I haven’t read the pdf file, but from the above description, I don’t fully understand if your MMP proposal is Top-up (as in Germany or New Zealand) or if it’s parallel (as in Russia).

Hillary Pearse wrote a very interesting journal article on the problems with defining representation geographically in one-member constituencies in a Canadian Parliamentary Review Journal article a while back. If you haven’t read her article, I’d strongly recommend it.

As for your proposal, while I think your regional proposal has significant merit to it, I do believe that we should be looking, as Pearse suggested, beyond defining representation in purely geographic terms. The fact that I happen to live just south of the Ottawa-South/Ottawa-Centre riding boundary has much much less to do with the aspects of my person I would like represented than, for instance, my age, gender, education, economic class etc… In my submission to the Citizen’s assembly I quoted polling data which showed that people’s attachment to their community has steadily decreased over the past 20 years. In short, the constituencies people belong to now are socio-cultural and span geography.

While I recognize that MMP has a dual aspect, with geography weighing less heavily on the regional seats, I would still suggest that experience has shown in some MMP systems that members elected to single-member constituencies are generally treated as “full” MPs whereas the list MPs are considered “second-class” MPs. This, in my opinion, should be cause for pause.

Now, I’m not advocating an Israeli-style, nation-wide PR system, however I do believe that the sheer elegance and, contrary to popular opinion, simplicity of STV ought to be examined further. It would loosen the ties of geography (and in so doing, allow for other non-geographic constituencies) without utterly breaking them as has occured in Israel.

Paul — I suggest you read the proposal. It should be said that you support STV, which eliminates single-member constituencies altogether. Thus, it follows that you think that geography doesn’t matter. Obviously, we all have various communities of association, which span jurisdictional boundaries, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t live in a physical community and that local and regional issues don’t matter. Quite the contrary.

I look forward to reading your proposal. However, I did just want to clarify that I never said that “geography doesn’t matter”, in fact I would disagree with the notion that geography doesn’t matter quite strongly as I’m originally from Northern Ontario which is very geographically distinct and I am also strongly opposed to the Israeli electoral system. I would however contend that geography isn’t the only thing that is important and that it is certainly nowhere near the top of items which, statistically, Canadians have indicated are important to them.

My statement shouldn’t be taken as an attack on your proposal. I think your proposal is thoughtful and reasoned and it would certainly be a heck of a lot better than what we have now. I just wanted to throw the idea out there that perhaps the monopoly that geography has on our institutional notions of representation - since it is in disjunction with the populace’s more complex notions of representation - is not worth carrying over into a new electoral system.

OK, Paul fair enough. I would agree that it is odd to think that the so-called “public interest” could come out of only having local political interests. But that is why regional representatives are important — to allow for issues beyond local ones to gain a voice. This would allow, for example, people across a wider geographic territory to rally around issues of import to them, building other scales of association. It is interesting that geography plays such a large role in our institutions, but such a weak role in our policies (we tend to enact policies that are one-size-fits-all, on the belief that treating everyone the same guarantees justice — the evidence suggests that this is simply not the case).

I am delighted that there is cyberspace discussion about one of the most urgent topics in Canadian history; i.e. a topic of historical proportions that is within our grasp…if anybody knew or cared about it…please gentlemen, with all due respect to your learnedness, let us not deal in semantics and honing something that has not yet come to fruition…please, I beg of you, TALK to your neighbour, the person beside you in a line, at a party, in the staff room etc, etc…make this a place of the un-informed, who can come to find out more about fair voting systems that may actually re-kindle the belief that every vote does count…this is more important than (for example) global warming, based simply on the fact if the system does not change, we will not elect people willing to do anything about it…my belief is that the most important thing to do is to use this vehicle to communicate the idea that a fair voting system will empower hundreds of thousands of people that have given up on the fact their vote will be wasted if they do not vote for the elitist (media backed) parties…most of the people this message needs to get to (and I mean that literally and figuratively) have neither the time or the privilege to discuss this from an academic perspective; it must be pragmatic and practical, (user friendly?) and be simple to understand and to function on election day…remember how I started this diatribe; I am glad this is here…lets make as many people as possible happy and do what a buddy of mine did about 30 minutes ago; called me and let me know about this site…spread the word!

