberals, and 25% prefer the NDP.
Your argument is that it's fairest to have the Liberals in power because the NDP get knocked out and their vote transfers to the Liberals. But what if even 5% of those Conservative voters would rather see the NDP in power than the Liberals? Perhaps they think the Liberals are corrupt. Why is that a fairer outcome than having the Conservatives win? Or even the NDP?
Take total national vote for each party and fit into 308 ridings.Do you have a source for these numbers, I am not arguing I would honestly like to see a source. The number for the liberals seem way too high. Of the 32 elected liberal MPs only 2 had a majority in there ridings and 2 actually won with less than a third of the vote.
Sounds like a great way to get a lot of corrupt cronies nobody likes in office. Who looks at the names after the first 5 on a party list? And how much would I have to pay the NDP to be number 6?Take total national vote for each party and fit into 308 ridings.
Almost nothing? How about whether or not the government is responsive to the interests of voters. That seems more important to a democracy than this idiotic obsession with party seat counts.In constructing a democracy, ALMOST nothing matters except giving parties representation very very close to their support levels. The rest is window dressing.
Not so, the purest form is to have every member of the electorate vote on all the bills, motions, and laws, but that would not be very efficient. Ya, ya, ya, we know, there are over 80 countries out of the 200 or so, in the world that use 'some form of PR' but that hasn't made some of them any better democracies or a better place to live in.PR is the purest form of democracy. That is why the vast majority of countries use it and almost all new democracies choose it.
Each system has it's strengths and weaknesses, but we all know you don't want to hear that.
Works perfectly we'll in many nations. Candidate selection,can be done in conventions or even primaries.Sounds like a great way to get a lot of corrupt cronies nobody likes in office. Who looks at the names after the first 5 on a party list? And how much would I have to pay the NDP to be number 6?
PR states elect far more women.
All democratic systems work. FPTP simply works better.Works perfectly we'll in many nations. Candidate selection,can be done in conventions or even primaries.
PR states elect far more women.
Primaries are a shitty solution to the party list crony problem, since only die hard party members vote in primaries.
Having unelected people in the legislature is stupidly undemocratic. Forcing parties to have each member individually elected prevents them putting odious people on the list.
and doesn't work so well in others. If it was the perfect form as you claim it would work all the time.Works perfectly we'll in many nations. Candidate selection,can be done in conventions or even primaries.
PR states elect far more women.
Majority Election System
With the majority election system, only one member of parliament is to be elected per constituency [area and group of voters living therein that is taken as a unit in the election process].
Basic Idea
The most qualified personality shall be selected to represent the constituency.
Characteristics, Pros and Cons
- With the majority election system, small parties have no chance to win a mandate unless there are some constituencies with a population having political views differing much from those in the rest of the country. With the size constituencies in big nations do have (some 100,000 voters) this is rather unlikely. Therefore the majority election system will inevitably lead to parties uniting or building blocks (tight alliances) until only two major players remain on the political scene. So voters are forced to select between the candidates of two big parties basically. While the this tends to create a stable parliamentary majority for the government it is not likely to represent a pluralistic modern society adequately.
- Supporters of a minority party might feel not being represented by the member of parliament rooted in their region because he or she represents the other party and other political concepts.
- In a big nation, one member of parliament is going to represent some 100,000 inhabitants. Evidently these people do not live in towns of exactly this size. To assign fairly equal numbers of inhabitants to every constituency, several villages and and small towns must be grouped to form a constiuency while large cities must be divided into several constituencies. There is no "natural", evident rule of assignment.
In the past years it has repeatedly been reported that minor changes in the definition of constituencies were deliberately planned by governments of several countries (U.K., France and others) to ensure that their party could win a few mandates in a situation where government and opposition party have almost the same strength.
The trick herein is the following: if there is a constituency with a solid majority for the government party, subtract a few towns voting overwhelmingly for the government and add them to a neighboring constituency where the government party just needs a few percents more of the votes to win the election and exchange these towns for a few towns known to be voting for the opposition - so the government's party will win both seats.
