“Ottawa, Mar 9 — Canada’s Parliament has just taken an interesting step in the direction of Electoral Reform. With the advent of a third party, the Progressives, as a vital factor in politics, it soon became clear that the old system of voting under the changed conditions could no longer guarantee satisfactory results.”
In 1909 the British Parliament at Westminster was considering adopting the Single Transferable Vote Proportional Representation electoral system. At the time Earl Grey, the Governor General of Canada told the press if it came to a vote, he’d be tempted to give up the cushy Canadian posting because:
“The present system,” said Earl Grey, “is government of the people by caucus for the party.”
What matters is that if 60% of Canadians don’t have representation in Parliament, we have a pretty poor Representative Democracy. But it doesn’t have to be that way. More than 90 countries around the world have adopted some form of Proportional Representation, some more than a century ago.
