So Charest’s budget (and $950 million in tax cuts) will survive. The question is, do Quebecers need a tax cut? If you think Quebec needs improvements in health and education, you would clearly say no. If you think Quebec needs to attract/retain more investment (and people), you would have to acknowledge that, relative to other jurisdictions, Quebecers (even the poor) are taxed at significantly higher rates (which is not to say what the appropriate tax rates are — I leave that for another debate — just that Quebecers pay more).

To illustrate this, I ran the numbers comparing Quebec (before/after the proposed tax cuts), Ontario and Massachusetts (to show a comparison with a Northeastern State). For simplicity, I simply used the basic personal amounts (for ON, QC) and standard deductions/exemptions for MA, for a single unmarried person in the 2006 tax year. Below are the taxes owed (marginal tax rate in parenthesis).

* Includes surtax of 20% on provincial taxes between $4016 and $5065 and 56% on provincial taxes over $5065.

As you can see, while Ontario and Massachusetts are relatively close for incomes up to $80,000 (MA being slightly less at all income levels), Quebec is significantly higher (in fact, the basic tax rates put Ontario on par with Massachusetts for incomes up to $55,000, when the dreaded “surtax” kicks in; so higher earning Ontarians pay more). Someone earning $30,000 saves nearly $2000 more in Massachusetts than in Quebec and nearly $1500 more in Ontario (vs. a $500 savings going from Ontario to Massachusetts). Someone earning $50,000 pays almost $3,300 more than in Massachusetts, and about $3,000 in Ontario. Someone earning $80,000 pays about $6,000 more in Quebec than in Massachusetts and about $5,200 more than in Ontario. And someone earning $100,000 pays $8,700 more in Quebec than in Massachusetts and about $5,800 more than in Ontario.

The impact of the Charest tax cuts are modest relative to income, largely because he is not cutting the tax rates, merely increasing the thresholds between brackets (the lower bracket increases from $28,710 to $37,500 and the upper bracket increases from $57,430 to $75,000). Increasing the brackets does nothing for anyone earning less than $28,710, is a bit of a plus for those earning between $28,710 and $37,500, does nothing for those earning between $37,500 and $57,430 and helps those earning between $57,430 and $75,000. However, an increased personal amount (from $9555 to $10215) another gives all groups a modest break. So someone earning $30,000 saves $105, someone earning $50,000 saves $484, someone earning $80,000 saves $1005, and someone earning $100,000 saves $1214.

Incidentally, this comparison also shows that when you consider that you need to buy private health insurance in Massachusetts, workers in Ontario actually save more (although it’s likely that salaries are higher in Massachusetts than Ontario, and of course the dollar is slightly stronger in the U.S., although that is obviously rapidly narrowing). For example, many employers (for professional jobs) will pay for all or most of an employee’s insurance. I would say that coverage of about 2/3 is typical. Low-wage jobs rarely receive health benefits. Compounding this difference in coverage is that companies offering health benefits join insurance programs as groups, while those not covered by work have to join as individuals, which is more expensive. If someone pays 1/3 of their work-subsidized heathcare, you might expect to pay about $100/mo = $1200/yr; an individual not covered at work might expect to pay about $300/mo = $3600/yr. Given these costs, it’s clear that workers at all income levels are better off in Ontario, but not necessarily in Quebec.

Of course, Quebec is widely regarded as having the best social programs (health, education, child care, etc) in the country (if not continent). Given that Quebecers pay, on average, about 30% more in tax than Ontarians (and about 35% more than in Massachusetts), Quebecers might ask themselves whether the quality of those services worth the extra taxes? (i.e. are the services 30-35% better in Quebec?) How they answer that question will determine whether they think a tax cut is warranted or not.

Andrew Coyne suggests that we truly restore the principle of representation-by-population (specifically, that every province or territory should have 1 MP for every 100,000 people, rounded up to the nearest whole number). What would that look like?

The territories and P.E.I. under any scenario are going to be over-represented, strictly speaking, simply due to their very low populations. So a more useful comparison is the look at the range between the remaining 9 provinces. We see that an MP in Saskatchewan (the lowest) represents 69,154 people, while an MP in Alberta (the highest) represents 117,513 people — 70% more than Saskatchewan.

