Right on Greg. MMP. First Ontario, then all of Canada. I believe it is our country’s destiny to achieve this; the most just form of democracy.

The day will come, and work such as yours may bring that day just a little bit closer. More power to you. -Sandy

If your threshold is 3% province wide, how do the Greens at 2.8% get seats? I assume the use of MMP as a proportional balance is heavily based on compensatory models such as those that exist in Sweden? How do you feel about a party winning the election with about half the votes of their principle rival as happened in the last Swedish election? Or about back room negotiations determining the Chancellorship in Germany?

Aaron – I lowered the threshold from the preliminary from 3% to 2% in the final model. Hence the Greens win seats.

I am a huge opponent of proportional representation, and a strong supporter of the current first past the post system. However this is one of the better proposals I have seen, but I firmly believe that ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ and there is nothing wrong with our system. And with your model the Greens get about 3% and 4 seats which is just wrong. Why should and would we add fring Parties to our government that are going to do nothing but spilt the vote further and further slow down the pace of government.

The current system has served us well and while it is not perfect nothing in politics is. For me and it political reform just opens up issues that cannot be forseen. And I would like to finally note that no matter what the system is a group of people will not like it, and change will always be wanted.

There is one flaw that I can see straight away in this system: big cities gain strength in the assembly while areas like Northern Ontario will lose representation (less regional MPs)…. not going to go over well in the North.

Corey — wrong. The North has 11 seats out of 107 currently = 10%. They get 14 seats out of 139 = 10%. As the proposal says, they could accept 9 local seats and get 5 regional seats — that would be the same local/regional split and the South. But if they so choose — which they almost certainly will — to keep 11 local ridings, then they get fewer local seats. So if they choose fewer regional seats, that’s their choice. Either way, they get 14 seats, which is the same share as they currently have.

Stephen — so the speed at which legislation is passed causes you to endorse disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters? Seems like an odd trade-off in a democracy. A democracy gains its strength from its people. When half of the people don’t vote because they know their vote won’t count, then, yes, I think there is a problem. Pretending problems don’t exist doesn’t make them go away.

Mixed-member has worked in Germany for 60 years. And it works in Scotland, Wales, New Zealand, and other places. We’re not in uncharted territory – we know it produces stable governments with strong oppositions, better geographic balance, more women MPPs, and, yes, better legislation. All it does is add regional MPPs to our existing system. X still marks the spot (you are just casting two ballots — one for your local rep and one for your regional rep). People who win the most votes are still elected. Simple. And not much different from our current system. And it ensures that the people get what they asked for. So what’s the problem?

I do know and understand that it has worked in Europe however what is good for one place doesnt work everywhere. And while I do admit that our current system has flaws so does every democratic system. The fact is that our system allows stability and majority government instead of coalition governments and fringe parties. And while there is nothing wrong with most fringe parties why should we be rewarding the small sects while ignoring the majority.

Stephen — it’s the majority that is being disadvantaged today. Today, 40% of the votes will get a party about 60% of the seats and 100% of the power (since a majority can push legislation through without anyone else’s help) — in some extreme cases, a party can win a majority with as little as 35% (like in the UK), meaning nearly two-thirds of people don’t have a say in their government. Sometimes parties that receive fewer votes than the winner can form the government, which is odd. We haven’t have a majority government elected by a majority of Ontarians since 1937! So under which system is the majority being ignored — FPTP or mine?

The mixed-member system that I proposed works just like our system today — you still vote by marking an X, people with the most votes still win, and you are still represented by an MPP accountable to your local area (plus one accountable to your region). No party is given an advantage or disadvantage. Parties get what they deserve, pure and simple. If 40% of people vote for a party, they will get 40% of the seats. If 60% of people vote for a party, they will get 60% of the seats. But unlike European proportional systems, all our MPPs are tied directly to a specific locality or region.

Our current FPTP system exaggerates the differences between regions — so much so that parties cater almost exclusively to different regions (Liberals are urban-centric, PCs are rural-centric and the NDP is labour-town-centric). So despite that fact that nearly 30% of Torontonians vote PC, they have no representation. The same holds true for anyone who votes NDP in the country-side (and for many Liberals who live in the country-side). It means that you have to move to a like-minded community if you want your vote to count for the winner — two-thirds of the seats are not competitive under our system, meaning that MPPs don’t have to do much to get re-elected. There’s a disincentive to work hard.

With remarkably little change to our current system, we can make everyone’s vote count, give our regions a voice, and starting working together to move Ontario forward.

I have 2 concerns regarding proportional representation.
First, we sure don’t need more MPPs, 108 is already too many.
Second, the “regional MPPs” will owe their support to the Party, not the local voters. I would support a system that gave each MPP (or MP for that matter) more freedom to vote freely on issues.

Barry:

1. Today, local candidates are nominated by party members in their riding. They are then put before the electorate, and the person that people like best is elected (and in about two-thirds of the ridings — i.e. those that are “safe” seats — people vote by party — how does that hold the local candidate accountable to the people and not his/her party?).

2. Under MMP, local candidates are elected as per usual. Now consider the regional candidates. They are likewise nominated by their party and put before the electorate. The people who get the most votes are elected — the difference is that how many spots each party receives is determined by their vote share. So if you want to be elected as a regional candidate, you do exactly what a local candidate does today — seeks the nomination of a party, then campaign in your area so that you get more votes than the next guy/gal. So regional MPPs are no more or less accountable to their party than local MPPs.

