MAIR: Canada Needs Proportional Representation Now

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Canada Needs Proportional Representation Now

[ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/01/05/Pr ... ign=050115 ]

Fix our democracy's mess, ignore boo birds' silly myths. By Rafe Mair. Monday, January 5, 2015

We have a dictator at 24 Sussex Drive. So was Trudeau. So was Chretien. In fact, though he had a smile on his face, so was Mulroney. We don't acquire dictators by a putsch but all nice and legal like under a system which makes them a natural consequence of an election.

We can liberate ourselves from dictatorship by reforming our electoral system and adopting proportional representation (PR).

Unfortunately, when Canadians consider reforms they consistently make perfection the enemy of improvement. Clearly the majority strongly believe that we require reforms to our electoral system and our system of governance generally -- and now. You can tell because the boo birds have begun to smother proposals not with arguments on the merits but a lament that since the suggested changes won't fix everything, it's best to leave things alone.

The problem

Let's look at the mess.

Members of Parliament on the government benches are as useless as tits on a bull. They perform no function other than to vote the way they are told by the Party Whip.

Opposition members, while having more freedom to speak, only oppose that which their leader tells them to.

Cabinet ministers, parliamentary secretaries and all national positions of consequence are appointed or approved personally by the prime minister.

We elect MPs in such a way that only a minority of voters actually have any influence. Unless you vote for the winner, your vote is a waste of time and effort. Even voting for a winner doesn't mean much if your constituency is a "safe one."

Shouldn't every vote cast count? Or is it the Canadian way that only an elite, with orthodox opinions, have a say?

The solution

Unless we agree with the notion that the winner of a majority government needs less than 40 per cent of the popular vote, with only two parties barely distinguishable from one another as the only serious contenders, surely our "system" cries out for some sort of proportional representation.

(Essentially PR means that political parties list candidates and elect as many of those as their percentage of the popular vote indicates. In order to keep tiny parties out, there is usually a minimum threshold of votes required, say five per cent.)

This means that every vote cast has the same force. Think what this really means.

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[ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/01/05/Pr ... ign=050115 ]