Some might argue that by rounding every province up to the nearest whole number, you are giving some provinces an advantage (and skewing the overall — indeed at 1 per 100,000 we should have 316-317 seats, not 324). So here’s what it looks like using simple rounding rules (i.e. 0.5 or above is rounded up and vice versa, with a minimum of 1; I’ve kept P.E.I. as rounded up since they would otherwise be heavily disadvantaged relative to the territories).

The range of the 9 provinces is considerable narrower under rep-by-pop, ranging from 96,816 to 104,400, just 7.8% more vs 70% more as it is now.

Under either scenario, Alberta, B.C. and Ontario gain seats (Quebec is effectively neutral). This means that these provinces are currently under-represented relative to their population.

Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland/Labrador, and P.E.I. would lose seats. This means these provinces are currently over-represented relative to their population.

It also shows why it is so hard politically to actually implement rep-by-pop — the big get bigger and the small get smaller. Would the rest of the country accept Ontario having even more power than it already does? Seems unlikely (most people already say, as goes Ontario, so goes the country).

A question that is always asked is “which parties win and lose if we move to a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system?” The answer is not as clear as it might seem. Here are the election results under FPTP vs. MMP in Ontario for the last 30 years, back to 1975 (the nine elections that have taken place in my lifetime). Of course, this is not a simulation, but rather simply a re-calculation assuming the same % of party votes (i.e. it doesn’t account for changes in voting behaviour due to MMP). Note: this assumes the same 70% local, 30% list ratio as proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly, and local seats are won proportionally to what they actually won, and the same total number of seats that we actually contested. (blue = gained seats under MMP, red = lost seats under MMP)

So the PCs would have gained 3 times (33%) and lost 6 (66%) times, but their gains have typically be bigger than their losses (and in half ). The Liberals would have gained 6 times (66%), lost twice (22%) and had no effect once (11%). The NDP would have gained 7 times (78%) also lost two times (22%).

Averaging the gains/losses over this time period, we find that the PCs averaged a loss of about 3 seats, the Liberals neither gained nor lost on average, and the NDP averaged a gain of 3 seats. As you can see, over the long term, there isn’t a huge impact — basically what comes around goes around.

So there are no absolute winners or losers in moving to MMP over the long term — all parties would have gained and lost under an MMP system, the PCs lost slightly, the NDP gained slightly and the Liberals essentially the same. But what MMP does do is mitigate the radical swings that occur under FPTP, where a small change in support results in a large swing in seats (and thus often radical reversals of policy). Under MMP, shifts in support bring about a commensurate change in seats, thus more accurately reflecting public sentiment.

Here’s a way to combine Electoral and Senate reform into one simple solution: using a mixed-member proportional system (like what is recommended for Ontario), we simply convert the 100 Senate seats into list seats elected on the basis of party vote. We would have one ballot - two votes, as is proposed for Ontario. On the left side, you vote for your preferred governing party and on the right side, you vote for your preferred local representative, as per usual. We would fill 408 seats — same as today — 308 filled from direct elections in local districts as per usual, and 100 (the former Senate seats) via the party vote. This works out to roughly 75% local, 25% list MPs. Official Party Status today is 12 seats out of 308 = 4%, so let’s assume that a party would have to win at least 4% to be eligible for list seats. Parties that win more local seats than their overall share of the votes (as the Bloc typically does) would keep their local seats, and the results would just be slightly less than proportional.

What would that look like? A simple re-calculation of the 2006 results are as follows (obviously this does not account for changes in voter behaviour, and assumes the votes for party candidates is the same as the party vote would be under MMP)

Conservative = 147 seats (124 local, 23 list) = 36.0% seats, 36.2% votes
Liberal = 122 seats (103 local, 19 list) = 29.9% seats, 30.2% votes
NDP = 70 seats (29 local, 41 list) = 17.2% seats, 17.4% votes
Bloc = 51 seats (51 local, 0 list) = 12.5% seats, 10.5% votes
Green = 18 seats (0 local, 18 list) = 4.4% seats, 4.5% votes
Others = 0 seats = 0% seats, 1.2% votes

The Bloc would still be over-represented relative to its votes, but by a much smaller amount than today, and all the remaining parties (that achieve Official Party Status) would be within 0.3% of their vote share. Remarkably, 98.8% of votes would determine the make-up of Parliament, substantially supporting the claim that “every vote counts”. While not reflected in this re-calculation, it also makes it easier for independents to win election locally, since people vote for party and local candidate separately, so you can vote for an independent and still vote for your preferred governing party.