3. In 1999, Ontario had 130 MPPs with a population of 11.1 million. We now have a population of 11.9 million, which implies we need 139 MPPs. When the Harris government reduced the number of MPPs from 130 to 103, he didn’t reduce the size of government, he simply increased the size of the non-elected administrative staff, because with 20% larger ridings, constituent services needed more people. Now, the Conservative MPP who introduced the bill to 103 MPPs has introduced a new bill to bring them back. Moreover, let’s compare the 2001 populations and number of provincial representatives for each province:

Ontario (existing) — 1 per 110,777 people
Ontario (proposed) — 1 per 85,500 people
Quebec — 1 per 57,900 people
B.C. — 1 per 49,465 people
Alberta — 1 per 35,841 people
Manitoba — 1 per 19,642 people
Nova Scotia — 1 per 17,462 people
Saskatchewan — 1 per 16,878 people
New Brunswick — 1 per 13,264 people
Newfoundland & Lab. — 1 per 10,686 people
P.E.I. — 1 per 5,011 people
Northwest Terr. — 1 per 1,966 people
Yukon — 1 per 1,593 people
Nunavut — 1 per 1,486 people

As you can see, your vote in Ontario counts only half as much as it does in Quebec, which is the second highest in Canada. As you can see, my proposed system is still significantly higher than Quebec (i.e. 1.5 times).

Restoring the seats that were eliminated in 1999 will put us back where we belong.

Today the nominations are carried out bu local people, mostly. The grass roots within a riding determine who represents each party. Yes sometimes the Party steps in, but I would make parachutes tougher. Frequently the individuals contesting the nomination are supported by “non-party” individuals. Certainly this has more local flavour than centralized nominations.
Because Quebec has too many members is no reason Ontarion should follow suit. Because Ontarion had too many members in 1999 is no reason we should, once again have too many members.
The question is how many MPPs should it take to “manage” the province. If 100 is enough then, it should be 100. If the parties would allow more freedom for the elected MPPs then I might accept the need for more MPPs. Presently, most MPPs and MPs, just follow the party line.

Barry – nominations for regional members would not be done centrally. At most, it would be done regionally — i.e. Limestone-Quinte-Kawartha would hold a regional nomination meeting, Toronto would hold a regional nomination meeting etc. Or, if they so choose, parties could also hold sub-regional meetings — for example, in Toronto there could be a Scarborough-wide nomination, Etobicoke-wide nomination. It’s infinitely flexible. There’s no basis to claim that regional nominations are any more or less party-centric than current ones.

On what basis are you saying that Ontario has too many members? You’ve presented no evidence. We currently have 103 ridings, which were created based on a 1996 population of 10,753,570 — that’s a ratio of 1 per 104,400 (when it was designed, it is more today as the population has grown). This is close to the ideal 1-to-100,000 federal ratio (which is usually larger than provincial ratios). By 2011 — the first time any new system would be used — Ontario will be home to 13.5 million people. Even using the federal 1-per-100,000 people ratio, that’s still gives us 135 seats. Compare Ontario with any other similarly-sized jurisdiction — even in the U.S. — Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois with similar sized populations, all have significantly more representatives.

You are perfectly within your rights to believe what you want, even despite evidence to the contrary. Perhaps you are driven by an ideology of wanting “small government” (except that applies to the size of the budget and the number of spending programs a government has, not literally whether there are enough MPPs to represent the people). Heck, if we rolled back the 25% MPP pay increase, that would in and of itself pay for restoring the size of the legislature to 1999 levels!

I think I would prefer alternative (preferential) voting for the riding elections rather than FPTP. I have a strong dislike for the notion of MPPs being elected with 30% of the popular vote in a riding, an event that can and will occur, especially if the number of parties increases. By using alternative vote (and FPTP for regional elections), we can avoid dysfunctions like Reform/PC vote splitting that occured in federal elections during the 90s and Liberal/NDP/Green/BQ as is occuring now. AV provides representatives for ridings that more accurately reflect the broader demographic makeup of the riding while the remaining 33% of the seats can help ensure proportionality.

Andrew – You must be a card-carrying Liberal.

preferential, or ranked ballots, will, without a doubt, produce nothing but Liberal-Super-Majorities.

I’ve investigated many such balloting systems, and none are able to integrate any method or procedure that would eliminate that…. Well, there are.. but… those systems become so convoluted and complex that people will not understand them, and that is just as disenfranchising as their vote not counting as in the current system. Further, the complexity will ensure than any proposed system would fail.

The end result would be that all parties move into the centre… creating only one viewpoint for the people to chose from.
Yeah… I like that idea… Something like the Soviet system.. 3 choices, A, A or A.

I’m not sure you’re considering all the implications. Yes it means that votes tend to start at extremes and migrate toward the centre. But on the other hand, if people didn’t feel that they needed to vote strategically to block overly conservative candidates could vote for smaller left-ish parties such as Green and NDP. In many cases, these parties could easily garner more support than the Liberals.

If you’re curious about my voting intentions, I’ll tell you that if I didn’t feel the need to vote strategically, I would vote Green. In fact, of the major parties, I would rank as follows:
1) Green
2) Liberal
3) NDP
4) Conservative
Now, is it reasonable for the 30-40% conservative contingent in a riding be able to tyrannize the 60-70% liberal?

As far as complex preferential schemes, are you referring to things like STV? Sure, counting is moderately complicated (then again, I’m a mathematics major; I’m not intimidated by simple equations), but that doesn’t matter. Joe Voter needs to know that such a system provides proportionality and better encodes the desires of the electorate than winner-take-all systems.

“The end result would be that all parties move into the centre… creating only one viewpoint for the people to chose from.
Yeah… I like that idea… Something like the Soviet system.. 3 choices, A, A or A.”