(CROSS-POSTED FROM CITIZEN-2-CITIZEN SITE)

“Giving a Voice to Ontario’s Regions:” Clear and convincing
Submitted by Wilf Day on Tue, 2006-12-12 23:11.

This submission is an excellent summary of the case for MMP, and a good basis for the OCA in designing an MMP system. The presentation is particularly clear. The slogan “Giving a Voice to Ontario’s Regions” ties it all together.

While it is not as certain to be proportional as I would like, 33% regional MPPs is a lot better than a 24% “MMP-lite” model. Given the need for trade-offs among the OCA principles, a 40% proportion of regional MPPs may be attainable only if the OCA opts for different ratios of regional MPPs in metropolitan areas. Morrow’s model maintains the existing ridings in the North, without which I suspect an MMP model will be a non-starter in the OCA. It does not, however, do so in the non-metropolitan south, unlike Geobey, whose model I prefer on that issue. The Quebec Citizens’ Committee, faced with the same design issue in Quebec, maintained existing ridings only in a couple of remote regions, but they had the advantage of using 75 local ridings in a province that has 75 federal ridings, easy to sell. I still think a model that maintains local ridings outside metropolitan areas will be a viable option for the OCA to consider.

I like Morrow’s explanation of how province-wide proportionality works. The Quebec Citizens’ Commitee said “assign the regional seats across the province in order of highest remainders until the party runs out of seats.” Morrow looks at the process from the other end: if a party wins too many local seats in a region for its share of the vote in that region, he says (looking at his 2003 simulation) “we recommend deducting regional seats from other regions to ensure relative proportionality. For example, in 2003, this occurred once, in Toronto; the Liberals should have won 14 Toronto seats total, but since they won 15 local seats, one regional Liberal seat was deducted from the region in which the Liberals earned the lowest fraction of a seat (Niagara Peninsula).”

He proposes open list: “On the right side of the ballot, voters choose one of the regional candidates, again by placing an ‘X’ beside their first choice (here, any vote for a candidate is also considered a vote for his or her party).” In Bavaria where the party ranks the candidates, open-list works badly: too many people waste votes on the top name, leaving the rankings of the lower names narrowly based. Morrow solves this: “regional candidates are listed on the regional ballot in alphabetical order.” A candidate named Wood could say Robson rotation would be even better.

Some may say 11 regions is too many when there are only 45 regional MPPs. Only 19 of the 45 are from regions with five or more regional MPPs, while 26 of the regional MPPs are from regions where the number is less than five. Five is a good number for achieving fair representation for women. However, his 11 regions are all quite natural, not easily combined. For example, his region running from Waterloo to Owen Sound puts Western Ontario’s most rural ridings in a common region, and nicely groups four school boards: Waterloo Region, Upper Grand, Avon Maitland, and Bluewater. If the model had 54 regional MPPs rather than 45, regions would typically have five each. But then the local ridings would be larger.

By expanding the House to 135, the new seats with no male incumbents will kick-start improvement in women’s representation.

His model will raise eyebrows with his unique suggestion of paired nominations: every two local ridings would be enabled to nominate two local candidates and one regional candidate. This being permissive, and dual candidacy being permitted, a pair could nominate two people or three, and could put one, two or all three on the regional ballot. In a typical region with eight local ridings and four regional MPPs, a typical region might, he has suggested in an interpretation bulletin, nominate around eight regional candidates. I can see this pairing being a popular option in some regions. Areas with four or more local seats — Toronto (18+9), Ottawa (6+3), Mississauga (4+2), Hamilton (4+2) and maybe York Region (6+3) and Waterloo Region (4+2) — would perhaps choose to nominate regional candidates city-wide. With larger numbers nominated at once, women and minorities would have better chances of nomination, although the pairing itself might lead to more women winning local nominations. But the principle is that local riding associations should have the choice how they nominate regional candidates.

