“Does he have any regard at all for the fact that Canada is now the only multiparty advanced democracy in the world that has a system of voting designed in and for 16th century England when candidates really were non-partisan candidates elected for the purpose of representation?”
—Jason Kenney, Alliance MP for Calgary Southeast, AB February 20th, 2001 / 4:15 p.m.
Proportional Representation is not and has never been a partisan issue. It only becomes so when a party championing PR gets elected to disproportional power in a winner-take-all political system. When that happens, the party starts to rethink the wisdom of adopting electoral reform to a voting system that will limit their future power to what they can earn in votes.
At the time Mr Kenney demonstrated his considerable understanding of Canada’s need for Proportional Representation in the Parliamentary debate referenced above, he was an elected Member of Parliament from a regional Alberta party that didn’t (and wasn’t likely to) achieve winner-take-all false majority power any time soon with First Past The Post.
Mr Kenney was initially elected as a federal Reform Party of Canada candidate. Until the Reform Party morphed into a the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. That’s where he was when he spoke in that 2001 debate. But although the Alliance was able to gain regional traction and win disproportional power in Alberta in a First Past The Post System (much as the Bloc Québécois could in Québéc) he understood that before his party could hope to form government, Canada would need Proportional Representation.
Naturally, the Liberals who held phony majority power under PM Chrétien at the time did not like the idea of Proportional Representation, which would prevent future false majority power by limiting their power in government to what they could actually earn in votes. Jason Kenney was not alone, in this, there was a lot of support for PR within the Canadian Alliance, up to and including Stephen Harper. But the parties enjoying disproportional power are never very likely to make voting fair.
The Canadian Alliance had the power of regional concentration without much hope of forming government, while the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada could barely win any seats yet owned the name of one of Canada’s alternating governing parties, so the two merged into the Conservative Party of Canada. Naturally with its own false majority, suddenly electoral reform was no longer something this new/old party wanted any party of.
During the Harper Government’s decade in power, Canada’s federal Liberals slipped to third place for the first time in history. So Justin Trudeau ran on a platform of Electoral Reform, but Mr Trudeau’s appetite for electoral reform evaporated with his own false majority. The BC Referendum was lost by the BC NDP who are convinced they’ll be re-elected, this time with a false majority of their own.
This may sound like bad news, and indeed it is in the short term, but the reality is that more and more Canadians are learning what Proportional Representation is, and just as important, why we need it. And because of this, Proportional Representation just isn’t going away.
Defenders of the Status Quo have been able to stave off Proportional Representation for so very long is because most of us have little experience or understanding of anything but winner-take-all politics. The fact that 90+ countries use some form of PR is a blessing because there is so much information about how Proportional Representation works. But it’s also a curse, because detractors can cherry pick the elements or examples of the application of PR that will make it look the worst. Because Canadians have so little or no understanding or experience of PR, when they spread misinformation most of us don’t even know they’re talking nonsense. The moment any province adopts PR, we will see for ourselves that the sky doesn’t fall, and suddenly it will become much harder to sell us misinformation.
Not long ago the UK’s electoral reform referendum failed to even offer Proportional Representation as a choice. When it failed, the powers that be claimed this meant citizens were happy with the way things worked. And the next referendum gave them BRexit. Except the people didn’t think so. Which is why Proportional Representation is back on the table there, too. And why there is a new John Cleese Proportional Representation video. Enjoy.
PEI Green MLAs Hannah Bell and Peter Bevan Baker at the 2018 GPO Convention
Although I’m in Ontario, I have been trying to keep up with the PEI Greens since their electoral reform referendum– the one in which PEI voted to adopt MMP. The ruling Liberals decided not to implement the result, promising only to have a second referendum combined with the next election. This seems to have annoyed Prince Edward Islanders so much they’ve started electing Greens.
Would you look at that… now, I’m not much for believing in Opinion Polls, but nonetheless it certainly looks as if the citizens of PEI are taking note of the fact that their PEI Greens are actually doing politics differently than the same old parties. If this trend continues who knows, the PEI Greens may well be the next Official Opposition, or perhaps even be the first Canadian Green Party to form government.
