Proportional representation: the way to go?
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- Is proportional representation the way to go for the future?
Voter Pat Hickie in Peterborough, Ontario, thinks it is.
Canada uses the “first-past-the-post system,” where the party with the most votes in a riding wins that seat whereas proportional representation would allocate seats according to the percentage of votes a given party won, explains the Peterborough Examiner.
“I certainly would like to see a change in the way we elect our senior parliamentarians,” it has Pat Hickie declaring. “Take the Green party. In the last election, they got six per cent of the national vote but didn’t get a single seat.”
In this election, the Greens are rising toward 10 or 12 per cent support, but a seat in the house may elude them once again, he said, adding:
“The Greens are a fringe party, but (Elizabeth) May certainly gained some respect in the debates,” Hickie said. “In the last election (MP Dean) Del Mastro only got 36 per cent of the vote. The Conservatives only got 40 per cent and they run the country.”
Peterborough Examiner – Green party deserves seats, voter says, October 7, 2008
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October 7th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Does this really matter. With the economy the way it is, a complete collapse seems more likely.
This is not the time to argue over representation; we need to save our civilization!
(Ok, I might be crying wolf too early, but I was really inspired by this speech by Lyndon LaRouche: http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/10/01/larouche-webcast-now-more-ever-big-four.html – A Program for World Economic Recovery. I highly recommend it!)
October 7th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Yes, this really matters — and it should be priority #1 for any third party that gets in.
The reason the economy and the environment are collapsing is because a few key countries in the world (Canada, USA, UK — India isn’t as much of an influence) has antiquated electoral systems which force voters to vote in the least worse candidates rather than the best candidates. FPTP not only only works with a two-party system (Not that much more advanced than Cuba’s 1-party system), but privileges what people consider the “top” two parties to be.
While I agree with you that it would have been better if we modernized our electoral system decades ago and thus Canada could be doing our part to fix these problems, crying over the past doesn’t help with the future. Every election there is some emergency that the Liberals and Conservatives are trying to scare people into voting for them to solve. Nothing has changed in decades on this, and there will always be some emergency that these two parties will be causing to solve the next election.
This is also not a “lefty” issue. The only reason the Reform party was able to destroy the Progressive Conservative party was because of our antiquated electoral system. With a fair system, both the Reform and PC could exist and people who are center-right and right-wing would have a party to vote for that actually represented their views. The big-tent parties don’t really represent anyone well.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Once you begin to understand the corrosive effect of distorted election results on every aspect of public policy, there is no other issue.
The people are wise. Governments are idiots. Why is this? Because the message is getting garbled. We tell the politicians what we want with our votes, but the government we get is not the one we voted for. This is because, under the current, winner-take-all system, more than half of our votes have no effect on the outcome of the election, and go straight in the toilet.
In the last election, more than 7.5 million voters cast their votes for candidates who did not get elected, and ended up “represented” by people they voted against. Fair Vote Canada is holding a contest. http://www.OrphanVoters.ca
How many votes will be wasted this time? Your guess could win you cash prizes! Then you can afford to have a drink while civilization collapses.
October 7th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
It is true, what you write, and I understand this as a swede, where support from just 4% of the population gives that party a seat in the riksdag. (Still not perfect though…)
Maybe that’s why I felt this article was redundant, because I’m so accustomed to a better form of democracy.
(Btw.. why does the president of the us call himeself the leader of the free world? I didn’t vote for him, and I enjoy a lot more freedom than most i.e. new yorkers, who have to go through security checkpoints just to enter the fundament of the Statue of liberty.. the actual statue has been closed off since 9/11!)
But this does not alliviate my sense of urgency.
The current situation of the economy will not hold stable to the amount of money pumped in to it, inflation is sure to follow this. Bad inflation.
There might not be time enough to deal with this, for a new, properly elected government. Also, this is a world-wide problem.
Iceland is already on the brink of bankruptcy, and I’m talking about the entire country.. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article4894904.ece
October 7th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Using the proposal the lady offers neglects regional issues. It’s bad enough when your local politition you elected to office ignores the area that voted them in after they run off to Ottawa (or the big city in provencial electoins). So some random goon from a party, no thanks.
And since it is a minority goverment in Canada, technically the conservatives don’t “run” the country.