His sample maps are clear, although his enthusiasm for pairings leads him to put Timmins with the Northwest, and Northumberland with Eastern Ontario. I would be happier if he had shown that a Boundaries Commission would not, of course, be bound to have even numbers of local seats in each region, by showing an odd number in the Northwest and Northeast, and in Central and Eastern Ontario.

His suggestion on nominations raises the question of the scope of the OCA.

“The assembly,
(a) shall assess Ontario’s current electoral system and different electoral systems; and
(b) shall recommend whether Ontario should retain its current electoral system or adopt a different one.”

It’s been clear from the beginning that the OCA can recommend a system with a larger number of MPPs. Many speakers discussed this during the learning phase. At hearings many OCA members have shown interest in what number would be best.

So what does “electoral system” include? It’s not just translating votes to seats, but includes related matters. They can recommend a closed-list or an open-list system. Their system can state whether dual candidacy be allowed or not. So why can’t it include how parties or party members put people on those lists?

Quebec’s Citizens Committee made 82 recommendations. They discussed “zippered lists” and decided not to recommend they be mandatory, yet. They discussed financial incentives for parties to elect more women and minorities. They discussed the present law allowing candidates to take a leave of absence without pay, and recommended this should extend to candidates for a party nomination. They even discussed when to lower the voting age to 16.

Wilf Day
Port Hope, Ont.

(CROSS-POSTED FROM CITIZEN-2-CITIZEN SITE)

Responses
Submitted by gregmorrow on Wed, 2006-12-13 14:16.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Wilf. Apologies for the long-winded response here, but I thought I would outline our thinking a bit, to help FVO and OCA members in evaluating our proposal. To have 40% regional (list) seats would require an unacceptable reduction in the number of local seats, an unacceptably large legislature, or rural and/or Northern regions that could not achieve regional proportionality. We considered many scenarios — fewer local seats, larger legislature, different local/regional splits for different regions, etc — but in mapping the resultant ridings of different scenarios, we concluded that:

1) while the OCA might prefer retaining 107 ridings (since its membership is drawn from the 103 existing ridings), the result is either too few regional (list) seats to achieve proportionality or an enormous legislature. If we keep 107 ridings, a 60/40 split would result in a 178-seat legislature. Even a 67/33 split would mean a 161-seat legislature. However, to arrive at a more reasonable 135-seat legislature (which makes sense since it simply restores the seats that were removed in the 1999 election, and adjusts for population i.e 5 extra seats) while keeping 107 local ridings, would mean just 28 or 20% regional (list) seats, far too low to ensure regional or overall proportionality. Therefore, we concluded that the best option was a modest reduction in the number of local seats plus restoring the legislature to pre-1999 size (this would result in the familiar 1 to 100,000 representative-to-population ratio that we’ve typically used in Canada, which again suggests that a legislature around 135 seats is about the right size).

2) Given the conclusions in #1 above, we still needed to know how much we could reasonably reduce the local seats, before the integrity of localities is compromised, and what split between local/regional can be accommodated in a 135-seat legislature. Due to the large area and low population, we felt the Northern ridings should be left intact (with one exception: we considered Muskoka as part of Central Ontario, which meant tweaking Nipissing a bit). Through mapping different scenarios in the South, we concluded that the maximum reduction of local seats was 1 in 6 (i.e. for every 6 existing ridings, we needed 5 new ridings). This led us to conclude that 90 was the minimum number of local seats we works for Ontario. Given the conclusions about the 135-seat legislature size in #1 above, this lead to our 90 local/45 regional split (i.e. two-thirds/one-thirds). So we didn’t start with a preferred split, we arrived at the 67/33 split deductively by considering what works for Ontario.

