Proportional Representation part 3

from the Gary Shaul aritcle posted abvove:

Quote:

But, Trudeau did make the promise to make every vote count -- in those exact words -- and repeated them in the Throne Speech. Words have meaning. "Make every vote count" was one of the key phrases used by voting reform advocates in Fair Vote Canada for many years.

Gary Shaul is an active member of Fair Vote Canada, so he isn't just someone making a comment. And here he is, taking resonsibility for the 'make every vote count' phrase.

I'll just remind everyone that phrase is just plain not true. There is no PR votiing system anywhere on planet earth that makes 'every vote count'. You might wonder why Fair Vote Canada used a phrase that is patently false as their slogan. I don't. The reason they use it is because they can't sell their product without it.

Switzerland is a very odd case, and I think it's a bit of a distraction from Canadian discussions of PR. They've had a 4-party grand coalition since World War II, have devolved most policy to cantonal governments and the rest to referendums, and their governing coalition isn't the first one I'd think of when it comes to collegial respect for minorities. None of that is PR's fault, of course, but it's not the best example of what could await Canada after electoral reform.

Amazing.  Even Althia Raj thinks the Liberals are misleading Canadians on electoral reform.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/althia-raj/electoral-reform-maryam-monsef_b...

PS, have all the wonderful activists of Babble called their MPs yet as described in post #492?

I like Naville's quote.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/electoral-reform-committee-set-to-recomme...

Looks increasingly like the committee will recommend a referendum.  Seems there will be only two choices on it.  One being FPTP, and the other being the committee's feeling of what is the best alternative.

Quote:

The government would design the new system to be put to referendum before the referendum campaign starts, according to the committee’s recommendation. The recommendation sets a benchmark for the alternative proposal according to the Gallagher index, a scale designed to measure the difference between ballots cast and seats won.

I think there was an earlier post I had here that discussed the Gallagher index, in which it was determined that AV was the worst.  So, needless to say, if they do proceed with a referendum, then AV won't be an option, which is good.  Be interesting to see if they go with MMP or if they decide upon the Rural-Urban system that Fair Vote advocates.

Doug Woodard wrote:

...Under proportional representation, we try to make as many of the votes as possible count....

Then why not use that as the slogan, rather than the patently false 'Make every vote count'?

Doug Woodard wrote:

...Government is by the representatives of the majority of the people. The incentives favour respect for minorities and a collegial style of government. Switzerland is the type case, where the "President of Switzerland" is the annually rotating chair of the inner cabinet which is elected by the legislature, possibly the ultimate form of responsible government.

Your argument is like "Pesky isn't perfect, therefore he should be hanged."

Number one, we don't need incentives to respect minorities. We have a constitution that guarantees minorities the same rights as everyone else.

It was nice of you to mention the 'collegial style' of the Swiss government, but why didn't you mention the Greek, or the Italian, or the Spanish, or the Israeli, or the Portugese governments.? Not collegial enough for you?

And as far as hanging 'Pesky', it is you who want to 'hang' FPTP because it 'isn't perfect'. My argument is that PR systems are not enough of an improvement over FPTP to make a change worthwhile.

I've also argued, with plenty of evidence, that PR systems have their own problems, and that changing systems is just changing one set of problems for a different set of problems.

By all means, hang Pesky if that solves the problem. But even those in favour of hanging Pesky because he's a pain in the ass, must realize that in the warm afterglow of the hanging, problems will still exist.

And by the way, speaking of untrammeled power, the example of Stephen Harper is a good one. With all the untrammeled power of a false majority government courtesy of FPTP, Harper didn't manage to achieve a single one of the major objectives of his party's supporters. You might ask yourself why. 

No electoral reform until enough Canadians want it, Monsef says

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/no-electoral-reform-until-enough-canadian...

"We're committed to this initiative, but we're not going to move forward unless we have the broad support of the people of this country for whom we're making this change," Monsef said.

****

Let us be blunt here:

There will never be a groundswell of support for changes to the mechanics of voting. We cannot get more than 60% to even bother voting at all. Any government waiting for "enough support" can always set the bar well above what realistically it can ever be.

We will never get a government elected to a majority government by a minority of voters willing to do this. Electoral reform went out on election night when the Liberals got their majority.