You’re being melodramatic. Do you actually have any evidence to support this? Australia seems to indicate the opposite. They have a strong conservative and strong liberal party, as well as a preferential voting scheme.

I think one of the most important performance measures for a voting system is that it eliminates the need for strategic voting for the voter to optimize the outcome of the election to their tastes. Strategic voting is highly distortionary.

I’m an Ontarian now living in Australia (for about 3 years now), and have seen 2 elections here now and in my 3rd with the current NSW State election). The system, as mentioned by Andrew is STV (single transferable vote), which I must confess doesn’t produce anything that reflects the true intentions of the voter.
Let me address a few issues, and challenges that the STV system presents:

1: Unlike what Andrew said, Australia does not have a strong Liberal and Labour Party (first, “Liberal” here is more like the Canadian Conservative party). In fact, the ALP (Australian Labour Party), and the Liberal Party are so close on so many issues, that the differences between the two can be reduced to sheer semantics. On social policy for example, both oppose same sex marriage, both support mandatory detention for undocumented arrival (illegal immigrants), and on fiscal policy, both support lower taxes, reduced government programs (I’ll discuss they way further down). Now these are just a few policies, I simply don’t have time to go into every issue.

2. Along the same lines, the Liberal party has, unlike what Andrew would should, has become weaker, and relies on the National Party to form governments (the Liberal and National Parties are called the Coalition here). In fact the Coalition campaign as one party, and exchange their preferences during election campaigns

3. Voters must rank all candidates, which means that the elector, although placing a candidate/party low on his/her list, still has to vote for a party (on your ballot, every candidate must be ranked, if not, your ballot is rejected). So, this causes to problems – firstly you have to give a vote, or preference to a party/candidate that you may strongly oppose (a party may strongly racist for example, and you would have to preference them). Another function of the system is that no candidate wins until they have 50% + 1 of the preferential vote. There are frequently cases, where candidates only receive 2% of the primary vote (in other wards, only 2% of the voters listed that party/candidate as their first choice), but end up winning the seat through preferences. So, the person who wins does do even if being ranked 7 of 8 by every elector. Doesn’t seem fair eh?

4. Parties trade preferences, and thus converge to share issues/policies. For example, the Liberal Party knows that they can’t win without the National Party’s preferential votes, so they make deals, and then as you walk into the polling stations, the parties have booths, where you can stop by and pick up voter instruction cards. So, for example, if you like the Green party, you can stop by the Green’s both, pick up an instruction card, which will tell you how to list your preferences

All of this just doesn’t make sense, is complicated, and doesn’t represent the spirit of representative democracy.

I agree that voters ought not to be forced to rank all candidates, and indeed, this isn’t necessary for STV to work.

As far as the mainstream parties being similar, this is somewhat inevitable. We have that now, with the Liberals and Conservatives tripping over each other to get to the middle ground.

Greg – very interesting proposal, but I was wondering how you’d respond to this point.

While I was doing my political science undergrad degree, we studied electoral systems and it occurred to me that there is a fundamental inequality between different kinds of members in MMP. Local representatives have to do all kinds of constituency work, a significant and time-consuming part of the job from what I’ve heard, whereas the regional representatives don’t really have the burdens of having to service a constituency and have all the more time to politick their days away in Toronto. It seems unfair or at least illogical to give them the same powers in the same house.

I’ve always felt that it makes more sense to keep the lower house as it in terms of voting method, but reduce their numbers (maybe to a a round 100 in Ontario) and create an upper house of maybe 50 which could be pure, unadulterated province-wide list PR. The powers and roles of each are therefore made distinct. I’d appreciate your thoughts.

Hey Dave, from my prespective Ontarians would not be happy with electing politicans to just sit in Queens park with no consituents to answer to. The solution to my mind is to require all of the regional list MPPs to open constituency offices in their region. In this way the powers and roles of each are made identical and enhances the accountability, visibility, and accessability to MPPs from the point of view of the electorate.

Dave
From my viewpoint, upper and lower houses confuse the electorate.
Few Canadians really know the role of the federal Senate. Creating an upper house at the provincial level would not be a move that endeared itself to the public.

Secondly, as for the concern that regional MPP’s will just spend their time politicking in Toronto, well, I don’t think that’s the case.
Most regional MPP’s will be from a party that is otherwise underrepresented in the region in which they were elected (by definition) As such, people who are within that region, that support that specific party will be more likely to go to them for the “normal constiuency work”
I know few New Democrats in my riding that would visit our MPP (Laurie Scott) And fewer still would visit her if there was an NDP regional MPP in either HKLB or Peterborough

Generally speaking, a candidate is elected with say 40% support in the riding. (say 100,000 people per riding for simplicity) that’s 40,000 people.
a regional MPP effectively represents 200,000 voters, and if the remaining 60% of the vote of those two ridings is split between the other two parties, then 30% of 200,000 is 60,000 people represented by that office. I think that should require enough time to keep them from playing games in Toronto.

The keys to making this work are twofold.
Requiring that regional MPP’s must set up constituency office.
— I’m sure there’s been much debate as to how this could be instituted, but it seems inevitable that a party would station their regional offices nearest the largest pockets of support in the region that isn’t reprented by a local MPP.

and secondly, by educating the public that they now have choice in constituency offices… That they may chose their local office, or a regional office who’s party is more robust with their political views.

We all can argue until the cows come home about what the BEST system is. Meanwhile, a GOOD system cannot get established. Don’t let the BEST be the enemy of the GOOD. I suggest we all bury our differences, and get behind this system which is a huge improvement over the FPP system.
Comments?

