As we close in on the general election, we now have all opposition parties coming out in favour of electoral reform of one form or another. With Justin Trudeau's 32-point "real change" proposal for enhanced transparency and accountability, he included a promise that this election would be the last under the current First-Past-the-Post system, which is extremely disheartening. If he wanted a real reinvigoration of our parliamentary system, it would come with a proper re-engagement with our current system, not to replace it with something that will come with its own set of problems.
It's not like this hasn't been attempted before in a number of provinces. PEI and Ontario both held referenda on proportional representation systems that were defeated, while BC held two on adopting a Single-Transferable Vote system the first one failing to achieve the required 60 percent to succeed, the second vote finding even less support than the first time around, dropping to 39 percent. In other words, Canadians have yet to be convinced.
As we get drawn into yet another debate on electoral reform, there a few things that stand out for me, the first being that there is an assumption that reform is both necessary and desirable, or that the current system is "antiquated" and therefore somehow illegitimate. The problem of course is that over time, the actual merits and mechanics of our current system have been lost under the waves of sentimentality and false statistics that tend to dominate the discussion. We are treated to wrongheaded accusations of "false majority governments," and people shake their fists at the notion that their votes have been "wasted" if the party they prefer didn't get into office. Because apparently a vote is only legitimate if you get your way.
You wouldn't know it from the vast majority of the commentary out there, but FPTP has a lot going for it, because more than any other system being proposed, it has a focus on accountability. Quite simply there is a straight line of accountability between the MP and the electorate each seat is elected simply with a single vote, determined by plurality. There is no list to which would-be MPs must suck up to party leaderships in order to get a seat. The paper ballots, each with a single X on them, give a traceability that ensures that you can count and recount as necessary. Ranked ballots (one possible reform method posited by Trudeau) would require some kind of computerised counting, which loses both its straight forward accountability, also creates an artificial means of achieving a false 50-percent-plus-one required to get to the seat, distorting the result and the mandate received by that MP. Vote counts and spreads matter currently, and MP who can see that he or she won by a small vote spread knows to pay close attention to their electorate. That direct line of accountability also empowers an MP directly there is no way the votes have been mediated by either fancy maths or party lists. They wield the power that the seat affords them something that most MPs these days have completely forgotten.
There is a perverse logic to those who think that changing the electoral system will somehow make for better MPs. Instead of empowering them, most forms of proportional representation empower the party more than they do the individual MP. Fair Vote Canada probably the country's largest voter suppression agency (who else goes around telling people that their votes don't count?) likes to use ads with old white guys on them with the notion that changing the electoral system gives you more representative MPs, and sure, while you may get more women and minorities appointed from lists, they aren't actually responsible to the electorate. They serve the party. That's not an empowered MP. And because PR systems are likely to return minority parliaments, recent experience in Canada has shown that it made the parties rely far more heavily on the whip, lest a confidence vote be lost, and coalition building is no guarantee of better government either. Rather, experience in other countries has shown that they can be dominated by a single party that can shuffle around their coalition partners, and that it gives inordinate influence to smaller single-issue parties, which would certainly proliferate in Canada if we adopted a PR system.
Remember that accountability under our current system means that we can throw the bums out, and we tend to every ten years or so. That's a good thing. If you have a system that insulates a party that can just shuffle its coalition partners around, it's not accountability, nor can you easily hold a party to account when you elected them on one platform, but large planks of it were traded away as part of the negotiation process to form a cabinet post-election.
What is perhaps the most galling part of all in the electoral reform debates that we're now seeing is the air of inevitability that its proponents adopt much like separatists parties, be they in Quebec or Scotland. Lose a referendum? Never mind we'll just have another one in a few years. That one will pass for sure! People just didn't know enough this time, but next time they will! The fact that neither the Liberals or the NDP are promising a referendum on their proposed electoral system changes makes it even more troubling should they form a government, it isn't necessarily a mandate for electoral reform, considering the comprehensiveness of their other platform promises. Neither seems to show any regard for the fact that Canadians have rejected electoral reform in the past, and very likely would again.
Our system actually does work, and if we dispel the myths and outright mistruths being put forward by the pro-reform crowd, it could lead to a reinvigoration of our system. But that requires an honest conversation about what the system is and what it delivers, and few people seem willing to have just that.
