Citizens' Forum on Public Policy

(This essay is derived from notes used for presentations to the Cpmpx Valley Chapter of the Council of Canadians and to the Comox Valley Unitarian Fellowship in the fall of 2000. Both talks of about 15 minutes, were very well received and a longer discussion ensued. DF)

FPTP—First Past the Post

1997 Federal General Election

1996 British Columbia Provincial Election

Is there any alternative?

Yes. There are many alternatives. You should beware of anyone who tries to tell you that "There is no alternative." The TINA mantra has been the mantra of fascists since time immemorial. This is not an exhaustive dissertation on alternative systems. But rather a brief introduction of one alternative—MMP or Mixed-Member-Proportional and a wrinkle-Preferential Ballot.

The Goals of a Democracy.

There are as many goals of a democracy as there are people—if it were not it would not be a democracy! For the purpose of this presentation, I shall limit myself to three goals:

1. The views of the majority are adequately represented.
2. The views of all minorities are represented and respected.
3. The government has the ability to act decisively in a true emergency situation.

MMP is the system used in New Zealand, and in Germany. Each German voter casts two ballots. The first is to elect a local representative, similarly to our present system. The second vote is given to a political party. The two ballots do not have to be given to the same party.

In the proposal presented here, based on the 1996 BC Provincial election, the first-ballot votes are used to elect 75 members by FPTP. The remaining 25 seats are allocated so as to make the overall party totals proportional. That is, the parties with the largest discrepancy between their percentage vote and their FPTP seat total are the first to be 'compensated' by the additional seats. The 'extra' seats are assigned to candidates put forward on lists by the parties. The lists can be prepared on a regional basis, so parties are actually allocated more 'extra' members in the areas of the province where they are most popular.

In Germany, half the seats are reserved as proportional compensatory seats, but it is not necessary to set aside this many to achieve a proportional result. In 1996, as we will see below, 22 extra seats (about one-quarter of the total) would have been enough to achieve proportionality in BC.

Here are the 1996 percentages of the 5 largest parties, with their FPTP seat totals:

There are actually several ways to determine how many total seats a party should received as its proportion of the total. The one used in Germany is called d'Hondt. It produces the following totals:

This shows us that the Liberals must receive 10 compensatory seats, the NDP 2, the Reform Party 7, the PDA 4 and the Green Party 2. The seats should be allocated in this order:
 

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
R	P	R	G	P	R	R	P	R	L	L	L	R

14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25
P	L	L	L	L	R	L	L	G	N	L	N

In Germany, this type of system has given Greens representation in the legislature. They have used this leverage to, among other things, to eliminate nuclear reactors as an energy source in Germany.

In New Zealand this system has allowed Maori representation to rise to the same proportion as they represent in the demography and the representation of women in the legislature has increased.

PB— Preferential Ballot

During the 1996 BC election, I campaigned for Meaghan Cursons of the Green Party. After the Teachers' Union all-candidates meeting, I did an informal exit poll. Folks told me: "Gee, I'd really like to vote for Meaghan, but I don't want to split the vote and see the Liberals elected." At the next meting at the Fish and Game Club: "You know, I might vote for your candidate, but I don't want to see that NDP get in." As long as we continue to vote for bad to avoid worse, things are going to get worser. How can we allow folks to vote their conscience and cover their buts at the same time? Proportional Ballot.

With a proportional ballot, we mark our preference(s) on the ballot: 1, 2, 3, etc. The 1^st preferences are tallied up, and if no one gets 50% + 1 of the votes, the person who receives the lowest number of 1^st s is removed from consideration and the 2^nd, 3^rd, etc. choices of the people who voted for the lowest and distributed to the remaining candidates as 1^st, 2^nd, etc. This is repeated until someone gets 50% + 1. This in combination with MMP ensures that there are no "wasted" votes.

How do we get there?

Canada

In Canada, the 1979 Task Force on Canadian Unity—the Pepin-Robarts Commission—included a recommendation for just over 20% of the seats in the House of Commons to be accorded to the parties proportional to their support and from those provinces in which there was under representation. The Trudeau (May God have mercy on his soul.) Government of the day unceremoniously rejected the report. Mulroney made no such error—the 1990 Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing was clearly mandated that changing the electoral system was NOT part of its mandate.

New Zealand

In New Zealand, the Labour Party, despite garnering the most number of votes of any party, because of the way the votes were distributed, failed to form the government because the National Party translated fewer votes into more seats. This occurred twice in successive elections. In frustration, the Labour Party vowed that they would investigate alternative electoral processes should they be elected. Well, they were elected and fulfilled their promise and after a great deal of research, debate, public consultation and a referendum; adopted a Mixed-Member Proportional system.

British Columbia

The Liberal Party of British Columbia (not to be confused with the Liberal Party of Canada), perhaps feeling that they were cheated out of being the Government after the 1996 election have as plank in their platform the following:

Links:

For more information:

• ACE Project--Electoral Systems http://www.aceproject.org/main/english/es/default.htm
• ECCO-BC (Electoral Change Coalition of BC http://ecco.bc.ca/
• Proportional Representation in Canada by Julian West http://www.crosswinds.net/~cvg/issues/ProportionalRepresentationinCanada.htm
(This used to be on the Green Party of Canada web site but seems to have disappeared along with Julian)