I am continually amazed at how many people express support for preferential ballots and how many people confuse preferential ballots with STV.

If you need 50% + 1 to get elected, you have a preferential ballot, not STV.

STV is characterized by electing multiple people in a district, with redistribution of both dropped choices and also of excess votes. Preferential ballots elects one person in a district and only has redistribution of dropped choices.

STV has a lot to recommend it. Preferential ballots are worse than FPTP for distorting voter intentions when electing assemblies.

Sadly the Citizen’s Assembly didn’t heed the advice of those who have studied the issue and presented reasonable briefs on the subject. The MMP system they are recommending does not have an adequate number of proportional seats to give good results. And it has an unnecessary and artificial cutoff point for getting a PR seat.

With only 39 PR seats, the recommended system falls short of the 40% usually recommended for good results and even falls short of the 1/3 usually regarded as a minimum requirement.

However, even 30% of the seats is better than the 0% we currently have. Whatever system you prefer to our current, it’s time to put it aside and get behind the choice that is being offered to us.

Personally, I don’t believe in a perfect electoral system. So let’s leave the debate over which ones are better until after the referendum. The recommendation from the Citizen’s Assembly dramatically improves what we currently have. Let’s not lose this opportunity to move forward!

actually, Gary, the 70/30 system produces good proportionality unless a party wins more than 70% of the local seats. So, it’s pretty good. Here’s how many seat the winning party has won in Ontario over the years:

2003 – Liberal – 69.9%
1999 – PC – 57.3%
1995 – PC – 65.6%
1990 – NDP – 56.9%
1987 – Liberal – 73.1%
1985 – PC – 41.6%
1981 – PC – 56.0%
1977 – PC – 46.4%
1975 – PC – 40.8%
1971 – PC – 66.7%
1967 – PC – 59.0%

As you can see only a single party has won more than 70% of the seats only once in the last 40 years (and even then only 3 pts higher). I think 1/3 would have been better, but 40% is not necessary. But 30% will work.

A 3% threshold is actually on the low side relative to other PR system. New Zealand and Germany have 5%.

Your analysis is a little simplistic. The number of seats needed to restore proportionality depends on how badly the local seats distort the voters’ intentions. And with (hopefully) less strategic voting under MMP, we may see even more local distortion.

In Germany, they have 50% for PR and even then I understand they still can’t always fix things. What it really boils down to is how good is good enough. And coming from a FPTP system, anything is an improvement. :)

As for thresholds, they serve to silence minority voices. The Greens would have been locked out in 2003, for example. And there are few minority groups in Ontario that can achieve that threshold even if they voted as a block.

Personally, I discount the notion that allowing small parties to gain seats gives them too much power. No party is going to abandon its principles to get an extra vote or two. At best, the small parties might get a minor concession on one issue or another, but what party would want to be seen as giving too much just to get power? Plus, there are always parliamentary advantages to belonging to a larger party. I think the deep fringe will stay there even if thresholds were removed.

However, the referendum question includes thresholds and an inadequate number of PR seats, so the points are moot.

Gary — it is simplistic is to claim that “The MMP system they are recommending does not have an adequate number of proportional seats to give good results.” Prove it. Thresholds serve to ensure the legislature isn’t overly fractured. 3% is a reasonable threshold.

Worth noting that the Citizen2Citizen page cited above doesn’t exist any more and that people should link directly to FVC’s Ontario Site

We say people are being disenfranchised, we use that word a little too loosely. There is not one election in Canada or Ontario on Election day. Federally, it is 308 separate elections and 107 separate elections provincially. Sure, the percentages may seem lopsided at-large, but when you examine the break up riding by riding, it shows that the reason why the Liberals got a high percentage of seats is because they won that want ridings individually. That is not unfair but how a system that favors the victor. Most people dont care who is in power as long as someone is. Voter apathy has the sentiment implies most people feel all parties are the same. Its the elitist ideaologues that seem to think most Canadians are worried about what percentage a party gets and if they got the right percentage of seats. Most are even more worried about “who won my riding”. So this feeling of disenchantment is over dramatized.
My mom votes NDP all the time. She mainly asks if they won in her riding or not, not if they got the right proportion of seats. For her, if they didnt win the district, why would they need to receive a seat. I tried explaining to her the merits of this system, but she says its just too complicated and will probably vote against this proposal. She lived in the states and was glad to vote over here again because of how tedious and complicated their ballots are over there (they vote for just about everythign over there citing true democracy, maybe we should think about that if we so worried about democracy). This proposal has her leery. i wonder how many other normal voters share her apprehension

i was wondering – fair vote canada and the people involved with it, will probably try to drum up support for a “yes” vote.

as far as i know, there is no organsiation that exists that will run a campaign to oppose MMP – does anyone know of anyone trying to set up a “no” committee?

frankly, i do not like the idea of th government not funding or setting up committees on each side of this issue. there are funding a public awareness campaign that is supposed to “educate” people about the advantages and disadvantages of the proposal – but to me this seems undemocratic because it does not let citizens get directly involved in the public debate, and tthe education campaign may itself be biased in favour of the proposal – just as the process with its emphasis on “making history” itself created a bias towards recommending a change away from fptp.

also, while the idea of mmp is to create a legislature which is more representative of the voters’ intentions, the proposal is not regionally representative. northern ontario has roughly 800,000 people. the city of toronto has roughly 2.4 million people. toronto should really have 3 times the number of represntatives as northen ontario – but the proposal, like the current system, means that one vote in toronto is worth far less than a vote in northern ontario.

why is it that party preference is considered the most important criteria for deciding who sits in the legislature? for many people, they choose the lesser of 3 or 4 evils, and no party accurately represents their views on a wide variety of issues… just as when the province decided to extend full funding to separate schools, all three major parties supported this, while the province was actually split on the issue. we need more fundamental changes in the way our democracy works – mmp won’t change some of the key problems with have to do with the strict party discipline that prvents mps from truly representing the views of their constituents.

