Electoral Reform (Senate, Commons, & Gov Gen)

[The Bread Guy]

They backed down. Is the reason that they are backing down silly? Sure. But who cares about the reason as long as they do the right thing?

They promised it, consulted, saw nobody cares, backed down. Isn't that what you wanted?

That's what you call a "can't win" -- the haters'll never give credit for a bad idea rejected, and the starry-eyed dreamers'll consider it a betrayal/promised reneged on.

What people are attacking here, is the rationale for dumping the promise (which people knew was the reason all along): the system that gets them elected is the best system for Canada.

Yup, or win a majority, anyway - which is why no party reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally wants to change things toooooooooo much.

 

[Lightguns]

In multi-party democracy, there simply is no way to get 50+1 unless the other parties are all so in disrepute which is a star alignment that is rare indeed.  38 to 42% is the norm for 2 big plus 1 medium sized party choice.

 

[Altair]

In multi-party democracy, there simply is no way to get 50+1 unless the other parties are all so in disrepute which is a star alignment that is rare indeed.  38 to 42% is the norm for 2 big plus 1 medium sized party choice.

Ranked ballots would be the only way.

I think everyone is in agreement that this would give a unfair advantage to the LPC since they are most peoples second choice.

 

[Brad Sallows]

There are two levels of dissatisfaction being expressed.

1. Some people criticize the abandonment of what was not a particularly ambiguous election promise on the grounds of "promise broken".

2. Some people criticize the abandonment of electoral reform.

Green and Orange seem to fall into groups (1) and (2) .  Blue seems content with the result and is merely using the opportunity to needle the government benches a little for their inconstancy (1).

(1) is always going to be there, on any issue.  There's no point riding a high horse to death and then beating it while lamenting that the governing party can never win.

 

[McG]

FPTP put Donald and Hillary in the lead of their respective US parties.  To win, you only need to be the looser with the most.  Contrary to popular narrative, it does not seem to be the system to screen out extremist views.

 

[Kirkhill]

And systems other than FPTP gave you Hollande, Merckel, Orban, Whatever passes for a government in Spain and Belgium these days, and a host of other outcomes.  Including Vladimir Putin and Xi.

You pays your money and you takes your chances.

I'm one of those who is not disappointed. I can live with our current system.  I am suspicious of those that want to change the rules of any game after the game has started.  And I am chuckling at the learning opportunity that has been presented to yet another generation of voters.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The only objection to FPTP is that "my vote didn't count ..."

         

... which has always struck me as being an extraordinarily childish reaction to electoral outcomes. But, then, I've always felt that 50+% of the voters are extraordinarily childish, so my reactions ought not to surprise anyone.

Assuming that we can agree that some people (how many? 15%? 25%? 35%? 60%?) do not like the outcome of any election in any riding then there are two questions:

    1. So what? and

    2. Who cares?

In my opinion the answer to "so what?" is "So, nothing, see question 2," because no one should care ... my opinion, again.

But in 2015 enough people did care ~ even if, I suspect, they had very, very little idea about that about which they professed to care ~ so the Liberals now, do care ... sort of.

But it's a hideously complex subject, something that, I guess, is dawning on Team Trudeau, and they gave the file to a "token," rather to someone who might have been able to develop a workable strategy and sell the project to Parliament and Canadians, and now it is doomed to fail because too few people actually know enough about the subject to care at all.

My next guess is that Team Trudeau is working on some sort of quite meaningless electoral reform bill that the Trudeau toadies in Elections Canada will laud as being a major reform to democracy itself, but which, despite being nothing at all, will allow them to put a check mark beside that promise in the 2019 campaign brochure.

 

[McG]

Ranked ballots would be the only way.  I think everyone is in agreement that this would give a unfair advantage to the LPC since they are most peoples second choice.

They are many people’s second choice under voting practices under FPTP, but people’s voting practices would not remain the same under another system.  FPTP encourages voters not to vote for who they feel is the best candidate but to instead line-up behind the candidate seen as most likely able to defeat they guy they oppose.  Under a different system, many voters’ first choice candidate would shift away from the big parties to others such as independents, Libertarians, Greens, or something else.

