Proportional Representation Part 2

The Broadbent Institute presents a free webinar.  PR 101: All you need to know about electoral reform, on Wednesday, July 20, 201612:00 PM - 1:00 PM (Eastern Time). 

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PR 101 with political scientist David Moscrop is sure to help bust some myths out there about proportional representation. There’s a reason the majority of countries use a system of PR, and the webinar will walk you through why, just as the federal government ramps up consultations to change our voting system.

http://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/pr_101

Gary Shaul wrote:

There is not one shred of evidence that PR system voting countries are any better governed than we are with FPTP. 

Actually, there is more than a shred of evidence. You could start here:

Fair Vote Canada: Why PR? A look at the evidece. 

Well,  bless their hearts for trying, but their paper, and the supporting documents fail to establsh the cause and effect relationship. In a similar vein, someone mentioned that PR electoral systems had fewer capital punishment regimes. Unfortunately, upon scrutiny, it turned out that many of those states had abolished capital punishment while they were still monarchies, and with very limited or non-existent elections.

To bring this to the Fair Vote paper, they try to link incarceration rates with PR or FPTP. But we have some evidence right in front of our eyes. The incarceration rate in Canada is 1/6 of what it is in the USA. Both have FPTP electoral systems, so how do we account for the huge difference in incarceration rates. Obviously there is something else at work besides the electoral system.

By the same token, incarceration rates in the Americas are generally higher than in other parts of the world. You could probable make a pretty good case that longitudinal position had something to do with incarceration rates. Then they are many countries with very low incarceration rates that have almost nothing in terms of electoral systems at all.

Another issue in the Fair Vote presentation is military spending, but let's not forget that the USA spends as much as the rest of the world together on military, and I doubt that has much to do with it's electoral system. On top of that, Germany and Japan in particular spend very little on military for the simple reason that they are prevented from doing so because of agreements signed after WW2.

Another element the Fair Vote article doesn't address is the fact that no two countries have the same PR system. According to them, PR systems encourage a particular type of behaviour, but don't break down from one system to the next.

The absoute best that one can say about their presentation is this: Some states exhibit characteristics that we generally view as progressive and have PR voting systems. Whether the voting system were a cause or a result of the progressive characteristics, or whether some different factor is involved, is unknown.

JKR wrote:

Rev Pesky wrote:

JKR wrote:

Rev Pesky wrote:

Yes there's always a chance some wild-eyed rightie will form a government, and proceed to try and wreck the joint, but that is a pretty small chance, and is just as likely to happen with a PR voting system.

I think a wild-eyed rightie did recently form a government. His name is Stephen Joseph Harper. Because of FPTP he was able to form a government with just 35% of the vote. Under PR he would have needed the backing of parties who represent almost half the voters to form a government.

And Stephen Harper was very much opposed to abortion on demand and medicare generally, but we still have both. Explain to me how it was that he was unable to implement the program he so clearly wanted.

He was unable to implement it because if he even tried to, the Conservative Party's level of support would have plummeted to under 25% and even under FPTP that low level of support would have marginalized his party for a generation. Under FPTP, the goal of the Conservative Party is to win around 35% of the votes and hope the Liberals and NDP both come in under 30%. The Conservatives count on FPTP vote splitting on the left to win elections. That's why they so desperately want to keep FPTP. If FPTP was replaced, the Conservatives would have to start appealing to at least half the voters to be able to form a government.

I think that is Pesky's point. No matter what the system there are limits on what the government can do even under FPTP and with a majority.

I find Dion's P3 system very attractive, it is proportional but addresses many of the objections to simplistic PR. I don't understand why it isn't more popular.

The all-party committee had a very interesting meeting today. Three experts on electoral reform spoke, Ken Carty, Brian Tanguay, and Nelson Wiseman.

http://tinyurl.com/hnwxoyz

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I would not put the issue of an alternative voting system to a referendum. It’s unnecessary; it’s a waste of money; and it will almost certainly fail.

I'm sure he'd tell us how the money is chickenfeed, and the people's voice is crucial, were it not for that part I bolded there.

That's basically the only argument I've seen against referendums:  they might actually deliver the opposite of what someone wants.  I've even seen them criticized as "undemocratic" -- because (I guess) letting people choose what they want is somehow LESS democratic than just choosing for them.

And yes, I totally understand that uninformed dummies get to vote in referendums.  But those same uninformed dummies get to vote in the elections that give us the government that's somehow supposed to be wiser than all of us, and gift us us with their choice.  Joe the Dummy getting a vote isn't the opposite of democracy, it's the very spirit of it.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

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I would not put the issue of an alternative voting system to a referendum. It’s unnecessary; it’s a waste of money; and it will almost certainly fail.

I'm sure he'd tell us how the money is chickenfeed, and the people's voice is crucial, were it not for that part I bolded there.

That's basically the only argument I've seen against referendums:  they might actually deliver the opposite of what someone wants.  I've even seen them criticized as "undemocratic" -- because (I guess) letting people choose what they want is somehow LESS democratic than just choosing for them.