According to Ian Urquhart’s column “No formal group has yet been organized to defend the status quo.”

The proposed system will go a long way to improving urban representation, as the party seats will be weighted evenly.

You can expect the number of parties to increase under the new system so you’ll have a choice of 5 or 6 lesser evils, making it more likely to be a party closer to your views. Of course, it is impossible to have a party perfectly match you views in a representative democracy.

I would like to respond to the earlier comment saying that you would require 70% of the seats in order to lose porportionality. That simply isn’t true. What you need is roughly 72% of the seats to have a disporportional majority. You can still have a disporportional makeup, it depends on the ratio of seats to votes. For example, if you got 25% of the votes, but 33 of the 90 constitutency seats (about 37%), then the results would be disporportional, as your 25% should only net you 32 of the 129 seats. This could lead to improper results.

Let us take a hypothetical result for the 2011 Ontario elections with MMP:

PC – 45%
Lib – 32%
NDP – 20%
Greens – 3%

On a strict PR system, the seats would go like this:

PC – 58
Lib – 41
NDP – 26
Gr – 4

If the NDP and Libs banded together, they would have enough seats to form a 67 seat coalition majority, as they should with a combined 52% of the votes.

But let’s assume that in the constituency races, the PCs get efficient seat distribution, giving them 68.9% of the 90 constituency seats. This is not that implausible considering that the Libs got 69.9% by your own numbers. If that happened, the seat totals, out of 90, might look like this:

PC – 62
Lib – 18
NDP – 10
Gr – 0

Because the total seats are locked in at 129, and constituency seats can’t be lost, there are not enough list seats to create porportionality for the other parties, so the final total would likely look like this:

PC – 62+0 = 62
Lib – 18+21 = 39
NDP – 10+15 = 25
Gr – 0+3 = 3

This means that despite only getting a combined 48% of the vote, the PCs and Greens, who share a lot of fiscal policy, can together form a coalition majority.

You still end up with disporportional results, only now the legislative agenda is also being hijacked by a fringe party with only 3% of the vote. And the situation isn’t all that implausable.

We’d be better off just sticking with the system we have now, where at least majority governments are formed only by the party with the most votes.

Kevin – first of all, in your first scenario, the PCs would have the first chance to form a government. If they cannot make a formal coalition with the NDP, then they might have to govern as a minority government, with support given by other parties on a legislation-by-legislation basis. That’s the most likely scenario. It’s highly unlikely that with 17 seats more than the Liberals, the Liberals would have the moral authority to form the government.

Your second scenario is also highly unlikely, but for different reasons. First of all, the minimum number of seats a party would have is 4 (you show the Greens with 3). But the Liberals with only 18 seats? The PCs with 62? Show me how that works. The Liberals have a strong base in Toronto and other urban centres, plus in SW Ontario. Those results are not feasible.

Thirdly, your charactization of the Greens as a “fringe party” is probably inaccurate. We don’t really know how many people would vote Green under a system where every vote counts. The evidence I’m seen suggests that many Greens vote strategically because they know their local member can’t win under FPTP. So I suspect you will see a substantial rise in the Green vote under MMP (because Greens can now vote for local candidate and party separately). We have seen the GPO poll over 10% in the last year, for example. That’s as much as the Bloc polls nationally, so I wouldn’t say 1-in-10 people constitutes “the fringe”, would you? Even still, if a party tries to influence the legislative agenda disproportionately to its size, they will face the wrath of the voters in the subsequent election. That’s exactly what happened in New Zealand after the first MMP election.

Besides, if you want to look for extreme examples, you would have to compare extreme scenarios under MMP to extreme scenarios under FPTP. We might point to the frequency with which FPTP results in a government that received fewer votes than another party, or the extreme case of 1987 in New Brunswick where the Liberals won 100% of the seats, despite 40% of people voting for someone else. Either way, an extreme case under MMP will not be nearly as extreme as under FPTP. Even in the case you mention, getting a majority with 48% of the votes is surely better than getting one with 38% of the votes, right?

When the number of list seats is low, there is always going to be a theoretical possibility of the final results not reflecting proportionality very well – this may not be a huge danger in Ontario with its diversity and strong pockets of local support for the various parties, but if adopted by other provinces, you could certainly get strange results (45 % of the vote could in theory get you nearly all the directly elected seats if the distribution across the province was quite even). However you would still have reasonable opposition in the LA, which has not always been the case in Alberta and NB for example, as mentioned by Greg.

However, I am wondering if a movement to MMP might not INCREASE strategic voting on the direct part of the ballot.
Right now I usually vote NDP, which is a lost cause in Alberta, but I stick to my guns. I have considerd voting strategically (eg. for Joe Clark vs. Reform) but haven’t done it. With a MMP system provincially, I would probably vote for our Liberal MLA in the direct election (since he is doing an admirable job, and to keep out the tories), and NDP on the list part. Has any research been done on the tendency to increase strategic voting in this way, given that your party support is still maintained in the final allocation of seats.