3) we also experimented with having urban regions (for example, in Toronto and the 905) have fewer local seats and more regional seats, and conversely, more local seats in the North and in rural areas (simulating what the Geobey model suggests) — for example, having a near 1-to-1 ratio of local/regional seats in the GTA and larger, perhaps, as much as 4-to-1 ratios, elsewhere. This may allow you to have fewer overall local ridings (and perhaps allow for an increase in the local/regional split closer to 40%), but the simulations produced perverse results (let alone operated on the false assumption that local differences in urban ridings don’t matter — in fact, because of concentrations of the GTA’s diverse groups, the elimination of local urban ridings is just as problematic as is eliminating rural ridings — for example, does combining the Jane/Finch area of Toronto with, for example, Baby Point neighborhood to the south, really result in a local riding with shared interests? I would say no). Moreover, since people in rural areas and the North would have few regional seats (because their mix is weighted towards the local), it meant that the system could not achieve regional proportionality. In other words, in the drive to achieve marginally more overall proportionality (and it’s debatable whether 40% actually achieves better proportionality than a 33% system that adjusts for overhangs, since minimum thresholds will still influence how proportional the overall result is), we end up NOT achieving regional proportionality — a perverse result. Example: if a region in the North has 4 local seats and only 1 regional seat, then there aren’t enough regional seats to ensure that all parties are fairly represented regionally. So while Conservatives in Toronto may receive fair representation if regional seats are weighted towards the urban/South, Conservatives in the North or NDPers in rural areas are not because there aren’t enough regional seats to do the job. So if you weight the regional seats towards urban areas, then only urban regions get regional proportionality. So, we take the opposite approach — if you achieve regional proportionality, you will, by definition (particularly with the small adjustments for overhangs) achieve overall proportionality.

4) Moreover, altering the regional/local mix according to urban/rural or North/South exacerbates these political divides at a time when we should be working towards eliminating them. Why? Because suddenly the regional issues that become important in the legislature (as represented by the regional members) are urban regional issues (since the vast majority of the regional members would be from the urban areas). Thus, important regional issues for the North and rural Ontario (regional economic development, regional health networks, etc) would not have a voice. So, we concluded that to achieve fair regional proportionality, and to give a voice to Ontario’s distinct regions, we should have (unlike Geobey) a fairly consistent local/regional mix across the regions. However, unlike Doody for example, we felt that the regions should be relatively “natural”, in the sense that they should reflect genuine regional identities with shared concerns, and wherever possible, correspond to historical jurisdictional boundaries (which were originally based on counties, but have since been altered here and there). This means that some regions will be larger than others (both in size and population). In other words, forcing the regions to be of equal size (in terms of number of ridings) is highly artificial and defeats the goal of giving voice to the regions (since artificial regions will not have shared concerns).

5) I think the lesson here is that we have to think about how the system would actually perform here in Ontario in terms of improving how parliament responds to issues. As your own calculations suggest, even under a FPTP system that badly distorts the overall seat/vote share, no more than one-third has ever been necessary to achieve perfect proportionality: the worst, in 1987, was 33.7% (essentially one-third); in 1990 it was 31.6%, in 2003 it was 32.7%. Moreover, a mixed-member system would reduce, not increase, this distortion because presumably a smaller party such as the Green Party would win regional seats. So, changes in voting patterns as a result of using a mixed-member system would reduce the proportion of seats necessary to achieve proportionality.

6) Taking into account all of the above considerations, we felt that two-thirds/one-thirds split, a modest reduction of local ridings (keeping 5 of 6 local ridings), a modest increase in the size of the legislature (restoring to pre-1999 levels), and creating natural regions that varied in size, but not in the local/regional mix would achieve the best balance of the competing principles. Fair Vote Ontario is right to be concerned that the OCA will recommend an “MMP-lite” of only 20 or 25% regional seats — this is too low to achieve even regional proportionality, let alone overall proportionality — but my sense is that the push for 40% regional (list) seats is largely a political move to ensure that if the OCA recommends lower, then it comes in at 33% (as opposed to endorsing 33% and have the OCA lower it to 20% or 25%). This is understandable, but if recommending 40% means suggesting too few local seats, too large a legislature, or skewing regional concerns towards the urban and/or the South (thereby exacerbating the political divide between urban/rural and/or North/South), then you end up with a system that doesn’t achieve the balance we all agree is necessary (and which may well cause the OCA to abandon MMP altogether). Instead, you sacrifice other principles for no difference in proportionality (note: a simulation of the 2003 election under our proposed system shows virtually perfect province-wide proportionality, with all 3 major parties within 1.7% of their province-wide vote share — which would be even lower when the Green Party reaches our 3% province-wide threshold and wins regional seats; this level of proportionality is on par with pure PR systems, so we question the claim that a *properly-designed* two-thirds/one-thirds split, particularly one that adjusts for overhangs between regions, isn’t proportional enough).