PEI Green MLAs Hannah Bell and Peter Bevan Baker at the 2018 GPO Convention
Although I’m in Ontario, I have been trying to keep up with the PEI Greens since their electoral reform referendum– the one in which PEI voted to adopt MMP. The ruling Liberals decided not to implement the result, promising only to have a second referendum combined with the next election. This seems to have annoyed Prince Edward Islanders so much they’ve started electing Greens.
Would you look at that… now, I’m not much for believing in Opinion Polls, but nonetheless it certainly looks as if the citizens of PEI are taking note of the fact that their PEI Greens are actually doing politics differently than the same old parties. If this trend continues who knows, the PEI Greens may well be the next Official Opposition, or perhaps even be the first Canadian Green Party to form government.
Although the Trudeau Government seems to think ERRÉ will go away if they keep their fingers in their ears long enough, nothing could be further from the truth. For the first time in my life, Electoral Reform is on the Canadian radar. Even though most of us don’t understand all the ins and outs, we know there are alternatives to a voting system that requires far too many of us to vote…
Although the Trudeau Government seems to think ERRÉ will go away if they keep their fingers in their ears long enough, nothing could be further from the truth. For the first time in my life, Electoral Reform is on the Canadian radar. Even though most of us don’t understand all the ins and outs, we know there are alternatives to a voting system that requires far too many of us to vote “strategically” if we’re to have any chance of casting a vote that counts. And far too many Canadians who did just that in hope of electing a government that would introduce a fair system have learned a #WinnerTakeAll “majority” government can thumb its nose at voters as they cavalierly choose to break a promise repeated thousands of timesduring the 2015 election campaign (and after).
The thing to remember about Canadian referenda is that they actually aren’t a part of the Westminster Parliamentary System, they’re voluntary. It is entirely up to the government of the day whether or not to hold them. This generally means government’s never embark on a referendum they think could be lost. That’s why the support of 57.7% of BC voters wasn’t enough to “win.” And why the BC Government was able to design the next referendum to fail more definitively. That’s why the PEI Government believes they can ignore their results and do it again, this time with a referendum more effectively designed to fail.
But times have changed. The BC Government actually has a government that wants Proportional Representation to win the referendum. Granted, the referendum question hasn’t even been announced and the defenders of the status quo are already working hard to spread misinformation.
This is so important because once we get a Proportional Representation government anywhere in Canada, we’ll be able to see for ourselves that it isn’t any harder to vote in a Proportional system. More importantly, we’ll see that the sky doesn’t actually fall. Instead of having to take anybody’s word for it, we will know (as 90+ countries already using Proportional Representation know) that it is better to vote in a system designed to provide most voters with representation. For starters, it will mean government policy that most of us will be able to live with. Because when votes count, elected governments are accountable to voters. We’ll be able to see with our own eyes what a difference real representation makes.
Electoral reform is inevitable, it is just a matter of time. Sadly Canada is not the only country to have such problems.
United Kingdom
Our UK cousins have been striving for Proportional Representation in the United Kingdom for well over a century. That’s why they had an electoral reform referendum in 2011. The only problem was that that referendum didn’t actually include Proportional Representation on the menu; the question was whether to keep the winner-take-all First Past The Post or adopt another (arguably worse) winner-take-all system known as Alternative Vote. [This, by the way, is Prime Minister Trudeau’s preferred system, the one our Liberals tried to rebrand as “Preferential Vote” or “Ranked Ballot.”] Fortunately UK voters chose to keep FPTP
Perhaps what’s most incredible is how many people who ought to know better think it was a Proportional Representation referendum. I was surprised to hear one of the ERRÉ electoral reform experts from Scotland suggest that was a Proportional Representation referendum. Although the UK continues to use First Past The Post, the devolution governments of Scotland, Wales and Ireland all use some form of Proportional Representation.