If you want electoral reform you will have to support third parties in order to try to get a minority government so that there is a party with some power that did do particularly well under the existing system.

Let's also be blunt about parties: I don't think that we can be certain any party will be that different on this. The Conservatives will always be opposed as minorities are most threatening for them (without natural allies). Liberals are ever hopeful of a false majority and likely cannot be counted on in this generation anyway. The NDP might be the most likely given their history of being short-changed federally, but they are not automatically trustworthy. They have failed to press the issue in provincial contexts and if they had a majority I would not hold my breath.

It comes down to any party that has the power to do something is unlikely to do it becuase they can get that power under this system. Any party that might be so inclined thinks that way because the system makes it impossible for them to do anything with that inclination.

Thre is little reason to see change coming.

One possible change could be towards internet voting. This might possibly make it so easy that those who support no-hope parties may actually vote. Perhaps that, in turn, could eventually lead to minority government and further change. but who knows. Perhaps seeing this we will block making it easy for people to vote. Vote suppression works well and those who win in this system must understand that.

Those who have power and advantage want to keep it. Why be suprised at the sham they will put up pretending different.

The Liberals have been more about theatre than reality for decades. They want your vote becuase they care but please, do not expect them to do anything with that. The fact that the qualification for leader includes being a drama teacher might somehow be appropriate.

So the next time we might imagine seeing a minority NDP government with a broken Liberal party in third place, let's discuss this again. If either gets a majority then we lay this aside for a future generation. Sound good?

I think the point is would any party following an election put on the table a policy (and not sabaotage it) that gives up the advantage that just gave them government?

I am skeptical.

I am not making this about either the Liberals or the NDP. I am making it about a change that we want that I think would require a minority government with a motivated third party. That is the so-called winning condition.

Sorry if I do not rush to say well the NDP, if they had just won a majority like the present one, would have done different. I can hope they would but I cannot know. I do believe that if we were in a minority situation we would have the reform.

Hard as it may be, we might want to simply say that a minority government is a prerequisite to any kind of meaningful reform.

I am identifying a dynamic rather than a political party.

As for the Liberals -- I would not trust them in any case so there is no point me spending time making this about them. However, I lack certainty in trusting anyone else so I advance a dynamic -- winning condition: having a party with a role in power other than a false majority government. AKA minority.

This I would trust more. Not everyone acts in their own interest but they do more often than not.

swallow wrote:

Well, I'd recommend: 

Letters to: [email protected]

cc. your own MP _especially_ if Liberal 

cc. [email protected]

The Liberal promise: 

Quote:

We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.

We will convene an all-party Parliamentary committee to review a wide variety of reforms, such as ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting, and online voting.

This committee will deliver its recommendations to Parliament. Within 18 months of forming government, we will introduce legislation to enact electoral reform.

https://www.liberal.ca/realchange/electoral-reform/

Ensuring no more FPTP elections. Legislation within 18 months. Tick, tick, tick.

A few letters will not balance self interest and that is what has taken over. The Liberals will hunker down and weather this. The public ought to have expected it. It is not up to us to make the Liberals different by pleading with them since no matter how many letters they get the calculus of self interest will not change. It is up to us to not trust a false majority with a promise to give up its advantage. You want change -- elect a minority. Do it on purpose.

And of course you risk with this, the wrong two parties getting together. But that is the only realistic option. Letters to the Liberals are probably wasted effort on this topic -- although not on others. Building community values, ideas, rebuilding a more dynamic NDP and other efforts are more likely to pay off.

Hold the Liberals to the fire in the next election on this promise, of course.

mark_alfred wrote:

Every action people take, be it emailing or calling their MP, or attending the town halls, is good.  The fact that so many did attend the town halls and the ERRE consultations in favour of PR is what has led to the Liberals looking so hypocritical on this, IMO.   Important to keep the pressure up.

Emails to MPs are not public so I don't see them as helpful.

Attending town halls is public and helpful.

Letters to the editor even comment sections and social media also good.

Petitions would be good.

A demo might even work.

I am not sure that a private letter to an MP would make a difference.

Letters to non-Liberal MPs might be helpful -- NDP MPs would collect them and raise the issue.