And systems other than FPTP gave you Hollande, Merckel, Orban, Whatever passes for a government in Spain and Belgium these days, and a host of other outcomes.  Including Vladimir Putin and Xi.

So you point is that other systems have flaws?  I won't disagree.  But so what?  That argument does not mean there are not improvements that can be made or there are no better systems to be found over our current system.  And I am sure you are not being so disingenuous as to suggest electoral reform means becoming aligned with faux democracies such as Russia.

I am suspicious of those that want to change the rules of any game after the game has started.

Changing the rules after the game has started would be changing the rules after the election has been called.  Unless you are arguing that the Parliament should never be able to amend election laws … but there is not precedent for such a restriction.

But there might be precedent for governments flip-flopping on election promises.

Critics accuse Justin Trudeau of electoral reform flip-flop for 'selfish' political gain
Prime minister insists he is 'deeply committed' to consultation process on changes to voting system
Kathleen Harris
CBC News
20 Oct 2016

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing growing calls to confirm his commitment to overhauling Canada's voting system.

After promising electoral reform in last fall's election and launching a comprehensive public consultation process, Trudeau muddied the waters this week in a media interview marking his first year in office.

Asked today if he is backtracking on his promise, Trudeau said he remains "deeply committed" to reforms, but conceded it's a challenge to find consensus among a broad spectrum of public opinion.

He is awaiting recommendations from the special committee of MPs studying electoral reform.

Confusion created

"I'm not going to preclude the arguments that they will be making and the conclusions that will be drawn. I will simply say I look forward to hearing those perspectives and looking at how Canadians wish to move forward," he said.

But Green Party Leader Elizabeth May urged Trudeau to clarify his commitment to reform the system in time for the next election.

"He has created this level of confusion by suggesting there may not be the same demand for electoral reform. I can assure him there is," she said.

'Crazy argument'

In an interview with Le Devoir this week, Trudeau appeared to be wavering.

Trudeau told the newspaper that Canadians were pushing hard for electoral reform as a way to get rid of a government it did not like — the Conservatives. But now that the Liberals are in office, the "motivation" to change the electoral system is less compelling.

"Fundamentally, it's a crazy argument," said Conservative democratic reform critic Scott Reid. "Stop and think about this: He said one year after the election, I'm super popular so we don't need to have this discussion now."

Reid and fellow members of the special committee studying the issue are now scratching their heads over whether their work is all for nought.

'Selfish' reasons

The NDP's democratic reform critic Nathan Cullen accused Trudeau of changing tack for "selfish" reasons.

"Canadians in part elected this government on promises like this, and to very cynically start breaking them just because you have a lot of Facebook followers is pretty arrogant and misguided," he said.

Katelynn Northam of advocacy group Leadnow said there is also much grassroots concern that Trudeau may be backing off the promise. More than 400 members have already made phone calls to Liberal MPs or the Prime Minister's Office, and another 4,000 have sent emails so far.

"Many members of Leadnow voted Liberal in 2015 because of the party's commitment to voting reform — and tens of thousands of people have since joined our Vote Better campaign for proportional representation in the last year," she told CBC News. "It's clear that people do care about voting reform and they expect this promise to be kept."

Real Change?

The Liberal campaign platform, called Real Change, promised to "make every vote count."

"We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system … Within 18 months of forming government, we will introduce legislation to enact electoral reform," it reads.

Kicking off consultations in May, Minister of Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef described the current system as deeply flawed.

"In a multi-party democracy like Canada, first past the post distorts the will of the electorate. It's part of why so many Canadians don't engage in or care about politics," she said at the time. "While there's no such thing as a perfect electoral system, we can do better."   

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-trudeau-electoral-reform-critics-1.3813714

 

[McG]

    2. Who cares?

Someone has researched that.

