Dr. Don Ferguson has a prescription for Electoral Dysfunction.
“Thanks to our dysfunctional first-past-the-post system, the disconnect between how we marked our ballots and what we got was stunning, as usual. The Conservatives won 143 seats, when they deserved only 117. The Bloc won 50 seats when they deserved only 28.
“On the other side of the ledger, the Green Party received no seats, when they deserved 23. The NDP won 37 seats when they deserved 57. Even the poor Liberals deserved five more seats than they received.
“Had we voted the same way in a fair voting system, producing proportional results, Canada would likely have a Liberal-NDP-Green coalition government…”
- Larry Gordon, on Rabble.ca
It’s a point of view shared by many people, including Adam Fritiz writing on the Canada’s World community blog.
Including Conservatives:
“Electoral reform toward a more proportional system was proposed by a number of columnists and editorialists in the wake of the two elections [1993 and 1997], and raised by the leaders of the Progressive Conservative Party…”
- Henry Milner, Canada: A Case Study on the Electoral System (1997)
The above research paper by Milner was found on the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network website.
2 Comments
OK, how do we strike the appropriate balance between believing in the need for electoral reform and understanding that there is absolutely no advantage (in fact, a positive disadvantage) to either the Conservatives or Liberals to champion such a thing?
Hi DB
That is the million dollar question.
I would venture that the first thing that has to happen is electoral reform as an issue has to become a consistent and nagging issue. Right now it flares up and dies down from time to time and the two parties are good at putting out that brush fire.
Although it is of negative value to Liberal or Conservative strategists, PR is something that actually does conform to Liberal and Conservative values. The Harper Conservatives are a populist administration and electoral equality amongst citizens makes sense as a principal their base should support. The liberals at the very least can not argue out loud that they deserve to have their votes count more than everyone else’s.
Finally, there is a very important referendum in BC this spring. It will be very close. The provincial liberals were soundly embarrassed by the fact that the previous referendum “failed” while the Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government formed a “majority” government with 13% less support than those who supported electoral reform. If it passes this time in April it will certainly motivate more referendums in other provinces.
What do you think?