I guess I am skeptical about the Members from the Liberals doing anything to justify that effort.

jjuares wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

Every action people take, be it emailing or calling their MP, or attending the town halls, is good.  The fact that so many did attend the town halls and the ERRE consultations in favour of PR is what has led to the Liberals looking so hypocritical on this, IMO.   Important to keep the pressure up.

I attended one of the meetings. In fact Monsef sat at our table for awhile. I am disappointed to see the backing away from their promise but not surprised. At the meeting it was virtually unanimous in favour of PR.

My guess is this is a political decision made at the very, very top. By this I mean maybe above Trudeau. A party decision from the backroom.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

jjuares wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

Every action people take, be it emailing or calling their MP, or attending the town halls, is good.  The fact that so many did attend the town halls and the ERRE consultations in favour of PR is what has led to the Liberals looking so hypocritical on this, IMO.   Important to keep the pressure up.

I attended one of the meetings. In fact Monsef sat at our table for awhile. I am disappointed to see the backing away from their promise but not surprised. At the meeting it was virtually unanimous in favour of PR.

My guess is this is a political decision made at the very, very top. By this I mean maybe above Trudeau. A party decision from the backroom.

http://angusreid.org/electoral-reform/

Poll on electoral reform voting systems.

Quote:

I am not sure how you can know without hearing all the questions and introduction to the survey.

See this pdf for more detail:

http://angusreid.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2016.11.28_Electoral_Ref...

Angus Reid's analysis was that MMP and LPR were equally preferred to FPTP.  FPTP was seen as the easiest with the clearest ballot.  All the PR systems (except Rural Urban, which presumably people found too confusing) were seen as better at representing people's votes.  Most see changing the electoral system as a low prioirty.  Most feel a referendum is necessary to change the system.

We have at hand an excellent way to demonstrate how superior a PR voting system is to FPTP. The government has just made announcement on pipelines, approving some and not approving others.

The question is, what would be the difference in the outcome if the parliament had been elected by a PR voting system? 

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/crawford-electoral-reform-wo...

Quote:

Crawford: Electoral reform would actually help the Liberals make better decisions

The biggest obstacle in this regard [implementing PR] may not be cynical self-serving calculation as much as sincere self-delusion. Many politicians simply refuse to believe the (counter-intuitive) truth that they would generally make better decisions if they were more constrained by the need to maintain support by representatives of an actual majority.

This belief that greater discretion or agency on the part of the political executive equals better policy is contradicted by both the most serious cross-national research and the Liberals’ own sterling record of productive, activist minority governments. Yet it remains the unreflective default position of most political leaders in this country.

Rev Pesky wrote:

We have at hand an excellent way to demonstrate how superior a PR voting system is to FPTP. The government has just made announcement on pipelines, approving some and not approving others.

The question is, what would be the difference in the outcome if the parliament had been elected by a PR voting system? 

I think under a PR system the current government would be a coalition government elected by a much larger percentage of the vote. This government would most likely have been a Liberal-NDP coalition government with the Liberals as the senior partner. So the current decision on pipelines would have been decided by political parties representing a large majority of the voters instead of a minority of the voters. So this coalition government would have likely consideried a much larger group of voters in coming to their decision. As it is the Liberals can cater to just the 39% of the voters who elected them or just 27% of eligible voters in order to maintain their majority government status that gives them 100% political power. Also under FPTP, in the next election the Liberals will be able to tell voters that in order to keep the Conservatives from regaining power they should vote strategically for the Liberals and not for the NDP, BQ, or Green eventhough these parties views on pipelines differ from the Liberals. And because of FPTP strategic voting will once again be a majour part of yet another federal election and it will unfortunately make up many more threads here on Babble during Election 2019. Maybe a slogan from the pro-PR side should be "let's stop talking endlessly about strategic voting during our elections?"

Committee recommends PR, referendum

Well what about it all of you Lib shills posting on this board? Yea or Nay? If yea, then tell us why. Why are you hiding? It wouldn't be because you know this is indefensible, is it? And don't try and blame this on the NDP. NO ONE forced Le Dauphin to make the promise he did. Well? We're waiting!

sherpa-finn wrote:

A busy day on the electoral reform file:

Committee report released.

Liberal Minority report released. 

Minister ducks and weaves in QP.

And the silence on Babble is deafening ....  

 

What more is there to say?