Petitions
Canada’s E-616 petition garnered more than 130,000 signatures. More than any other Parliamentary e-Petition in Canadian history. There was some thought that this would lead to an actual Parliamentary Debate on the Electoral Reform process promised by the Trudeau Government. But like everything else in Canada’s colonial government, there is no such guarantee; the party with 100% power can completely ignore such a petition. Which is exactly what the Trudeau Government did.
But it’s different in the United Kingdom. When a Parliamentary e-petition in the UK exceeds 100,000 signatures. it triggers an actual Parliamentary Debate. Recently an Electoral Reform Petition resulted in just such a debate the other day. It was quite interesting, and if you’re interested in taking a look, it is still online, although I am not sure for how long. For now at least you can see it at http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/c52f8c49-55ac-44c8-bf23-b1705afadaf8 or choose to download the mp3 to watch at your leisure.
Had that motion passed, it would have meant the federal Electoral Reform process that had been promised by the Liberals while campaigning in 2015, then reiterated multiple times by PM Trudeau and the Trudeau Government, and which they spent millions on before the PM unilaterally decided to pull the plug, then Parliament would have accepted the ERRE Committee report, and the process would have continued.
Sean Casey is the MP for the riding of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where they had a referendum in which voters chose to adopt the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system, and which that Provincial Government chose to ignore.
Today in the House of Commons, I cast my vote in favour of a motion on concurrence with the report of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform.
PEI has a special connection to electoral reform. In November 2016, Islanders voted to support the implementation of a form of proportional representation in our voting system.
In Charlottetown, about two-thirds of the ballots cast, in the end, supported a proportional system.This process ran concurrently with our government’s consultation process on changing our federal voting system as well. Understandably, many people were frustrated and disappointed with the announcement that the government would not be pursuing electoral reform, given a lack of consensus around a new electoral system.
Those who have been following the work of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform will know the amount of effort that went into producing a majority report recommending a referendum – which would include a proportional option. I cast my vote in favour of the report in order to represent the two-thirds of Charlottetown voters who supported a provincial proportional option, and in recognition of the important work conducted by the members of the Committee.
Despite my vote and the votes of other members, the motion did not pass. An important part of our system is respecting the will of the House of Commons, whose members represent all Canadians across the country. I hope my constituents know that I will continue to stand for them when it matters.
This is the twenty-sixth article in the Whoa!Canada: Proportional Representation Series
Electoral System with Majority Support
Mixed Member Proportional Representation
# of Votes 19,418
% of Votes 52.42
Total Valid Votes 37,040
Total number of votes required to achieve threshold 18,521
I have no doubt that good media coverage helped the process along. The PEI GuardianendorsedDual Member Proportional, the made in Canada system proposed by Sean Graham. I was able to include Sean’s system in my Electoral System Roundup, and I know Sean made a presentation to the federal ERRE Committee. His system may be a real solution for the wide open spaces problem faced when looking at Federal Electoral Reform.
Unlike previous electoral reform referenda in Canada, the PEI process did a pretty good job of informing voters. If you watch the video below and those that follow, you’ll see the array of very nice explainer videos put out by Elections PEI
The tiny province of Prince Edward Island has taken the first step in leading Canada toward better democracy. Bravo!
The all-party committee on electoral reform (ERRÉ) has just finished four months of expert and public consultations. They will make their recommendation to Government by December 1st.
Of the ERRÉ witnesses with a position on voting systems, 88% recommended Proportional Representation. This reinforces the findings from decades of research from around the world and of 13 previous electoral reform processes in Canada, including two thorough and impartial citizens assemblies.
When the Government launched the process without a mechanism for collecting empirical data, Fair Vote Canada, a multi-partisan advocacy group, started tracking the process very closely. We are releasing the results of our work to the media because we believe the process needs to be transparent and accountable.
(You can find key a list of results below with links our spreadsheets.)
Despite a strong call for proportional representation across all of the consultative platforms, we believe reforming the electoral system could be in serious trouble based on recent comments from Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister Monsef.