In this re-calculation, the Conservatives would either form a minority government and seek legislation-by-legislation support (as is the case now), or could form a coalition majority government through one of two ways: 1) together with the NDP (217 seats, a 12-seat majority) or 2) through a coalition with the Bloc and Greens (216 seats, an 11-seat majority). In either case, the Conservatives would control the agenda, since in either coalition, they would have almost 70% of the seats.

This effectively replaces the the separate House and unelected Senate, with a single elected mixed-member House of Commons. The House of Commons remains the primary democratic body, and checks and balances are ensured because each party receives roughly its share of the seats (meaning you need a majority of the votes, or very nearly so, to win a single-party majority). The “sober second thought” previously provided by Senators who have particular skills are still present via the list MPs, except only now, the voters get to pass judgment on their performance via the party vote. In fact, current Senators could be placed on the party lists and be elected as list MPs. Parties would also want to ensure their lists are regionally balanced, which allows parties, if they choose, to compensate for regions that they feel are under-represented in the local seats. And it provides an opportunity, should parties choose, of ensuring that their list candidates are comprised equally of men and women and a fair share of minority and First Nation/Metis/Inuit candidates.

It’s simple, doesn’t enlarge the size of government, brings accountability to our “sober second thought”, it ensures every vote count towards the makeup of parliament and results in a parliament that accurately reflects the wishes of Canadians, and still ensures that every local community is represented by a local MP. What’s not to like?

I’ve resigned myself to a summer of responding to ill-informed Toronto columnists bash the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly and its recommendations. Normally it is the Star’s Ian Urquhart. Today’s culprit is the Sun’s Christine Blizzard. Sometimes I wonder how these people got and now keep their jobs (perhaps it explains their blind allegiance to the status quo). What qualifies someone to be a political columnist? If I had a dollar for every email I’ve received from MPs and candidates thanking me actually doing research on the topics I write about, I’d be a rich man. How is it that the people that actually get paid to editorialize don’t bother to inform themselves? To me, having a regular soap box (column) does not entitle you to spread mis-truths about which you are ill-informed.

Consider this display. Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett noted, correctly, that we should be embarrassed that even Rwanda, hardly a model democracy, has 48.8% women as compared to Canada’s 21% and Ontario’s 25%. Blizzard’s response? “Well, call me reactionary, but I’d take British democracy over the Rwandan model any day.” Now if Blizzard had taken the two seconds to inform herself, she would know that Rwanda has nearly 50% women not because of its electoral system but because it has a quota for women (Bennett’s point was to show how poor we perform, due to structural impediments in the nomination process). And Blizzard would take Britain’s electoral system over Rwanda’s, eh? Again, had she taken a few seconds to look it up, she’d know that both use first-past-the-post List PR. [Update: it appears the source I used is out of date — Nationmaster says Rwanda uses first-past-the-post, but IDEA (note: PDF) says it is List PR; upon further research, I have confirmed it is indeed List PR, with reserved seats for women; in either case, it is not MMP].

Then, Blizzard drums up the tired old “two-tiered” catchphrase without offering a single piece of evidence to support this claim — this time used not in the context of healthcare, but to characterize the difference between the two scales of representation in MMP (province-wide vs. local), as though having a small number of representatives looking out for the interests of the province as a whole is a bad thing (as opposed to 100% local, MMP provides a better balance between local, 70% and province-wide, 30%). In fact, if Blizzard had bothered to research whether the two ways of electing representatives — locally and province-wide — actually creates a two-tiered system, she would quickly find that it does not.

For example, Louis Massicotte’s excellent report addresses this issue explicitly (see in particular, page 61). As Massicotte notes — and this appears to be exactly what Blizzard is doing — “It seems that a categorical tone of voice frees the originator from any effort of verification.” As Massicotte states:

The literature on mixed systems seldom refers to the existence of parliamentary “castes” or of list members being snubbed by “real” members or conversely snubbing their lowly colleagues from “stagnant pools.” Instead, it often and explicitly stresses an absence of problems due to coexistence of differently elected members from different territorial levels.”

“Summing up the German literature on the subject, Geoffrey K. Roberts writes, “There is practically no difference — once elected — in the status or behaviour of constituency candidates and list candidates.”

“Alfred Grosser wrote in 1970: “There has never been any distinction between the two categories, either in Parliament or in public opinion.”