Many of us predicted this onelection night or soon after. Self interest for the Liberals will guide the result. It just takes a while for the rhetoric to catch up. Now it has.

But, the problem is, they knew the Liberals wanted to lose the game and their actions actually helped the Liberals lose the game.  That's where the opposition, or at least the Greens and NDP have failed.  They outzigged the Liberals at the front end about the parliamentary committee composition. They should have known that if the Liberals didn't control the committee, the Liberals would disavow any report - one within the parameters of the committee's work for failing to present a recommended system, or another report that did recommend a system for jumping the gun and going beyond the terms of reference of the committee.

But I think anyone with a smidgen of political awareness in this country knew that this reform pledge was simply signposting from the Liberals to show left leaning voters they shared their general value-set, and the argument that the pledge was also made in the context of getting rid of Harper.

I agree that the test failed, but I think that to the average Canadian that doesn't care super much about electoral reform the opposition wears the failure.  I think I've not been clear.  I'm suggesting this:

Everyone knew the Liberals, once elected, would not want electoral reform.  This should be the basis for any and all movement by the opposition on this file from day one of the Leg coming back after the last election.

We were never going to get a report that advocated for meaningful reform.  So the next best thing, then, for proponents of alternative voting systems, is to show the Liberals for what they really are on this file: complete phonies.

If the Liberals had run the committee like originally planned, it would have put pressure on the Liberals to find a craft a report that needled their way out of their pledge on electoral reform.  The opposition could have cried foul over the contents, blamed the Liberals for stacking the deck, fudging the report,  misrepresenting representations, and ignoring the will of Canadians, etc.

If the report advocated for ranked ballots, they could cry that the Liberals were picking a system that would result in their eternal victory and becoming practically a one party state.  If the report said nothign or proposed no changes, they could say the Liberals were going back on their committment.  If the answer was more study, they could cry that the Liberals were running the clock.  More consultation? They're ragging the puck. Etc. The pressure is on the Liberals in this situation.

Instead, by clamouring for a committee of equal partners, opposition took all these political risks onto themselves.

Liberal hypocrisy would have been much much much clearer had they been the authors of their own demise.  The problem now is that they are not - and we're here looking at formulas, talking about the Gallagher index, and parsing the committee's terms of reference and why the committee did not recommend a voting system.

We're left challenging the narrative that the only concensus is no consensus - and don't underestimate this, for most Canadians they don't care about the voting system and to them this is a very, very effective talking point.

In the next election, the opposition will go after Trudeau on this and he'll be able to say something like we let them run with it and they couldn't even come up with a recommendation.  If the opposition can't run a committee and come up with a clear recommendation, how can we trust our parties to have effective governance under p.r. blah blah blah?  And, um, who got rid of Harper?  Oh yeah, us. etc. blah blah blah

Sometimes it's like the Liberals are always one step ahead of the opposition.  Politically, way smarter.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/12/02/trudeau-insists-election-...

The no doubt rehearsed good cop bad cop routine of Trudeau and Monsef allowed Trudeau to avoid directly commenting on the substance of the report, and instead be sidelined by commenting on Monsef and subsequently introducing the Liberal's inane postcard "values" initiative.  To me it looks like even though the Liberal committee members themselves did not recommend AV, that Trudeau is still interested in pushing for this.

Quote:

I think the Conservatives on the committee completely support keeping FPTP and are completely opposed to PR.

I think you're wrong on that.  I'm pretty sure Scott Reid supported PR.  The Cons are certainly more open to PR than AV.

Regarding referendums, I myself don't feel it's necessary.  But, most polls show that the population at large does, and that includes Liberal or NDP supporters.  The report's recommendations should be followed.

Scott Reid seems quite open to it when he speaks, though true, I've not heard him actually declare it as a preference.  Here's an interview with Reid (you'll have to scroll down to find it):  http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.387...

Quote:

And why should Liberals support something they clearly don't believe in?

I have never heard that they don't believe in it.  It was an option for consideration in their platform.  They set up the committee to research the various options, including speaking with experts.  To then ignore the results would be odd, don't you think? 

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-problem-with-maryam-monsefs-c...

Quote:

Monsef’s ‘math is hard’ moment is an odd position for a cabinet minister in a proud science-friendly, evidence-based party to be taking