7) Our proposal allows local riding associations to determine if they want to keep regional nominations more localized (in paired ridings) or opt for a regional-wide list, which allows both the opportunity for geographic balance on the regional ballot (in rural regions where that might be a concern), and the possibility of creating region-wide lists (which will surely increase representation of women, under-represented minorities, and aboriginals). If parties are encouraged to have gender parity, then the system works well on 2 counts: paired riding nominations allow for one male/one female candidates locally, and the potential for region-wide lists also allows for equal number of male/female regional candidates. The number of regional seats, whether 2, 3, 4, 5, or 9 (as in our proposal), matters little so long as there are equal number of men/women (so the claim that 5 is a magic number simply does not hold in this system).

8) As noted in Interpretation Bulletin #1 (which I hope will be uploaded here), we suggest that that OCA recommend a public process in determining regional (and riding) boundaries. So, if people in Timmins-North Bay prefer being in the Northeast region instead of Northwest region, that is no problem. The regional split will be adjusting slightly, but the overall seats and mix in the North would remain the same. Remember, the full riding is actually “Northumberland-Quinte West”. In practice, this riding is tricky since the eastern half orients towards Prince Edwards-Hastings, while the western half orients towards Durham or Peterborough (and you live in Port Hope, the western half!). The maps as presented in our proposal represent the consensus in consultation with readers at DemocraticSPACE, but could easily change by a riding here and there — again, the riding and regional boundaries should be determined in an open process, and the decisions should be made by voters. But we’re glad that out of 90 local ridings, you think only 2 are misplaced! :)

Hopefully this provides some of our thinking on the valid points you raise. I’m happy to answer any questions that FVO or OCA members have about the proposal (we have sent little blue booklets to the CA Secretariat for distribution to OCA members, so OCA members should received their own booklet shortly).

Cheers,
Gregory D. Morrow
http://democraticSPACE.com

Nice job Gregory.

The one topic area where I think you might have some problem “selling” the concept is on the basis of your 11 defined regions. While, I believe some of your regions make total sense (Toronto and the Capital region e.g.) and there would be almost universal agreement and identification with these regions by their residents, others may not be as widely understood or owned (South Central Ontario and Northeast Ontario e.g.). I know these terms have been used by the government for the purposes of administration, but the rural regions simply do not have the same universal identification that the more urban regions do. In fact, I’ve felt the specific needs of coastal urban areas like Thunder Bay and Saulte. Ste. Marie probably are closer to each other than say either have with Timmins, Sudbury, or Moosonee (which would be in their regions based on the political map).

The trade-off of course would be that any reduced identification and generally accepted true local representation in Provincial government would be dis-enfranchisement at the very least and the de-legitimization of the government in the worst. Further reform down the road would almost be a necessity to maintain the overall political boundary of Ontario. Perhaps, this comes across as a little over dramatic, but I would not underestimate the attitudes of traditional “Northern Ontarians” to Provincial government – both in its political representation and in the practical administration.

Additionally, I would go one step further and suggest that any recognition of “communities” or “regions” would be incomplete without considering how the line drawing would impact representation and the accepted ownership by aboriginal Ontario. There are 134 First nation communities in Ontario. Should they not be given some consideration in how any government reform would address improved political representation?

Greg thanks for sharing your vision. My comments are meant simply as some “food for thought” in a proposal that vastly improves the current system.

Regards,
Rob C.

Thanks, Rob. The regions are my “best guess” of what people would accept based on feedback with readers at DemocraticSPACE and others throughout Ontario. But, I would recommend that the regional and riding boundaries be established by a public process, where residents would help make those decisions. There will always be disagreements, but if the process gives everyone a fair chance of having their voice heard (and a majority of people approve), then that would be the best option.