And yes, I totally understand that uninformed dummies get to vote in referendums.  But those same uninformed dummies get to vote in the elections that give us the government that's somehow supposed to be wiser than all of us, and gift us us with their choice.  Joe the Dummy getting a vote isn't the opposite of democracy, it's the very spirit of it.

Joe the dummy already got to vote in the FPTP election that established our current House of Commons. That's how our current system works. If we want it to be more democratic we'll have to get rid of FPTP.

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Joe the dummy already got to vote in the FPTP election that established our current House of Commons.

I'm pretty sure I said exactly that.

But given this, how is it more democratic if our "illegitimate" government, elected by an undemocratic system makes this choice for us, rather than a referendum?

Conversely, if this government "does what they were elected to do" and springs Ranked Ballot on us, is everyone who says this is the government's job going to stuff a sock in it?  Because if that happens I won't have the stomach to hear how "the people didn't have a voice" or "the government just chose the one that THEY wanted" or whatever.  If electoral reform really is up to them then let's all get out of their way and let them do their job.

The government itself doesn't have a mandate to "spring Ranked Ballot on us".  They were elected on a mandate to have 2015 be the last election done by FPTP via consultatation.  If ranked ballot results from that then so be it, but that's different from them alone springing ranked ballot upon us.  ETA:  Blaikie just asked (in the video of the meeting today) if the final recommendation should stem from the committee or from cabinet, to which the guy who was asked (not sure who it is, admittedly, but presumably some poli-sci expert) said that he imagined that cabinet would not have the sort of legitimacy that they're looking for; so, presumably, the decision will stem from the committee rather than from cabinet.

Whatever.  The whole argument of requiring referendums of the people for all important decisions of elected governments is bunk, in my opinion. 

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Whatever.  The whole argument of requiring referendums of the people for all important decisions of elected governments is bunk, in my opinion.

But we still need to know whether Canadians do or don't want a new electoral system, and a referendum seems a reasonable way to find out.  I don't think anyone's actually arguing that we need a referendum "for everything".

The problem of trying to use the results of last year's election to show that Canadians are on-board is that when we vote for an MP and their party, we're voting for a whole slate of different things, and it's unlikely that any voter values (or even agrees with) every one of them.

As an example, suppose the Liberals (and let's even say the NDP) promise that, if elected, they'll change the colour of stop signs from red to pink.  And of course all of the parties will be making dozens of other policy promises as well.

Can we say with confidence that, seeing as the Libs won, a majority want pink stop signs?  No, because a majority didn't vote for the Libs.

Can we add in the NDP support to make it a majority, since they too promised pink stop signs?  No, we still can't, because we have no idea whether NDP voters (or Lib voters) voted as they did BECAUSE of pink stop signs, or DESPITE them. 

If we want to be really thorough, we should note that there could be Conservative voters who support pink stop signs.  But how many?  If we're only looking at the fact that they voted for the party that didn't plan to change the stop signs we'd erroneously say "zero" but we know that wouldn't be the case.

If we really want to know what Canadians think about pink stop signs we need to ask them directly, uninfluenced by a hundred other questions about child care, foreign policy, deficit spending, pot legalization, etc.

Very well.  Let's symbolically make our first of many referendums a collective decision on whether to call more than one of them "referendums" or the more pretentious but probably more correct "referenda".

Meanwhile, though, the fact that we didn't hold referendums/referenda for other important things isn't really a logical argument against holding one for a change to our electoral system, and particularly if you believe that the others would have been a good idea.

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Is there any mention of a requirement for referendums in the constitution?

Ya, it's in the same paragraph that outlines our right to a PR electoral system.

I think it would be a good idea for the government  to ask for a Supreme Court reference on electoral reform in order to clear things  up on the subject.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

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I'll take that as "no."

They're both a "no".

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So iI guess the government can go ahead without a referendum.

Based on the 39.5% who voted for that government?

Your commitment to representation is clearly very flexible.

Based on our FPTP form of government.

I'd be flexible enough to support a more democratic form of government but the supporters of FPTP don't seem to want to go there. I think if we want to move to a system that respects majority opinion it should go beyond one referendum to keep minority rule.

Don't be silly, mark_alfred.  Our government is empowered by the will of a 39.5% majority, and can do as they wish.  No further consultation required until 2019.

So they'll be coming around to our houses for a quick chat?

I'd better go tidy up.

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So they'll be coming around to our houses for a quick chat?

I'd better go tidy up.

No need.  They're hosting. You can request to appear or submit a brief. 

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Committees/en/ERRE/StudyActivity?studyActivityId=9...

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Canadians who choose to submit a brief to the Committee must meet the following criteria/conditions:

• only one (1) brief can be submitted per person and per organisation;
• the deadline for the submission of briefs is 11:59 p.m. (EST) on Friday, October 7, 2016;
• briefs must not exceed 3,000 words (including the summary page and footnotes);
• briefs that are longer than 1,500 words must be accompanied by a summary; and,
• it is recommended that within the brief the author present a list of recommendations and their relationship with the principles set out in the motion adopted by the House of Commons on Tuesday, June 7, 2016, outlining the mandate of the Committee.