Power vs. Principles
note: cross-posted at the e-group
Our electoral system has many problems. I won't go into all of them here, but one of the most fundamental ones is that it gives parties majority control over our government when less than a majority of voters have supported them. Of course, the power to change this problem lies in the hands of the very people who were elected to a majority because of it. As a result, it takes a government of unusual integrity to introduce the possibility of reform in our electoral system. The B.C. Liberal party, four years after seeing the NDP win a majority government in an election (1996) in which the Liberals got more votes than they did, showed this integrity by setting up a Citizen's Assembly to study electoral reform.
Similarly, governments in P.E.I., New Brunswick and Quebec have all been moving down the path towards electoral reform and away from our archaic First Past the Post system. Ontario is the latest province to look at electoral reform, having introduced legislation which would create a 'Citizen's Assembly', based on the B.C. model, to study possible new electoral methods and make recommendations.
In this context of this general progress, it was disappointing to see that the federal Conservative party has abandoned the old Alliance policy of convening a citizen's assembly to study reform. I guess the Conservatives got too close to the bright lights of unfettered majority rule and their populist principles got left by the wayside. Not too surprising, but sad nonetheless.
Still, whether we look at New Zealand or Australia or Scotland or England or just about anywhere really, the trend around the world remains away from First Past the Post and towards better, fairer voting systems which combine local representation with proportional results. In fact, within the OECD club of the 30 most developed nations in the world, only Canada and the U.S. still use First Past the Post for all elections.
And the U.S. kind of makes sense since they have a pretty strict two-party system (First Past the Post is particularly poor in multi-party systems) and because they are so resistant to change of any kind (still use the Imperial system, still use a dollar bill, unwilling to set up independent organization to run elections, etc. etc.). But Canada has no such reasons for being stuck in the past and it's sad to see that the Conservatives have allowed their desire for absolute power to take precedence over giving Canadian voters the option to choose one of the better electoral systems which voters in so many other countries have chosen.
Our electoral system has many problems. I won't go into all of them here, but one of the most fundamental ones is that it gives parties majority control over our government when less than a majority of voters have supported them. Of course, the power to change this problem lies in the hands of the very people who were elected to a majority because of it. As a result, it takes a government of unusual integrity to introduce the possibility of reform in our electoral system. The B.C. Liberal party, four years after seeing the NDP win a majority government in an election (1996) in which the Liberals got more votes than they did, showed this integrity by setting up a Citizen's Assembly to study electoral reform.
Similarly, governments in P.E.I., New Brunswick and Quebec have all been moving down the path towards electoral reform and away from our archaic First Past the Post system. Ontario is the latest province to look at electoral reform, having introduced legislation which would create a 'Citizen's Assembly', based on the B.C. model, to study possible new electoral methods and make recommendations.
In this context of this general progress, it was disappointing to see that the federal Conservative party has abandoned the old Alliance policy of convening a citizen's assembly to study reform. I guess the Conservatives got too close to the bright lights of unfettered majority rule and their populist principles got left by the wayside. Not too surprising, but sad nonetheless.
Still, whether we look at New Zealand or Australia or Scotland or England or just about anywhere really, the trend around the world remains away from First Past the Post and towards better, fairer voting systems which combine local representation with proportional results. In fact, within the OECD club of the 30 most developed nations in the world, only Canada and the U.S. still use First Past the Post for all elections.
And the U.S. kind of makes sense since they have a pretty strict two-party system (First Past the Post is particularly poor in multi-party systems) and because they are so resistant to change of any kind (still use the Imperial system, still use a dollar bill, unwilling to set up independent organization to run elections, etc. etc.). But Canada has no such reasons for being stuck in the past and it's sad to see that the Conservatives have allowed their desire for absolute power to take precedence over giving Canadian voters the option to choose one of the better electoral systems which voters in so many other countries have chosen.
Labels: Blogs Canada, electoral refrom
posted by Declan at
Sunday, March 20, 2005
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