When I lived in Germany ,I noticed the FDP (which historically has had a disproportionate amount influence for a party that usually hovers around 6-7 % support) used to campaign very heavily for list support — “Die FDP braucht Ihre Zweitstimme !” suggesting that they had basically abandoned the notion that they would win many seats that were directly elected.

Are there tables around comparing (in MMP systems around the world) the % votes for each party in the direct part of the ballot vs. the % in the list based part ? How big are the discrepancies ?

Another possible flaw with the system is its potential for abuse. It would be easy for a party to create two seperate entities with the understanding that one is contesting the list seats and one is contesting the constituency seats. The voters choose one party for their MPP and another for the list. That way the first party get’s a huge number of overhang seats and the second get’s a large portion of the list seats (to make up for their lack of constituency seats).

Of course the other parties would immeadiately catch on and soon you’d pretty much have every major party doing it, which would defeat the entire system.

But the real reason that I dislike porportional is in the way that it changes the focus from individuals to parties, and from large parties of consensus to smaller parties generally based on one issue.

I mean right now you look at the PCs, it’s composed of so-cons, neo-cons, paleo-cons, and libertarians. Once the groups within each party realize that they can do fine on their own, they will be more likely to fracture off. After hotly contested leadership races, we are more likely to see fracturing rather than reconcilliation. And then when these parties get elected, we’ll just see coalitions that cater to a whole bunch of special interest groups.

Instead of the moderate, balanced, parties and platforms that we see today formed by thought and consensus-building, the policies of MMP will be created by cynical political horse-trading between the shattered remnants of today’s parties and the various splinter groups formed out of them.

Personally, I don’t think that that’s an improvement.

Kevin – you are clearly not well informed. I’ll be happy to debate the finer points with you once you’ve actually looked at how MMP works. Take a look at what happens in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales. We’re not reinventing the wheel here, we’re looking at a system that’s been around for a generation. Moreover, you seem to be unaware that only 10-15% of people cast their ballot today under FPTP by local candidate. With MMP, you simply cast two ballots, one for your preferred governing party and one for your local candidate. This allows more independents to get elected (because people don’t feel their vote is wasted — people can still vote for their preferred governing party).

Where can I sign up for the “no” campaign? I see that the “yes” camp is mobilizing. Who is leading the charge for the status quo?

RogueTory — I suspect those who benefit the most from the status quo will lead the charge: Toronto Liberals and rural PCers. If you are happy having two-thirds of the seats as non-competitive, as is the case now, then by all means, vote for the status quo. Some of us think Ontario deserves better.

I’ve had this discussion repeatedly with many friends and colleagues and while I support “in principle” the idea of proportional representation I’m concerned what this might actually mean for Ontario and Canada.

Parties should be about uniting, not dividing – hence I believe our brokerage model is ideal. Changing the system to any form of PR ultimately opens the door to special interests forming parties, winning the requisite 3% of the pop vote, ultimately holding the blalnce of power and then manipulating the system to gain un popular ends.

The Yes crowd always down-play this possibility.

I’m not interested in an Italian style parliament. I want a political system where parties focus on more utilitarian interests. It is a sad day indeed when the Sharia Law Party holds the deciding three seats in the legislature and the ruling coalition caves in to save its budget.

I’ve signed up for the Yes camp…I have a good feeling we’ll win this ny a landslide!

I am having problems understanding where the “party list” of candidatae will come from. Will each party have to draw up a party list exclusively for each riding? i.e. Here in the north (TBay-Atikokan) will the liberal party have a candidate and a list of 2 or 3 people on standby? I am really confused as to how this part works.

Dennis — before the election, each party nominates a list of candidates from across the province. And well in advance of the election, voters get to see who is on this slate of candidates and how the slate was drawn up. One common way of doing it is for parties to hold regional nominations where each region nominates a list of their preferred candidates. So, the Liberals in Northwest Ontario would hold a regional nomination meeting to nominate a few list candidates. People in Northeast ON, Southwest ON, Toronto, etc will do the same.

The party then combines the list into one list, and if it is smart, will do so in a way that balances the list — i.e. perhaps alternating men and women and balanced across all regions (and in particular, they will want candidates from regions where they are weak locally at the top of the list, so that they gain representation in that area, in the event that they lose locally).

This list is ordered, meaning that the people at the top of the list get elected before the people at the bottom (if the party wins 3 list seats, the top 3 are elected, if the party wins 5 list seats, the top 5 are elected, and so on) With their slate now nominated, and the process of how it was created known, people decide whether they want to vote for that slate/party or not.

What’s great is that it gives voters more choice and holds local MPPs more accountable. Today, each party nominates a local candidate. And if you like that party or that candidate, they get your vote, but if you like that party but don’t like the local candidate, well, you don’t have a choice — you either hold your nose and vote by party (but someone you don’t like) or your hold your nose and vote for a candidate (but from a party you don’t like). MMP fress you from this choice buy letting you vote for your local candidate and preferred party separately. But the party vote works similar to today — you are presented with a candidate (in this case a slate of candidates) that you either endorse or don’t (depending on whether the candidates or the party matters more to you).

You want me to vote for a proposal that will give us more politicians than we already have now? And these extra pols will be at full pay with a full staff and perks?

Good grief, the last thing we need is more politicians. If these extra MP’s will work for free or at cost, then go ahead, otherwise forget about it.

rhebner — you do realize that prior to 1998 we had 130 MPPs in Ontario (one *more* than is proposed under this system)? Mike Harris reduced that number to 103. You would have to go back to 1959 in order to find a legislature that was smaller than 103 politicians. We now have literally twice as many people in Ontario as we did in 1959. If you don’t keep pace with the population, then you’re going to have MPPs that are more disconnected from their constituents (quite literally farther away).