Proportional representation: fair, but unsatisfying
André Blais
The Globe and Mail
17 Oct 16

The present first-past-the-post (FPTP) system is unfair. The system overrepresents big parties and underrepresents small parties. In the last federal election, the Liberals obtained 54 per cent of the seats with 40 per cent of the votes while the NDP had only 13 per cent of the seats with 20 per cent of the vote. With a more proportional system, a party with 20 per cent of the vote would win about 20 per cent of the seats. Clearly, a more proportional system is fairer. Many politicians and academics suggest that Canadians would prefer a fairer system. Thus the inference that Canadians would be happier under a more proportional system.

But can we make such an inference? There is a body of empirical research, some of which I recently presented to the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, that has examined the question whether citizens in more proportional systems are more satisfied than those in voting systems like the one we have in Canada. Most academic election surveys now include a “satisfaction with democracy” question that asks people how satisfied they are with the way democracy works in their country. This indicator allows researchers to compare citizens’ satisfaction with democracy in many different countries and to determine where satisfaction is highest and lowest.

One question that researchers, like myself, have examined is whether citizens’ satisfaction is higher under more proportional (or less disproportional) systems. The degree of disproportionality is defined as the discrepancy between vote and seat shares. The greater the discrepancy the more disproportional the outcome. So do we find that citizens are more satisfied (happier) in less disproportional systems?

The answer is: No. If we look at the simple relationship between the degree of disproportionality and overall satisfaction, we see no correlation. People are not happier under a fairer system. The relationship is more complex than what proponents of proportional representation have suggested.

When we take into account many different factors and control for them, we find that people are slightly more satisfied under more proportional systems. So what is going on? We find that the presence of coalition governments also affects overall satisfaction. People are less satisfied with the way democracy works when there is a coalition government. So more proportional systems make people happier because they are fairer but they also produce coalition governments, which tend to make people slightly less satisfied. These two contradictory effects cancel out so that in the end satisfaction is not higher overall in more proportional systems.

So why are people less satisfied with coalition governments? We do not have a definitive answer for this but there are some interesting findings to report. First, it is important to keep in mind that everywhere there is a winner/loser gap, that is those who voted for the party(ies) that form(s) the government are more satisfied than the losers (those who voted for the parties that are not in government). Interestingly, however, when there is a coalition government, those who voted for a junior partner in the coalition (not the main party) are not more satisfied than the losers, because they perceive that their small party will not have that much influence even if it is part of the government.

Another finding is that the winner/loser gap in satisfaction is weaker in more proportional systems. The implication is that while overall satisfaction is not higher in more proportional systems, the losers, that is, those who did not support the governing party(ies) in the election, are less dissatisfied. It thus seems that more proportional systems manage to reduce dissatisfaction among those who lose the election.

In short, the empirical evidence suggests that Canadians would not be happier if we were to adopt a more proportional system. But having a more proportional system could contribute to making the losers less dissatisfied.

André Blais is professor of political science at Université de Montréal where he is the Research Chair in Electoral Studies.   

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/proportional-representation-fair-but-unsatisfying/article32374194/

 

[Kirkhill]

MCG:

Other systems have flaws.  FPTP has flaws. All systems can be changed.  Our system can be changed. 

Forgive me if I remain suspicious of those that wish change,  especially if they change their minds on discovering that the old system actually benefited them.

Feel free to change to your heart's content.  [

 

[Edward Campbell]

They are many people’s second choice under voting practices under FPTP, but people’s voting practices would not remain the same under another system.  FPTP encourages voters not to vote for who they feel is the best candidate but to instead line-up behind the candidate seen as most likely able to defeat they guy they oppose.  Under a different system, many voters’ first choice candidate would shift away from the big parties to others such as independents, Libertarians, Greens, or something else.
So you point is that other systems have flaws?  I won't disagree.  But so what?  That argument does not mean there are not improvements that can be made or there are no better systems to be found over our current system.  And I am sure you are not being so disingenuous as to suggest electoral reform means becoming aligned with faux democracies such as Russia.
Changing the rules after the game has started would be changing the rules after the election has been called.  Unless you are arguing that the Parliament should never be able to amend election laws … but there is not precedent for such a restriction.

But there might be precedent for governments flip-flopping on election promises.http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-trudeau-electoral-reform-critics-1.3813714

This is a key point and it is a HUGE, fundamental flaw in ALL "alternative voting" systems ... you first choice will change with the situation.

