With the leaders of Canada’s largest parties banging away at each other amidst the cacophony of media sound-bites and photo-ops, the pressing need for electoral reform (ER) becomes ever more clear. Aside from the endless speculation about who may prevail in the event of yet another federal election, many are predicting the lowest voter turnout in Canadian history as an epidemic of voter fatigue reaches new levels and a sense of despondency and helplessness spreads across the nation.
The symptoms of this epidemic (much more widespread than the H1N1 virus) are easily detected. When you hear the following lines from someone who’s been exposed, you can be sure they are infected and are carriers of this demoralizing disease:
- “My vote doesn’t count-why bother?”
- “Politicians don’t care what I think.”
- “The parties are all the same.”
- “Politicians are all crooks and liars.”,
While the nation drifts helplessly towards an election that 70% of Canadians say they don’t want, electoral researchers seek a cure but it seems the populace has developed an immunity to the treatments prescribed in the past, such as:
- Vote for the party highest in the polls-that way your vote will count. (?)
- Vote for the local candidate whose party you think will form government-you may get some local perks.
- Vote for the leader of the party with the fewest recent scandals.
- Whatever you do, do not vote for the representative of a party you do not expect to win even if you like their platform.
For those truly seeking a cure for this malaise, a radical treatment of electoral reform (ER) is being prescribed. The treatment involves proportional representation (PR), something poorly understood in Canada. While widely used as a home remedy around the world and with remarkable success, it has never been embraced in Canada because, surprisingly, it is thought that it might lead to a succession of minority governments unable to function due to fractious disputes. (Isn’t that exactly where first-past-the-post has led us three times in five years?)
CHP Canada has long promoted PR as a means of bringing forward the ideas and platforms supported by millions of Canadians who have-so far-been unable to elect members to advance those ideas. Take the Green Party for instance. In 2008, the Green Party received 6.8% of the national vote and yet they failed to elect even one MP! Based on the popular vote, they should have had about 21 of Canada’s 308 seats. Going a step further, if voters had believed their votes would have translated into seats in the House, that number might have been much higher. The fact that 6.8% of the voters went against the prevailing mindset to vote for the party they felt represented their hopes and desires for the Nation (in spite of the discouraging prospects for success) indicates a huge dissatisfaction with the existing system.
To continue with the medical analogy, Canada’s democratic electoral system is in cardiac arrest. It needs the equivalent of coronary pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). CPR gets the heart going again and puts oxygen back in the blood. We need a dramatic shift in the way we do politics or our democracy will flatline. Proportional representation may be the kick-start for a new era of parliamentary civility and cooperation.
Right now, major social and economic decisions are being made by a handful of people, many of whom were chosen by less than half their constituents and who bow to party policies rejected by over half of Canadians. Perhaps those who support Francine Lalonde’s evil Bill C-384 (promoting euthanasia and assisted suicide) would favour putting Canada’s voters out of their misery by choosing a dictator-for-life and ending the charade of voter empowerment.
CHP Canada promotes instead a principled effort to make Canada’s electoral system truly democratic, returning choice to the electorate. PR would release the fresh ideas and energy of individuals and parties that have been denied access to the policy debates in Parliament and whose participation has been quarantined by our archaic first-past-the-post system. For too long, valuable contributions to Canadian policy discussions have been isolated and locked out. As many medical breakthroughs have faced hostility from the medical establishment, so does PR have its detractors within the political establishment-but insanity has been described as “doing the same things over again and expecting different results.”
Canadians are weary of elections and election results that make them feel powerless. With PR, the core values of all Canadians would be reflected in the make-up of Parliament. It’s time to give Canadian voters something to cheer about.