Harris reduced the # of MPPs in order to cut costs. But it didn’t cut costs. What it did was shift the cost from elected politicians (who could be held accountable if they didn’t perform) to more unelected administrative staff (who are unaccountable) in order to provide constituency services for ridings that were suddenly 20% bigger on average (more in rural areas!). This was particularly hard on rural communities, whose MPPs are now farther away.

It’s a simple message to say “I won’t vote for anything that creates more politicians”, but by say that, you are saying you like having politicians that are farther from and less accountable to their constituents. This proposal simply restores the legislature to its rightful size. And you know? Even the PCs acknowledge the problem — Norm Sterling, who introduced Harris’s bill to reduce the legislature now has a private members bill to restore them. So even the PCs acknowledge that they made a mistake.

DS,

It’s understandable that the PCs would be in favour of it, because it can generate more jobs for them.

If you are looking for a magic number of residents per legislator then why not double or triple the number of MPPs? Surely this will bring them closer to the people they represent. Look at New Hampshire, 400 members in the State House of Representatives or about 1 member per 3,000 population. Why not go that route? Mind you, their Representatives only earn $200 per year plus mileage. If we could borrow that idea then I’d stand up and cheer!

Excuse my cynicism, but it is a rare day in June that any politician ‘represents’ my views. For the most part they are simply voting machines who must toe the party line. Whether you have 50 of them or 500 they still do what they are told by their leader, and certainly not by me.

I am a proportionalist from Québec. For many years I try my best to educate other proportionalists about the Italy problem. Unfortunately, it doesnt seems to work very well…

Suppose this:

Example from pp.15
Scenario A:

Simcoe-Upper Grand Huron

Liberal: 6 seats – Local: 3 Reg: 3 Total: 6
PC: 7 seats – Local: 7 Reg 0 Total: 7
NDP: 2 seats – Local: 0 Reg: 2 Total: 2
Green: 1 seats – Local: 0 Reg: 1 Total: 1

THEN SUPPOSE 4 INDEPENDANTS PC CLONES ONLY IN THE LOCAL RACE (Like in Italy). YOU CAN INVENT AN OTHER PARTY IF YOU WANT.

Liberal: 6 seats – Local: 3 Reg: 3 Total: 6
PC: 7 seats – Local: 3 Reg 4 Total: 7
NDP: 2 seats – Local: 0 Reg: 2 Total: 2
Green: 1 seats – Local: 0 Reg: 1 Total: 1
Ind: 0 seats – Local: 4 Reg: 0 Total: 4

Then 4 seats are élinated, 1 from libs, 1 from cons, and 2 from NDP/GREEN.

THERES FIRE AT HOME PEOPLE.I HOPE IT’S NOT TOO LATE… BUT PLEASE WAKE UP!!

“Each vote are equals, but somes are more equals than others!”

I actually wanted to address the question about there being a “No” camp. As someone already said, there is no organized “No” group and it seems unlikely that there will be. This is especially borne out in the fact that only one Liberal MPP Cabinet minister has said he is against the system so far, with the rest agreeing that its a good idea to make the shift. I find it telling that the people who have the most to lose agree with the system. Perhaps its just the right thing to do?

Muskoka and Parry Sound district are NOT part of Northern Ontario. They are central Ontario. The border lies at the French River and just south of North Bay. Nipissing District IS part of Northern Ontario.

Neil J – the legislature agreed to keep 11 Northern ridings, instead of the 10 it has federally. Parry Sound-Muskoka was included among those ridings.

I am against the proposed MMP for several reasons.
(i) Proportional representation (as defined in the proposal) is not akin to better representation. MMP will not improve the representation of women, young people, blue-collar workers, etc. When we talk about proportional, this is where we should be aiming. One way to achieve my version of proportional is to adopt a political system similar to that in territorial politics, where there are no political parties. If we eliminated political parties, than your local representative would have view to represent than that of his constituents.

(ii) I think we should be weary of any electoral system which allows “unelected” members to be part of the legislature. Those who win the “regional” seats will simply have been assigned to their seat, they will not have been elected to it. I know that political parties will have to publish their list of members to fill their regional seats in advance of the election, but it is conceivable that parties could “sneak” candidates onto these lists in order to get them into the legislature.

(iii) Finally, first-past-the-post is a far simpler system for an already apathetic voting public to understand. I have read studies which have demonstrated that, in other countries where MMP has been adopted, citizens did not understand how the ballot worked, and this was leading to people voting in ways they did not intend. For example, some people thought that they the regional party vote was to be used for their second place party, since they had already voted for their first place party when they voted for their local member. Keep it simple, stupid!

Jason – obviously your mind is made up so I won’t try to convince you otherwise. But for others who read this…

There are only 41,795 people in the Northwest Territories, 30,883 people in the Yukon, and 31,216 people in Nunavut. These territorial governments serve a very small population, more akin to municipal governments in Ontario (where we don’t have parties). That’s not feasible in a province of 12.7 million people (larger than Belgium, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Hungary, Austria, Greece, Sweden, etc). The reality is that two-thirds of Ontarians vote by party. While it is popular to think parties are unnecessary, that’s a romantic notion. Parties unite people of shared interests across the other dimension of our system (geography). Otherwise, you end up with individual MPs advocating for their local region and *only* their local region (without regard to the interests of the province as a whole). The key is to balance local, regional, and province-wide interests.

And yes, MMP will improve representation of women, minorities, and young people. That’s what has happened everywhere. You may not care, but it does do that, no question.