The only solution, IF you think the winning candidate must have more than a plurality of the votes, is to go the French route:

    1. On election day we all vote for our favourite candidates; then, for most of us (say 75% of ridings where the winner did not get 50%+1)

    2. On the run off election day, about a week later, we vote for out choice of the top two candidates from election day.

Those of us who voted Green or Communist Party of Canada (Groucho Marxist) will now have a choice between, say, a Conservative and and NDPer, or a Dipper vs a Liberal or a Conservative vs a Liberal or even, in one of two ridings a Conservative vs a Green or a Green vs a BQer. We will now have to make new choices:

    Choice 1 is to vote or stay home. Many of us who were committed to one party and one party only will stay home.

    Choice 2 is to vote and to choose between the two candidates who best represent the views of most of our fellow constituents.

PR ought to be a non-starter in a large, diverse country like Canada. We have been represented in our communities since Simon de Montfort and all that ... the French title Chambre des communes is, in fact, "better" than the English House of Commons because "commons" meaning local communities has fallen into disuse in English and some people even think it refers to the common people versus the Lords. When the English say "Lords and commons," they mean the lords of the manors and the people of the towns and villages around them.

 

[Kirkhill]

But the problem is "The Party".

The system works best when it is based on a group of independent MPs, acting as a jury, to hold the Government to account.

It fails on two fronts.

1 - too many people don't get to know the character of their local representatives and instead take the facile route of using "party" as a surrogate screen that allows them to make a choice with the minimum amount of fuss and effort.

2 - the government, being elected by party, is now no longer accountable to the MPs.  The MPs of the government party are now accountable to the government and the government is accountable to the extra-parliamentary party.

As a result the government does what its backers decide it can get away with.

And, I am sorry, but I don't care which system of selection you put in place, the Houses of Stuart, Valois, Guise, Hapsburg and Medici will always find a way to game their interests.  They have had ample opportunity to learn over the millennia.

 

[McG]

Forgive me if I remain suspicious of those that wish change, especially if they change their minds on discovering that the old system actually benefited them.

Well, we can agree here.  The flop certainly raises questions of motivation.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/rex-murphy-trudeau-s-flip-flop-1.3815060

The only solution, IF you think the winning candidate must have more than a plurality of the votes, is to go the French route:

    1. On election day we all vote for our favourite candidates; then, for most of us (say 75% of ridings where the winner did not get 50%+1)

    2. On the run off election day, about a week later, we vote for our choice of the top two candidates from election day.

Why is this the only option?  Ranked ballots offer the same results without the requirement to bring everybody back to the polling stations for a second or third go.  With ranked ballots, you can see identify the candidate who beats every other candidate in a round robin competition (also known as the Condorcet winner).  If that guy does not exist, you see who wins as a result of run-off elections.  And it is all done without re-establishing polling centres and brining all the voters back.

PR ought to be a non-starter in a large, diverse country like Canada.

I agree.  Seems the PM may also agree with you too.

How does Justin Trudeau really feel about electoral reform? Let's go to the tape
What the prime minister has said about the need for change and proportional representation
By Aaron Wherry, CBC News
21 Oct16

Six months before Justin Trudeau's recent suggestion to Montreal's Le Devoir newspaper that the public's enthusiasm for electoral reform had dissipated in the wake of his own government's arrival, the prime minister said the same thing to an audience of students at the University of Ottawa.

"A lot of people I've talked to have said, 'Oh yes, we really, really wanted electoral reform because we had to get rid of Stephen Harper, but now we have a government we sort of like so electoral reform just doesn't seem as much of a priority anymore,'" he explained at that forum.

In the case of his interview with Le Devoir this week, his observation was generally interpreted to suggest his government is backing away from its commitment that the 2015 campaign would be the last election conducted under the first-past-the-post system.

But at the University of Ottawa six months ago, the comment was made in the midst of what was otherwise a passionate argument in favour of reform.

"I believe fundamentally that we can do better," he said. "We can have an electoral system that does a better job of reflecting the concerns, the voices of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and give us a better level of governance."