President Réal Lavergne expressed Fair Vote Canada’s concerns “We are worried that the Minister and the Prime Minister are saying that we cannot count on the government keeping its promise to make every vote count. Yet experts and Canadians have clearly expressed themselves in favour of proportional representation, which is what it really means to “make every vote count.”.
David Merner, Vice-President of Fair Vote Canada and former LPC candidate (2015)
David Merner, Vice-President of Fair Vote Canada and a Liberal candidate in last year’s federal election adds “This is not the time for back-tracking. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Democratic Institutions have personally created a sense of hope in Canadians, building on the 2015 Liberal campaign promise of Real Change. Millions of voters believed that the government intended to keep its promises. We believed the political cynicism of the Harper years was behind us, and thousands of us participated in the government’s consultations in good faith.”
Merner says “Now is the time for the government to deliver on its promises.”
Highly regarded Conservative strategist and spokesperson for the Every Voter Counts Alliance, Guy Giorno, adds that “committee members must endorse what’s right for Canadians, not what benefits any particular party. Given the weight of the evidence before the committee, the only legitimate option is a recommendation for proportional representation. Let’s also remember that electoral reform was a major issue at the last election, and voters overwhelmingly supported parties promising change.”
The weight of expert testimony in favour of PR was echoed across the country in hundreds of town halls and public dialogues.
Over the next few days the ERRÉ will negotiate a recommendation for a new electoral system for Canada. The final report is due on December 1.
Fair Vote Canada’s President Réal Lavergne explains that “Once that recommendation has been made, it will be incumbent on the minister to carry it forward and for the government to act on it. Leadership will be required to educate both the public and parliamentarians, and to champion the proposed reform.”
“Based on all the results of the expert and citizen consultations, the committee’s only legitimate option is to recommend in favour of proportional representation.”
Key indicators from ERRÉ hearings
Canadian Electoral System expert Dennis Pilon testified before the ERRE Committee.
88% of expert witnesses who expressed a preference called for proportional representation
4% supported the Alternative Vote
(majoritarian ranked ballot systems tend to evolve towards a two-party system, often favour centrist parties and could further entrench the distortions brought about by our existing majoritarian system. )
67% thought a referendum was undesirable or unnecessary.
Here are basic indicators from the 27 dialogues or town halls hosted by citizens and community groups posted on the ERRÉ site or for which we have directly obtained the information so far:
Total number of participants: 1,058
88% (22 events) – A majority of speakers calling for proportional representation
8% (2 events ) – A majority for change but no majority for any one option
12% (3 events) – Report does not allow any majority view to be identified.
We are aware of at least 15-20 other community dialogues that are not yet posted on the ERRÉ site.
Minister Monsef organized two types of town hall consultations: ones in her own riding, and others as part of a cross-country tour. Here is an extract from the report submitted to the ERRÉ on town halls held by Minister Monsef in her Riding of Peterborough:
“It is clear that there is an appetite for thoughtful change to the electoral system. While opinions on the various electoral systems did vary, most participants indicated their support for a more proportional electoral process that still respected the need for local representation and simplicity of the ballot.”
Although Minister Monsef routinely conducted straw polls on issues such as mandatory voting and online voting in town halls on the road, she did not do the same regarding support for proportional representation. FVC volunteers attended these events across the country and shared their opinions. Here are a few quotes from participants:
Toronto: “PR was clearly the main issue for most. With respect to PR, many attendees spoke passionately and eloquently in favour, and if anyone present opposed it, he or she was not bold enough to express that view.”
Vancouver: “It seemed that 90% of the audience… did want some form of PR.”
Edmonton: “ It seemed most people were in support of some sort of proportional representation.”
Yellowknife: “She asked whether the participants liked FPTP to remain, or Ranked system or STV or MMP or Proportional Representation implemented. One voted for FPTP. Many voted for MMP and a few voted for PR.”