List MPPs are elected. You may not like them, but most of wealthiest nations in the world use some form of proportional representation. They are held accountable just like everyone else. In our current system, how is a local candidate held accountable when you have no choice but to endorse him/her if you want to vote for a certain party? (which is how two-thirds of people vote today) Ask people in Calgary West whether Rob Anders is held accountable. That’s why 60%+ of our seats are safe seats. It doesn’t matter who runs, the candidate from a given party will win. That’s not accountability.

Today, over 60% of MPPs are unaccountable because voters don’t get to make an explicit local choice and party choice. Under MMP, all local members are held accountable because they can no longer count on their party vote to carry them; they have to earn their own local votes. So, even if you don’t think that list members are accountable — and the experience elsewhere says otherwise — that is still only half as many unaccountable MPPs as we have today.

Give Ontarians a little credit — it’s not rocket science to for people to vote for their local rep and preferred party separately rather than forcing them to hold their noses and vote for one or the other because it’s all rolled into one vote.

No doubt change makes us all a little nervous. But, make no mistake, MMP improves accountability, and provides better representation for more people.

As I see it, my local MPP (intended in a general sense) is more interested in following his party’s platform than in advocating for policies in the interest of my region. So, when Ontarians vote, they are forced to vote by party since their local representative will simply follow the direction of the party leaders.

If, on the other hand, there were no political parties, then Ontarians would vote for people who they believe will work to defend their intersts.

Now, you say that this will reduce the province-wide persepctive of the government, but as individual MPPs introduce legislation, perhaps out of concern for a local problem, every MPP will vote on the legislation based on whether it will be beneficial for their riding. If a piece of legislation is not beneficial to the majority of the province, then it will not find support. And if a piece of legislation does not concern the MPPs of a certain region, then it will be up to the MPPs of the region where the issue is important to convince the other MPPs to support their legislation.

Hmmmm…

If this was such a good idea, why is the province with better health care, no PST, and a flat income tax system… NOT doing it.

What a waste of time.

How do you tie PST or absence thereof into the potential benefits of electoral reform?

There seems to be some confusion with regards to strategic voting under the new proposal for MMP. Stephen Mastroianni’s comment on August 2nd stands out as particularily ill-informed to me; “Why should we add fring[e] Parties to our government that are going to do nothing but spilt the vote further and further slow down the pace of government?”

First, define “fringe party”. Secondly, one of the major benefits of proportional representation systems is VOTE SPLITTING IS A THING OF THE PAST. Voters may still choose to somehow vote “strategically” (but under a MMP system, this will require some re-thinking), but you CANNOT split the vote because PR will make up for any shortfall of representation at the riding level.

And with regards to “slowing down the pace of government”, I
recall when Kerry Howe, professor at Auckland University, New Zealand, came to Regina to talk about proportional representation, and one comment he made really struck me;

“Our government is very deliberate and slow – and that’s the way we like it.”

You see, New Zealand went through a horrible economic an financial crisis at the hands of governments who were elected as majorities, with minority support, and had no vision or imagination as to how they should actually govern. Kind of makes me wish Canada had PR nationally in the 1984 and 1988 elections.

It does seem logical to me that we in Ontario should simply do everything that Alberta does! Believe me, there are a lot of Alberta residents who do not agree with how their government works!

Regardless, I continue to stand opposed to MMP and do strongly believe that it will allow political parties with small amounts of support to have the balance of power in the legislature and drive the agenda. And, as a result, more small parties focussed on just one or two issues will arise.

Non-partisan politics works well in Ontario’s municipalities!

Jason’s comment seems to reflect a fear of “smaller fringe parties” that I have heard in this discussion previously (see RogueTory’s comment June 19, 2007), but I firmly believe that those fears are unfounded.

In any election in the latter half of this century, when has any “fringe party” (definition required) ever recieved more than 1% or 1.5% of the vote? Just check out the amount of votes the Communist Party, the Libertarian Party, the Animal Alliance Party – these guys are not even close to the 3% threshold, or good God, even 2.5%! These parties will likely not earn a seat under ANY voting system. You have to wonder why thses parties even continue to field candidates except as a protest vote! However, this is a democracy, and a free country, so they are free to try.

It’s true that with a MMP voting system in place that voters will change the way they vote, straegic voting out the window. But the change in voter trends will likely be contained to within the four major parties (Liberals, PC’s, NDP, Greens).

So if the aforementioned fears are all that stand between some of you voting FOR MMP, then my comments may quell those fears.

Additionally, any arguement about “fringe parties” changing the course of government is further dashed when one considers that independent candidates, who can be just as radical as any “fringe party”, can get elected – and you can’t stop THAT from happening.

So we are voting to vbreat more power, however there are many flaws that many may not seem, a lot more taxes will be increased, sure they say that we used to have just as many leaders, but now with the salary raises there will be more taxes and more elections. Do we really want to go to the polls all the time? We will end up in more trouble and more corruption, just look at countries that have the “new proposed system” ie. Israel. There is a lot that will change .. for the worst.. i totally oppose the referendum.

Brian – ISRAEL DOES NOT USE MIXED-MEMBER PROPORTIONAL! I don’t know how many times I have to repeat the same basic facts. I would laugh at your claiming that MMP leads to higher taxes except I’m sure you actually believe it. I don’t know where you get this stuff. But it sure isn’t based in evidence.

I also fail to see how using a mixed member proportional system wll lead to more elections and salary increases. That’s like suggesting that an increase in beef sales will result in an unstopable BSE outbreak!

And corruption can thrive under ANY voting system – just look how well the current FPTP system has circumvented corruption!