Then, after rhetorically invoking the waffling reformer, he responded.

"Well, it's a priority to me," he said. "It's a priority to a lot of Canadians who say, you know what, we need to make sure that going forward we have the best possible electoral system. One that values Canadian voices. One that creates good governments. One that makes sure that people can [be] and feel involved in the political process.

"That they don't have to make impossible choices between options they don't like. That we are able to create the kind of governance that we need in this country."

Maybe he still feels this way. Or maybe something changed between April 19 and Oct. 19. (Granted, without a complete transcript or recording, we can't know whether any similar enthusiasm was uttered during his interview with Le Devoir.)

Either way, instead of imagining how the Liberals might get out of this, we might ask three questions: What does Justin Trudeau think about reform? How strongly held are his beliefs? And what are the chances that circumstances line up with his thinking?

What Trudeau has said about proportional representation

According to a Liberal source, no final decision on whether to pursue reform has been made. But the government has also specified that broad public support is a prerequisite for major reform and, in that, it's easy to imagine how this could end without a new electoral system.

But first there are the deliberations of the special House of Commons committee on electoral reform. What if that committee produces some kind of bi-partisan, or even unanimous, proposal for a new system?

A unanimous report might be difficult for the government to dismiss, but Trudeau has, in years past, expressed distinct opinions on the alternatives to first-past-the-post.

In 2013, while running for the Liberal leadership, he proposed moving to preferential voting (whereby voters rank the candidates instead of choosing one). Liberal MP Joyce Murray, also running for party leader, proposed moving to proportional representation.

During a debate in Halifax, the two engaged on the subject and Trudeau expressed strong objections to proportional representation.

"The problem with proportional representation is every different model of proportional representation actually increases partisanship, not reduces it," he said. "What we need is a preferential ballot that causes politicians to have to reach out to be the second choice and even the third choice of different political parties.

"We need people who represent broader voices not narrower interests. And I understand people want proportional representation, but too many people don't understand the polarization and the micro issues that come through proportional representation."

His campaign material at the time raised concerns about MPs who wouldn't represent specific communities, presumably a reference to the fact that the mixed-member proportional model can add MPs elected from party lists.

(CPAC also has footage of Trudeau in 2012 making the case for a preferential ballot at a Liberal convention.)

But preferential voting is often thought to be a model that would most benefit the Liberal party, so it is difficult to imagine any of the other parties joining the government in endorsing the system.

How Trudeau views electoral reform's possibilities

In an interview with The Canadian Press last December, Trudeau said he wanted to be "careful about pushing my own views on this," but at the University of Ottawa in April, it was apparent the ramifications were still at the forefront of his thinking.

"Is it better to create diversity of voices by making as many different political parties as possible so that in the House of Commons there are all sorts of different perspectives reflected?" he asked the university audience. "Another way of doing it is to make sure that parties that reach out themselves to fold in a broad diversity of voices and perspectives within their party get rewarded as well."

He seems to prefer the latter notion.

But could the special committee come up with a model that satisfies Trudeau's concerns or could his concerns be allayed?

If Trudeau tries now to make the case against something like mixed-member proportional, he will be challenged.

But even if he was persuaded, there would still likely be the small matter of public acceptance.

In the case of something less than broad support, how willing would Trudeau be to devote time and energy to trying to bring the public on side? How many other priorities might be competing for his attention? And would he, if necessary, be willing to put it to a referendum?

(Given that any decision to move to a new system must be made by next fall, a referendum might push reform past 2019.)

How hard does Trudeau want to push for electoral reform?

This does seem to be a topic that Trudeau has given some thought to.

At the University of Ottawa forum, his musing went on for more than six minutes. A week later, at New York University, his response to a question on the topic ran nearly five minutes.

In both cases, he declared himself "excited" about the conversation to come. Perhaps he might re-engage that conversation once the committee has returned a recommendation.

In New York, he conceded he was "challenged" by that same dissipating desire for reform.

"I still believe we need to push for electoral reform," he then said, "because I think we need to have a better system that will hold the test of time."