In principle, this kind of manipulation is just as much electoral fraud as counting some votes twice or having some votes uncounted. The problem is: the existing old borders of a constituency might have been created by the same kind of manipulation by a former government and it is almost impossible to find a really neutral solution. - While the majority election system seems to be straightforward and simple at first glance, it leads to rather complex decisions that are not transparent to voters. This is definitely not a basis to create trust in democracy.
Proportional Representation System
With the proportional representation system several members of parliament are to be elected per constituency. Basically every political party presents a list of candidates and voters can select a list, that is they vote for a political party. Parties are assigned parliamentary seats proportionally to the number of votes they get.
Basic Idea
Political parties play a key role in creating political solutions (even in a majority election system). A reasonable number of competing parties will create more and better ideas while just two big parties (resulting from the majority election system) tend to be at a deadlock with inflexible positions.
Characteristics, Pros and Cons
- With several parties there is more choice and voters are more likely to find a party that does represent their major political convictions than would be possible in a two-party system.
- Supporters of a small party are likely to be represented by at least one member of parliament rooted in their region and sharing their political views and convictions.
- The size of constituencies is bigger and there are less possibilities to manipulate their borders than with the majority election system. Usually the borders of the constituencies are fixed by historical considerations (provinces, federal states, counties etc.). As several seats are assigned to parties proportionally to votes even within a constituency, the borders of a constituency are not as relevant to the election result as in a majority election system.
- With an increased number of represented parties a majority for a single party becomes less probable. If the government must be based on too many small parties they may disagree when new issues emerge. This may become a danger to political stability and cause anticipated elections absorbing the attention of politicians. If instability gets notorious in a country, the state as a whole will just not be able to perform the tasks it should.
- Small parties may also abuse their position to get support for special interests (for examples subsidies for institutions related to the party) in exchange for support for the government policy. This is nothing less than a form of corruption.
- In most countries with proportional elections the parties decide who will represent them in parliament. There may be a difference between the party hierarchy deciding on the top places on the party's list of candidates and the voters preferences.
In some countries, there are additional rules to make sure that voters may have some influence which candidates will represent them.
The most sophisticated system of this kind has been established in Switzerland: Voters may replace candidates on a party list by other candidates (even from a different party) and favorited candidates may appear twice on a list (while the total number of candidates on a list may not exceed the number of seats, of course). For those who think this is too complicated for them there is always the possibility to use an unchanged party list. This way, a major drawback of the proportional election system is eliminated while preserving the obvious advantages of proportional representation. (For details see: Switzerland's refined proportional election system)
http://www.democracy-building.info/voting-systems.html
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That just repeats the myth that seat counts are a good measure of how moderate and responsive a government is, which was debunked above.
You want PR because you hate moderate governments, and you want to give more power to radical loons.
And you want large brokerage parties to be profoundly overrepresented based on votes they did not earn. You want governments that are not based on the way people actually voted. Antidemocratic.That just repeats the myth that seat counts are a good measure of how moderate and responsive a government is, which was debunked above.
You want PR because you hate moderate governments, and you want to give more power to radical loons.
PR creates a system where ALL of the power is handed to party backroom power brokers, who negotiate away party policies in order to gain support for other policies. No party is ever "elected". That's about as antidemocratic as you can ask for in an electoral system.And you want large brokerage parties to be profoundly overrepresented based on votes they did not earn. You want governments that are not based on the way people actually voted. Antidemocratic.
PR creates a system where ALL of the power is handed to party backroom power brokers, who negotiate away party policies in order to gain support for other policies. No party is ever "elected". That's about as antidemocratic as you can ask for in an electoral system.
Just rhetoric. Total nonsense. How lists are formed many ways.
Most on here clearly think you can be accused of much the same, starting with 'PR is the purest form of democracy.'Just rhetoric. Total nonsense. How lists are formed many ways.