“Eckhard Jesse confirms this viewpoint: “The view that the West German system produces two ‘classes’ of representatives is based on an illusion. That apparent division is of no importance — especially not for the general public: voters do not usually know whether a Bundestag member was directly or indirectly elected. The same author adds, “The assumption, that the two-vote system produces two kinds of MP, the constituency MP and the Landesliste MP, is empirically refutable.”

“To the question: “Does the mixed electoral system produce a caste system of members?”, Tony Burkett replies: “This has frequently been put forward as an argument against the mixed system. There is no objective evidence to support the case. Constituency members and List members are equally well represented in Cabinets, caucus organization and party hierarchies. Not surprisingly, deputies to whom the author has made this point have, without exception, rejected it.””

And so on. So it begs the question, why is it that these columnists feel obliged to spread mis-truths without so much as a shred of evidence — nay, ignoring evidence precisely to the contrary?

Perhaps these columnists think change threatens the privileged access they have under a status quo that is so un-representative of Ontario’s population? This is evident in Blizzard’s repeated claims that the Citizens’ Assembly is “unelected”, as though having elected MPPs evaluate the system that works to their benefit would have been more impartial and accountable. Utter nonsense. If the Legislature was a representative as the Citizens’ Assembly was, perhaps we wouldn’t be having this debate at all.

Let’s compare the Citizens’ Assembly to the Legislature:

^* Two more have been elected in by-elections since (Paul Ferreira and Lisa MacLeod).

As you can see, the Legislature severely under-represents anyone under 40 years old, women, and minorities. Blizzard misses the point entirely: that our electoral system has structural barriers to youth, women and minorities. When New Zealand switched to the same system recommended for Ontario, women’s representation increased by 40% and minority representation by 150%. New Zealanders today are better represented than under FPTP. Far from being “special groups”, youth, women and minorities are pretty broad categories under which at least 75% of the province falls. It’s up to ill-informed columnists like Christine Blizzard to tell us why 3/4 of the province should be so badly under-represented. Good luck with that, Christine.

A movement has be gaining momentum in rural Ontario over the past few years that took a decidedly more political turn with the recent PC nomination of former Ontario Landowners’ Association President Randy Hillier in Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox & Addington (my home riding). This “rural revolution” is telling “government back off” because it believes that (urban-centric) government policies are causing the death of rural Ontario. In what follows I outline some of the causes and two potential mitigations of rural Ontario’s decline. In doing so, I hope to move the debate from Hillier’s defensive rural revolution, to a more pro-active rural evolution based on real results instead of ramped up rhetoric.

As a “country boy” who is now studies cities, I have a unique perspective on the rural revolution. I grew up in Cloyne — population 70 — about 3 hours northeast of Toronto. There’s no cable TV, no high-speed internet, and no cell service to this day. The nearest grocery store was about 50 miles away until an IGA came to the area about 15 years ago. If you want to see a movie you have to drive 75 miles to Kingston. And there is only one road (Highway 41) in and out of the area, which can get quite bad in the winter. Highway 41 is a cross-section of rural Ontario, from the Canadian Shield on which Cloyne sits through the rolling hills and farmland to the south. My up-bringing was pretty typical. My grandparents on my mom’s side were farmers and my dad’s family ran a lodge. I worked at a garage from grade 8 onwards to save for school (I went to McGill University in Montreal), and I returned home every summer to work on construction. After school, I moved to Boston to work and after a couple years went back to school, earning a couple Masters from MIT, both in urban-related fields. And after teaching in the Urban Studies & Planning Department at MIT for a couple years, I am now completing my PhD in Urban Policy and Planning at UCLA. So I’ve gone from one of the most rural to one of the most urban places on the continent, from a typical rural background to researching how cities work.

And what I’ve learned is that, sadly, very few urbanites understand what’s going in the country and very few rural folks understand what’s going on in cities. This lack of understanding not only creates animosity (the so-called “urban-rural divide”), but also prevents us from arriving at innovative solutions that benefit both cities and country.

(more…)

Why Electoral Reform Will Work
(a response to Richard Gwyn)

It is surprising when people who have been around long enough to know better make such egregious errors. Surely we must come to that conclusion after reading Richard Gwyn’s non sequitur, “Why Electoral Reform Won’t Work”.

According to Gwyn, “the Legislature won’t really be more representative of the actual population than before”, remarkably calling the systematic under-representation of women (less than half their share) and minorities (less than a third of their share) merely a “relatively small” point. When New Zealand implemented the same reforms recommended for Ontario, women’s representation increased by 40% overnight, while minority representation increased by a whopping 150%. No, the legislature will indeed be more representative of Ontario’s population with electoral reform.