Frankly, I’m not sure how we can improve aboriginal representation. The problem is, by population, if you provide first nations separate representation, then you would only get 2 seats (188k population out of ~12.8mil ~ 1.5% x 135 seats = 2). You could have an aboriginal overlay, as they do in New Zealand (aboriginals choose to vote on the aboriginal ballot or their local ballot; NZ has 7 Maori seats, about to be 8), but again, in Ontario it would only be 2 overlays. I agree it’s important but it’s very difficult to make it meaningful. I fear that with only 2 seats, it would appear a token gesture.

Paul says “experience has shown in some MMP systems that members elected to single-member constituencies are generally treated as “full” MPs whereas the list MPs are considered “second-class” MPs.”

This is all explored in authoritative detail in
Louis Massicotte’s report on an MMP system for Quebec, especially at p. 61 Chapter 8: “Two Classes of Elected Members?”

Only in Wales have local MPs treated regional MPs as second class, where Labour won so many local seats that the other parties won only regional seats. When the regional members did their normal function in an MMP system — compete with the local members to provide service to constituents — the Labour members tried to defend their historic privileges.

BC’s attempt at PR failed due to the systems complexity.

I’m a businessman, and i sell paint and wallpaper, if it’s difficult to apply, people won’t buy it. If it’s easy to install, people will buy it. Simple as that.

I like you, want PR, in some form.
MMP is my preferred system, and STV tends to favour centralist parties over left or right parties. Some STV systems would give the Liberal Party a perpetual majority, which is far from representative of the wishes of Ontarians.
Systems that use a hybrid of STV and MMP are complicated to a level that only the designers understand it. The citizens of Ontario will not embrace an electoral system that they do not understand.

The basic tennets of your model seem to be very workable, however there are two extra complexities that are not really needed… I propose a simple way to eliminate them, with a bit of justification for such.

First.. Every Canadian knows that it’s the parties that run the government, and although some may argue, let’s admit it, without parties, there would never be anything accomplished in an assembly with 100 (let along 308) members.
I’d estimate that (at least after the first two or three elections were held under the new system) that in your model, less than 5% of people would “split their vote” It would be seen as watering down their voice, and counter-productive. Further, the ability to split one’s vote is a strategic issue, and part of the purpose of PR is to eliminate the viability of strategic voting.

Given that, there is no need to have a regional and riding vote seperate. Make it one single vote.

Secondly, having an entire second list of candidates is redundant. And it’s going to mean that the best candidates for office may not get in, while others who are less qualified do.

So, where do the regional candidates come from?
Simple. Those awarded the regional seats are those who lose their own riding, and get the highest percentage of the vote compared to others of their party in that region.

I’ll use my region (Central Ontario) as an example, using the 2003 results.

8 ridings:
Barrie, Duferin-Caledon, Hali-KL-Brock, Bruce/Gray, Northumberland, Ptbo, Simcoe-Gray, Simcoe North

So, there would be 12 seets, 8, awarded just as they were. the other 4 to bring it proportional.
The regions party percentages (with minor parties removed) were:
Liberal: 37.44 - 4.49 Seats.
Conservative 48.09 - 5.77 Seats
NDP: 11.49 - 1.37 Seats
Green: 2.98 - 0.35 Seats
The Greens are below 3%, which i’ll agree with as a threshold for simplicity. So we will remove their votes, and the seat distribution becomes:
Lib 4.6, Con 6.0, NDP 1.4
Riding seets were
2 lib, 6 Cons.
3 regional seats go to the Liberals, 1 to the NDP
(however, it’s quite possible, that if a neighboring region, specifically Toronto or Eastern Ontario, had more liberals elected then the popular vote were to award, that this region would go 2 Lib, 2 NDP)

Regional Seats would then be awarded to the NDP Candidate in Peterborough as well as Simcoe North & Barrie Liberals.
The last, depending on if there were spillover, would either go to the Hal KL Brock NDP or the Simcoe Gray Liberal.

This is a very good region to look at for this illustration. Why? Because the NDP, while consistantly getting between 10 and 20% in the region, will never (ever ever) elect a member here.
That means that no good NDP candidate will seek a riding nomination in this region, and this will lead to massive strategic campaigning.
Let’s also remember that the Government also pays for about 60% of all political campaigns. To run a campaign across these 8 ridings would mean travelling from Owen Sound to far east of Cobourg.