Maybe he still feels that way. If so, this might depend on how hard he wants to push.  

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wherry-trudeau-electoral-reform-opinion-1.3814319

 

[Edward Campbell]

Well, we can agree here.  The flop certainly raises questions of motivation.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/rex-murphy-trudeau-s-flip-flop-1.3815060
Why is this the only option?  Ranked ballots offer the same results without the requirement to bring everybody back to the polling stations for a second or third go.  With ranked ballots, you can see identify the candidate who beats every other candidate in a round robin competition (also known as the Condorcet winner).  If that guy does not exist, you see who wins as a result of run-off elections.  And it is all done without re-establishing polling centres and brining all the voters back.
I agree.  Seems the PM may also agree with you too.http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wherry-trudeau-electoral-reform-opinion-1.3814319

No, they do not, because your choice probably will, likely should change when the situation changes. Ranked ballots and the like allow/force a single choice for only one situation and it is, most likely, a false dilemma because there ought to be more choices ~ a ranked ballot to "work" in one "go" would have to be in some sort of matrix format to allow for a proper range of choices. Serial elections, when no candidate gets 50%+1, at least offer a partial range. The single round ranked ballot is, in my opinion, even less "fair" than FPTP.

 

[McG]

No, they do not, because your choice probably will, likely should change when the situation changes. Ranked ballots and the like allow/force a single choice for only one situation and it is, most likely, a false dilemma because there ought to be more choices ~ a ranked ballot to "work" in one "go" would have to be in some sort of matrix format to allow for a proper range of choices. Serial elections, when no candidate gets 50%+1, at least offer a partial range. The single round ranked ballot is, in my opinion, even less "fair" than FPTP.

I do not understand how you arrive at your conclusion.  Which one situation do you believe ranked ballots force voters to make a decision for?  What is the false dilemma? 

As I see it, ranked ballots can offer voters the freedom to give their decision for all possible outcomes, and no matrix is required.

 

[Kirkhill]

I think what ERC is suggesting is a variation on the theme of "A week is a long time in politics".

The decision that the Americans made during their primary campaigns is obviously different than the decision they are likely to make during the final campaign.

Likewise, in the French case, once confronted with a stark choice and a focused "debate"  the decision, two weeks later, may be considerably different than that which results from automatically filling in boxes on a form just because the boxes have to be filled.

Le Pen may be everybody's second choice - but they still might not want to see her in power.

 

[ModlrMike]

I still think "one vote, use it wisely" however flawed, is the best system. The problem is the "use it wisely" part that many people ignore.

 

[Journeyman]

I still think "one vote, use it wisely" however flawed, is the best system.

  :nod:

The system may be fine, but it's the voters that need some adjustment.  Reading through any number of political threads on this site alone suggests the process could benefit from a Psych Eval and an IQ test to register, followed up by a breathalyzer at the polling station. 



    ;D  <---  so no one takes it too  personally

 

[dapaterson]

The system may be fine, but it's the voters that need some adjustment.  Reading through any number of political threads on this site alone suggests the process could benefit from a Psych Eval and an IQ test to register, followed up by a breathalyzer at the polling station. 

Now, are you suggesting people should be sober to vote, or should reach a certain threshold of inebriation before casting their ballot?

 

[RangerRay]

During the first referendum on BC-STV, I voted in favour.  To me, it sounded like ridings like the two Peace River ridings (Peace River North, Peace River South) and the two Cariboo ridings would be merged so that they would be larger Peace River or Cariboo ridings with 2 MLA's.  Sounded like a good way to make a fairer system that retained local representation.  That vote just barely failed.

Four years later, they had another referendum, with all the details fleshed out.  This system had a large riding spanning from Prince George to Kamloops with 5 MLA's.  The driving distance between these two cities is 5 to 6 hours.  Under this system, it was entirely possible for the Cariboo to not have local representation, and dominated by two larger centres far away.  This proposal was soundly defeated at referendum, and I voted against it.

No other province that had referenda for electoral reform has had it pass muster with the voters (including 2 of the 3 largest provinces).  The Feds would be wise not to push a new system without widespread voter support.