Gwyn also objects to voters not being able to choose their own list candidates. Gwyn wants us to believe is that voters today are actually endorsing the local candidate when they cast their ballot. But we know that 60-65% of people vote by party and another 20% vote by party leader (potential premier or prime minister). Only about 15-20% of people actually decide how to cast their ballot because of the local candidate. So 80-85% of today’s ballots are cast by party, not by local candidate. And that means for 80-85% of us, we don’t have a choice which local candidate we want. But electoral reform changes that.

With very little change to our system, electoral reform allow voters to explicitly endorse a party and a local candidate separately. So you can finally endorse a strong independent without having to punish your preferred governing party (thus providing us with independent voices that Gwyn rightfully laments). Or you can endorse a strong local candidate from a party you don’t like, and still vote for your preferred governing party. Parties can then see exactly how their local candidate faired relative to the party vote, which also ensures that local candidates are elected on their own merits, not carried by the 80-85% of people who vote by party (or its leader). This greatly improves the accountability of local candidates and greatly reduces the incidence of “safe ridings”, where even disliked local candidates can win (Rob Anders, anyone?). But to Gwyn, granting voters this freedom of choice and holding local members to a higher level of accountability represents “a step backwards from democracy.”

Gwyn argues that we don’t need electoral reform, we need political reform, as though our electoral system doesn’t shape our politics in any way. That’s a remarkable naive position. Indeed, we know that coalition majority governments, by virtue of having to listen to the concerns of other parties, breeds a more consensual approach to policy, rather than the bickering and radical swings we’ve witnessed in Ontario over the past 12 years as we’ve swung from NDP to PC to Liberal governments, each spending half its time undoing the policies and programs of the previous one. Electoral reform won’t solve everything that we don’t like about our politics, but it will send politicians and parties a message that we aren’t happy with politics-as-usual.

Everyday Ontarians on the Citizens Assembly think that Ontario deserves better. On October 10th, we have a chance to agree with our fellow citizens and render judgment not only on our electoral system, but politics in general. In particular, for the 45% of Ontario eligible voters who didn’t think it was worth voting at all in 2003, this is a once-in-a-lifetime election, the first referendum since prohibition — where your vote will make all the difference.

Gregory D. Morrow, PhD Cand.
UCLA School of Public Affairs

I noticed that a number of my friends have joined a Facebook group called “Boycotting Major Oil Companies One at a Time”. The gist is this: “major oil companies think along with the government that it’s OK to suck the hard earned cash from our pockets. Well I don’t think it is right and it’s time we really do something strategically.” The founder choose Petro-Canada to boycott first noting that “I am not fully sure how much of a stake the Canadian government still owns in Petro-Canada but this seems like a good place to start.” (FYI, Petro-Canada is fully private company as of 2004).

I agree that these companies are making record profits at our expense. Of course, the same can be said about banks, hydro companies, airlines, or any other industry controlled by monopolies or oligopolies. Since they have no competition, they can set prices at whatever they want. So why not boycott Air Canada? or the Royal Bank? or Quebec Hydro? and so on. Any of these monopolies/oligopolies are just as deserving. In reality, gas prices have followed the price of oil pretty consistently. So the “record” profits are because of a combination of scarer resources and us using more of it, not because the differential between the cost of oil and the cost of gas is increasing, as you can see in the graph below:

But people really get angry at high gas prices because we’ve been led to believe that it is our god-given right to have unlimited access to cheap gas. It’s long since time that we re-think that position. I think it’s a cop-out to simply sign up for a Facebook group in protest (and boycott one company) and yet make absolutely no changes to your lifestyle, in the face of rising gas prices. Unless we find new sources (and we may find a few), the question isn’t if but when we run out of oil. I’d suggest you read The End of Oil by Paul Roberts if you doubt that claim. We cannot depend on oil forever.

Even stilll — and this is hard to come to terms with since we only know that we’re being gouged at the pump — gas prices in Canada are low compared to the rest of the world. Take a look at this chart (produced by the Conservative government) — as you can see Canadian gas prices are lower than all other G8 countries, except the U.S. (of course) — and note that this difference is a choice (i.e. the amount that we tax it), since the actual costs are the same.