Travel costs within the largest riding of this region (Hal KL Brock) is astronomical, and often 50% of campaign expenses. What would it be with 4 or more candidates running similar campaigns across the much larger region?
Let’s not forget that with a second slate of candidates, we have an additional 50% of candidates, thus increasing the cost of an election by a bare minimum of 50% (more likely 60%+)

My proposed ammendment would actually decrease the cost of running an election. We would have less ridings, and there would be no regional campaigning.
It would however increase the chances that candidates of the same party in neighboring ridings would co-operate with each other a bit more, and cross-campaign.

3% as a threshold, although for political reasons, i may disagree, for logical reasons i do tend to agree (if the number of seats were to increase.. this number should descrease though)
If you notice in this region, 2.98% of vote did not convert to half a seat. But, in all honesty, it’s unlikely that a a party would get 3% provincially, and do exactly 3% in every region.
Most likely they would acheive the threshold to qualify for a regional seat in 3 regions.. which would fit with a 3% provincial vote.
If the threshold were 2%… it is quite feasible that 2% be achieved provincially, but not 3.5 to 4% that would be required in a region to qualify.
That said, if the official threshold were 2%, it would be effectively more like 3%, unless you were mostly a regional party. And this would force minor parties to concentrate all their efforts to one or two of the larger regions, which i don’t see as being in the greater good.
This, I guess could be remedied by 1 to 3 “Ontario-wide” regional seats, but then again, that’s an additional complication that will hurt the model as a whole.

Business and Politics have a lot in common, and any business course that you’ll ever take teaches a very important golden rule.
K.I.S.S
it stands for “Keep It Simple Stupid”
If you, like I, believe that we NEED proportial Representation to deal with our modern times, we must embrace a model that people can understand.
First, if we don’t go as simple as possible, the changes won’t pass.
Second, if people don’t understand what happens when they vote… they’ll be discouraged from voting. We already face enough voter apathy, let’s not have our attempt to end some of it, just create more.

One other small advantage would be that the counting of votes would not take days, it would take the same amount of time as the current system.

TVO Topic Tonite is This One Check It Out FYI etc

Luke Gassien proposes a list-free MMP system: “Those awarded the regional seats are those who lose their own riding, and get the highest percentage of the vote compared to others of their party in that region.” This has the small advantage of being in actual use in the German province of Baden-Wurttemberg.

I’d certainly like it better than our current voting system. South Germany is a conservative region, that likes to keep its politics as local as possible, and some Ontario democratic reform conservatives will like their system, so I would never exclude it.

It has one serious disadvantage, even for Conservatives: it doesn’t bring in excluded groups.

Janet Ecker was Ontario’s Finance Minister, a Progressive Conservative. Here’s what she told Ontario’s Select Committee on Electoral Reform, as one of the three spokeswomen for the multi-partisan group Equal Voice:

“When I started with the group, primarily because I agree that we need to have more women in our elected process at all levels, I was opposed to proportional representation because I believe very strongly in that link to a constituency . . . I still think there are a lot of strengths to that system and I don’t think we should lose that.

But as I looked at what has happened in other jurisdictions and started to consider how we can actually, all of us, in all three parties, stop talking about wanting more women and actually try to produce more women from our respective nominations and various processes, the Law Commission’s recommendation about a portion of your seats I started to find very attractive.

“As the result of your nomination process and your election process, a political party, indeed a government, may find itself with a lack of representation in some area, whether it’s geographic, whether it’s gender, whether it’s whatever: urban, rural, you name it. For caucus, cabinet and party discussions to adequately assess an issue, I think you need as much diversity in that room as you can get. Proportional representation provides a political party with an opportunity to round out the slate, if you will, of what the nomination process may well have produced for them. . . That is one of the reasons why I have been convinced that a portion of the seats be proportional representation.”

Sure enough, while Germany generally has lots of women elected, Baden-Wurttemberg lags in that field, and list-free MMP is one reason.