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Tom Monto

2016 Denis Pilon: How our present system fails us

From Dennis Pilon's evidence to the 2016 House of Commons Special Committee on electoral reform


(3:40) We have heard from many that there is no perfect voting system but that does not mean that there are not imperfect ones, like First Past The Post, particularly from a democratic point of view.


Although we called our system "representative democracy," under FPTP our voting system fails to represent effectively.

It misrepresents the popular support for parties.

It leaves over half the voters contributing to the election of no one.

It typically results in the minority of voters dominating the majority.

It limits political competition.


With such lousy representation, how democratic can the system be?


Our system was not designed to be democratic. Its origins are in the pre-democratic era, and it has been kept in place out of electoral self-interest.


[On the other hand] PR systems were devised to represent votes effectively...


[4:35] How we structure the debate on electoral reform tends to set the form of the debate that follows.


People think that majority governments represent the majority of voters when in fact we know that is seldom the case. [Only six federal majority governments in the history of Canada had the support of a majority of the voters.]


There are many arguments in favour of our system - just they are not democratic ones.


Let's look at what people want do with their vote. It seems clear they want their views represented. So we need a system that does that most effectively.


The district system we use means that proximate voters, those close together, have advantage over dispersed voters. And that affects all parties. Each party finds itself ruined in parts of the country where their scattered vote cannot make common cause due to dispersion and the district system.


[9:00] This leads to wasted votes, distorted representation of parties and typically produces a majority government that a majority of Canadians do not actually support. This is wrong because it is undemocratic. It is unrepresentative, and it violates basic notions of democratic rule.


if we compare ourselves to others, we should compare ourselves to Western European countries and to New Zealand, countries that have political cultures similar to our own.

...

[11:00] And arguments against reform do not stand up to reasonable analysis. Speculation that PR will lead to perplexity, instability, too much stability, lack of local influence, etc. -- all these things can be seen to be without foundation.


[11:45] Change to PR would immediately increase political competition, lead to larger voter turn-out, lead to improvements in representation of diversity...


Voters are not ideological. They do not wave a right or a left banner, but they do arrive at conclusions on which party represents their values. And that determines to large measure how they vote in elections.


Do you vote on local member?

40 percent of the voters say yes

But what if the local member is not of the party you support?

Much fewer people vote based on the sitting local member.


[so the election of representation proportional to parties' vote tallies would do much to produce the effects that people want to see in the electoral system.]


Prof. Dennis Pilon wrote in his brief to the committee :

"Only some form of proportional representation can address the concerns that have given rise to this reform initiative.


Only PR can make every vote count, equalize individual Canadians’ voting power, accurately represent the party choices Canadians make with their votes, better the representation of diversity, and assure that governments must reach out to create a broad coalition of support to pass legislation.


Such a change neither requires nor warrants a national referendum to pass. Indeed, voter equality is a first order principle that should not be put to a referendum. [TM: I agree - Allowing a minority to rule on giving more power to the majority hardly seems fair.)


The reform of the voting system is not a constitutional matter and could easily be introduced by government as simple legislation.


Finally, the choice of a voting system is not simply a matter of taste but a test of the state’s willingness to recast its institutions to further the democratic will. The choice should be based on how best to realize and reflect what Canadians communicate through the electoral process."


I want to apologize for any variance between what I thought I heard and what Pilon thought he said, if any.

Check out the recording yourself at

https://www.cpac.ca/en/programs/in-committee-house-of-commons/episodes/48479621/#


Thanks for reading.

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