Instead of copping out and thinking you’ve done enough by simply joining a Facebook group and “boycotting one company at a time”, you might start taking responsibility for your own choices. Think gas prices are too high? Then don’t use as much gas.

For example, I choose to live in a central location, with less space rather than live in the suburbs and have more space. I have a car, it gets average mileage. But my wife and I share it. We live 4 blocks from my wife’s office, so she walks to work. I can take the bus door-to-door to UCLA. We coordinate so when the other needs the car, I can take the bus, or she can take the subway downtown (where she often goes on business) or bikes. Errands and non-work trips? Things are close by. Grocery store is 5 blocks (and a farmers’ market is next door on Sundays), the theatre is across the street, and there are lots of shops and restaurants within a couple blocks of us. So we don’t drive much — about 4500 miles/year or about $700/year in gas.

But you’re thinking to yourself, “yeah but they are just yuppies, they can live in the city because they don’t have kids.” Well, not quite. We could have choose to buy or build a place in the suburbs, but we are currently in the processing of building a new house for ourselves less than a 1/2 mile from downtown L.A. — a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 2-car garage, 1800 s.f. single-family that I designed myself. It has a good-sized back yard for future kids, it’s on the corner of a park with a lake, 200 feet from a farmers market, 300 feet from my bank, 600 feet from a fresh bakery, a block from the drug store, a block from a new grocery store, 4 blocks from a new elementary (K-to-6) school, and 5 blocks from 600-acre park, and yet, I can be downtown in 3 minutes. We will have what the average family in the suburbs has, but we don’t have to drive all over the place to get it. So it’s all about choice.

You can choose to live in a more central location, where you don’t need to drive for every errand. The trade-off is of course that you will have less space in a central location. Either way, you pay. But paying for gas is part of the choice that people make when they choose to live in the suburbs. If you live/work in a big city, you have choices of where to live and how to get around.

But obviously, not everyone lives in a big city. I grew up in small-town Eastern Ontario, where you had to drive an hour (to Kingston) to see a movie and many people make that trip everyday for work. But even here, you can make better choices. First, carpool. Get 3-4 of your friends together and take turns; you drive once a week. Second, instead of driving that Ford F150 to Kingston everyday, get a more fuel efficient car for commuting. Hybrids (Civic Hybrid, Prius) get over 50 MPG, but are pricey, so aren’t worth it for most people. But a regular Civic gets almost 40 MPG. Don’t like paying the $2,000 more up front for a Civic instead of, say, a Chevy Cobalt? Think again. The Cobalt averages 24 MPG, the Civic averages 36 MPG — 50% better. At 15,000 miles/year and $3.25/gallon you save $675/year in gas — which makes up for the higher up-front cost in 3 years (so every year you keep it after 3 years is money you’ve saved — and being a former Civic owner myself, I can tell you it will last forever!). Moreover, Civics have unbeatable reliability and hold their value much better (which means the Civic costs less than the Cobalt). And with new tax incentives in Canada to buy high-efficiency cars, it costs even less. Better yet, Civics are made in Canada (Alliston, Ontario). Need an SUV? Buy a Ford Escape (25 MPG) instead of, say, the Dodge Durango (15 MPG) — again, you make up the cost difference in about 3 years and it has better re-sale value, and with tax incentives, it actually costs you less.

The point is, you can do a lot more than signing up for a Facebook group if you are upset at paying too much for gas. You can carpool. You can buy more fuel efficient cars. You can try getting by with one car instead of two. You can live closer to work (or closer to amenities for non-work trips). It’s really up to you.

The Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform released its final report today. Click HERE to read it (note: this launches a PDF). I will have more to say on this later after I’ve had a chance to read it more carefully.

Update
The Citizens’ Assembly put together a short animation to explain how the new system works.

Analysis
I think the report is a concise summary of the principles, process and proposed reforms. It also anticipates and addresses some of the arguments that the NO campaign will use. Two of the most common criticisms the NO side will try to use are:

1) “Increasing the size of the legislature.” General mistrust of politicians will be used to argue against increasing the size of the legislature i.e. “we have too many politicians already”. But this isn’t true. At 107 provincial MPPs, a vote in Ontario counts for much less than a vote in other provinces. A Quebecer’s vote is worth 1.9 times than of an Ontarian’s (i.e. each MPP represents 113,647 people on average vs. 60,369 in Quebec). In B.C, it’s worth 2.2 times more. In Alberta, a heavily conservative province, a vote is worth 2.9 times more than in Ontario. Adding 22 seats back to the Ontario legislature brings it back to the size it was between 1987 and 1999, when Mike Harris cut the size by 20% (from 130 to 103). It will be restored to 129 seats. Even at this level, a vote in Quebec will still be worth 1.6 times it is in Ontario (i.e. at 129 seats, there will be 94,266 people per member). There is nothing radical about it. Even the PC Party recognizes the need to enlarge the legislature, as they have recently proposed increasing the size. You see, by reducing the number of people held accountable by the voters, it increased the number of unaccountable staff. Restoring the legislature to pre-1999 size simply restores accountability. And even the federal Conservatives want to give Ontario 10 more seats federally (from 106 to 116), so by 2011, the first time this system will be used, we’re talking about an increase of just 13 seats.

2) “Permanent Minority Governments”. The problem here is that opponents want to draw on the fear of frequent elections to argue that MMP will lead to “unstable government” (which is another way of saying we’ll have more frequent elections). But this is patently false because it confuses two fundamentally different scenarios, minority government under our current system with coalition government under a proportional system. Under our current system, since parties count on getting an electoral bonus from a small change in support, they have an incentive to force an early election (if 5% of people shift their votes, a party might move from 35% to 40% which today could win them over 60% of the seats and thus 100% of the power). But under a proportional system, they get what they deserve (if they 40% of the votes, they get 40% of the seats), so unless a single party can win 50% of the votes (a true majority), there is no incentive to force an early election. The proof is in the pudding. Of New Zealand, Scotland or Wales — all of which moved from our current system to MMP in the last decade — none has had an early election yet. Even more telling is Germany, the country that has used MMP the longest. Since MMP was introduced in 1949, Germany has had 16 elections. Since 1948, Ontario has had 16 elections. There is no difference. It is patently false to suggest that MMP will result in unstable government.

One of the greatest features of the electoral reform that Ontarians will have a chance to approve on October 10 is the idea of one ballot - two votes. Today, we have one ballot - one vote which means that for the 60-65% of us who cast our ballots because of which party we want to support or the 20% of us who vote because we like the leader of a given party — 80-85% of us collectively — we have no choice but to accept the candidate our preferred party has nominated locally, whether we like him/her or not. Likewise, for the 15-20% of us who cast our ballot because we like the local candidate, we have no choice but to endorse his or her party whether we like that party or not. And many of us who might want to vote for a strong independent candidate are discouraged to do so precisely because only 15-20% of people cast our ballot according to the local candidate, making it virtually impossible to elect an independent (we have only had one independent elected provincially in Ontario in the last 40 years).

But the reforms recommended by the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly unleash these shackles by letting us explicitly vote for party and local candidate separately. As you can see from the sample ballot for Scarborough Centre below, the MMP ballot is very simple — on the left, you vote for your preferred party (your party vote determines the share of the seats a party wins in legislature, as long as a party receives at least 3% of the votes) and on the right you vote for your preferred local candidate (just like you do today). Only now it is possible to render judgment on party and local candidate separately. Your preferred local candidate need not be from the same party that you endorse on the party vote.

(click for enlarged PDF version)

Not only does this free voters to vote their conscience on both ballots (and potentially split their ballot across party lines if they want), but it also tells parties which of their candidates do better or do worse than the party vote. This means significantly more accountability of local MPPs. For example, if the Liberals win 40% of the party votes in a given district, but the local candidate wins only 30% of the riding votes, it is clear that more people like the party than the local candidate. That is, the local candidate under-performed relative to the party — an indication of an unpopular local candidate. By contrast, if a local candidate wins 50% of the riding votes (again assuming the party wins 40% of the vote), s/he out-performed the party — an indication of a popular local candidate who has drawn support from other party supporters. With voters free to vote explicitly for the party and the local candidate separately, MPPs will need to work hard to ensure that they don’t under-perform. Most importantly, because local MPPs will need to draw support from other party supporters, it will encourage them to better serve all constituents, rather than only their own party supporters. And finally, one ballot - two votes also mitigates the prevalence of “safe ridings”; by allowing voters to pass judgment on a party and local candidate separately, MPPs for parties that traditionally win a local riding cannot rely on the party vote to carry them. They will have to earn their local seat on their own merits.

One ballot - two votes delivers more choice and more accountability to Ontarians. It’s a reform that is just good common sense.