Will 2015 be the Last Unfair Election?

Sarah Sobanski

“There have been four majorities over 150 years of the electoral system, where the elected party received 50 per cent of the vote as well as seats (in the House of Commons),” NDP’s Craig Scott told a room full of concerned citizens at Millbrook’s Municipal Office Thursday. Hosting the non-partisan event alongside Fair Vote Canada’s Executive Director Kelly Carmichael and local NDP riding candidate Mike Perry, Scott outlined a new electoral system called Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), which could help even the field between rival parties and give voter’s votes more power.

NDP candidates Mike Perry and Craig Scott host Fair Vote Canada to discuss Mixed Member Proportional voting system and electoral reform. Photo: Sarah Sobanski.

NDP candidates Mike Perry and Craig Scott host Fair Vote Canada to discuss Mixed Member Proportional voting system and electoral reform. Photo: Sarah Sobanski.

Electoral reform is the second biggest concern for voters behind the economy in the upcoming election, according to some sources. Academics and voters are criticizing Canada’s voting system as outdated and unfair. Considering in the 2011 result which launched Stephen Harper into his third consecutive term as Prime Minister by winning 54 per cent of seats in Parliament with only 39 per cent of votes, they could be right. Fair Vote Canada is trying to fix this.

This new voting system has already been established in democracies across the world, and aims to create a stronger correlation between the popular vote and the number of seats that each party wins in Parliament. This would be achieved  by giving each voter a second vote – one for a local MP and one regional MP.  There would still be 308 seats in Parliament, but one third of them would be held by regional MP’s and the remainder would be occupied by local MP’s. This means that even if the voter doesn’t like the party with which their preferred local candidate is affiliated, they can vote for their favourite candidate and then vote for an overall party, represented by a regional MP who is associated with the party which shares their political philosophy.

For voters who live in party strongholds and vote against the dominant party in their riding, the MMP system eliminates the ‘why should I bother voting?’attitude by better reflecting votes cast. MMP looks to better define the diversity of our voting system and bring out more voters – an admirable goal considering only 61 per cent of Canadians voted in the last election. It also empowers candidates, driving them to tackle voter issues and to create change because they have room to sway voters through their action.

According to Fair Vote Canada, political leaders including Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and the late Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, stand behind the MMP voting system – while the Progressive Conservative Party hasn’t discussed it at length since election campaigns began. Mulcair has said that he will  align with the Liberals to challenge Harper’s election to Prime Minister if the Progressive Conservatives win the majority of seats but not the majority of votes.
The addition of 30 new parliamentary seats in this election has the potential to widen the gap between the number of seats held by the elected party and those won by the official opposition.

“We are the outliers holding on to by-gone ways,” says Carmichael. She and Fair Vote Canada want to have the MMP system in place in time for the next election and will work with  supporting parties to make it happen. She believes that even if the elected party for the 2015 election does not support electoral reform, other parties will push to move it forward.

 

 

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