Yukon: “Some Yukoners came in support of our current electoral system (First Past the Post); more were on the side of moving towards proportional representation.”
Halifax: “The feedback from the groups certainly favoured PR.”
Montreal: “There was an overwhelming support for PR in the room.”
Thunder Bay: “Of the dozens who rose to spoke, everyone spoke in favour of PR.”
Gatineau: “ Participants spoke to PR at every opportunity they had… However, the format made this difficult… Taking into consideration those interventions that spoke to the issue of PR vs FPTP or AV, the overwhelming majority of interventions – in the order of 70% or more – were in favour of PR.”
Waterloo: From the report of 4 MPs: “Every group discussed the need for our new electoral system to feature some degree of proportionality.”
Charlottetown: “ About 90% of the people there were pro-PR.”
Winnipeg: After noting that three people were for FPTP because they feared losing local representation. The rest of the comments I heard were mostly just preferences for the different PR systems.”
Happy Valley-Goose Bay: “What we said was that we wanted PR BUT, it had to be a hybrid type that considered the lack of population and massive land mass of not only Labrador but 60 % of Canada, i.e. the North.”
Calgary: “There was overwhelming support for getting rid of the current system, with different groups mentioning STV or MMP as their top choice.”
A concluding note
And, to conclude, this eloquent quote from a Fair Vote Canada volunteer at the Victoria town hall where the Minister said she “can’t promise you that I’ll be advocating for PR because I haven’t heard that from an overwhelming majority across the country.“
Victoria:
“The wheels were skidding out of control as we tried to combat the spin we received at last night’s town hall on Electoral Reform. Maryam Monsef, the Minister of Democratic Institutions hosted the gathering in Victoria billed as “the last chance” to give your input. But the tone of the meeting was quite acrimonious. They were clearly managing the message while backpedaling from an election commitment about changing the electoral system. Not only did she defend Trudeau’s recent comments about no longer needing this reform because we voted for HIM.”
“After months of hearing expert witness by the proportionally cross-partisan panel, and while MPs held public consultations with thousands of Canadians across the country, are we now to believe there is no appetite for Proportional Representation? Monsef said that she has not yet made up her mind but the implication of her words was troubling. Will the government diminish the committee’s well-researched, democratic report in December by championing their predetermined preference? For many of us who attended last night the so-called consultation felt like a sham.”
PS from Laurel:
I’ve chosen to used my own photographs, here, not only because they are free culture photos (licensed to share under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License) but because the number of electoral reform events in and around Waterloo Region has been staggering, and I wanted to share some of them with you, but there were so many local ERRÉ events that I attended (and I didn’t attend them all) that there isn’t enough room here to use photos from them all!
There was a time not long ago when I knew nothing about electoral reform. It was only when I was asked to take photos at local Fair Vote Waterloo events that I found myself listening to what the Fair Vote folks had to say, and after a while I even started understanding it. This was not an easy process, nor was it fast. It can take a while to really gain an understanding of something completely different from what we’re used to.
That’s why every electoral reform event must incorporate an education piece. The thing that I have seen over and over again is that even though Canadians may not know the words for it, or how to fix it, we know something is wrong with our voting system that needs to be fixed.
That is why Mr. Trudeau’s “We will make every vote count” resonated with so many people.
And what I have learned from every discussion and every ERRÉ event I’ve attended is that when Canadians have a chance to understand the difference between winner-take-all and Proportional Representation, we almost always want some form of PR. I think that’s because most Canadians value fairness, and the only way to get to a point where the votes of most Canadians actually count will require some form of Proportional Representation.
Fair Vote Canada suggests Canadians who want to see the implementation of some form of Proportional Representation would do well to let the ERRÉ Committee know about it, and to make it easier for us, they have an automated tool to help us send a letter urging the committee to recommend PR here:
But times have changed. The BC Government actually has a government that wants Proportional Representation to win the referendum. Granted, the referendum question hasn’t even been announced and the defenders of the status quo are already working hard to spread misinformation.
]
• 
A concluding note
