Manitoba was the first province in Canada to adopt a form of proportional representation in its elections. It was the first in North America to use PR for election of legislators.
The system used was Single Transferable Voting, a district-based form of PR that was voter-driven and used transferable votes to avoid waste of votes.
A generally well-written article, published in 2011, presented the whens and whys of Manitoba's adoption of this unusual method of fair voting.
This article is by Bruce Cherney -- "A different way of voting - proportional representation system was once used in provincial elections," [Winnipeg] Real Estate News, Aug. 12, 2011 (online).
I publish it here with what I think are important correctives.
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A different way of voting -
proportional representation system was once used in provincial elections
Bruce Cherney
Former Manitoba Premier Duff Roblin was among a generation of politicians who had been elected under a proportional system. Before he passed away on May 30, 2010, Roblin told the Winnipeg Real Estate News, he was neither a fan of such a system nor would he have endorsed its reintroduction to the province.
“It was not a good idea for Winnipeg,” he said. “It emasculated Winnipeg’s vote.”
By the time he led the Conservatives to power in the province in 1958, Manitoba’s experiment with proportional representation had ended with most considering it an abject failure.
[I doubt that most Manitobans considered it an abject failure. (For one thing, most Manitobans probably didn't even think about it!) In fact judging by the representation elected during this period, the evident fairness, the low number of wasted votes, the high proportion of satisfied voters, it looks like a very successful experience. Its abandonment -- if it had any legitimate rationale -- was based on the political greed of people like Roblin and not on its failure to achieve its intended goals.]
In 1920, Winnipeg was made into one large constituency where 10 candidates were elected at large by using a preferential voting system, the hallmark of proportional representation, or PR.
[In actuality, preferential voting is not a hallmark of proportional representation, or PR. Only a few countries in the world use preferential voting for election of legislators. But many -- more than a hundred countries around the world -- use PR. Most PR countries use party-list PR, which does not involve voters casting preferential votes. And, as Cherney goes on to say, preferential voting was later used in Manitoba in a non-PR setting.]
In contrast, rural ridings still elected Members of the Manitoba Legislature by the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. It wasn’t until 1927 that preferential voting was introduced into rural Manitoba, but single constituencies were retained, meaning that unlike Winnipeg, one member was elected for each riding.
[This is the system called Alternative Voting or Instant Runoff Voting. It was first used in Manitoba rural districts in 1927. This seems like long time after the adoption of PR in 1920 but PR was used by itself only in 1920 and 1922 elections, then followed a five-year pause with no general provincial election so that accounts for the long-delayed appearance of AV. AV was actually adopted in 1923. It was just not used in general election until 1927. AV was on the table for use in by-elections but preferential votes were not needed until later. Preferential votes are not used if there are only two candidates or if a candidate wins seat by acclamation in uncontested election.
There were no by-elections where more than two candidates contested a seat until after the 1927 general election. There were by-elections before 1927 but none were contested by more than two candidates.
The 1927 election saw Alternative Voting used for the first time. AV's vote transfers changed the outcome in just one district.
In most the candidate that lead in votes in the first count had a majority and was declared elected immediately.
In a few others, no candidate had majority in the first count but the leader in the first count went on to win in the end.
Vote transfers changed the outcome in one district. In Morden and Rhineland, a Progressive candidate led in the first count but vote transfers from the eliminated Liberal candidate made the Conservative candidate the winner.
The only other "turn-over" was in St. Boniface but this was due to a recount. The candidate that was in the lead in the first count almost was unseated by vote transfers but then a recount re-established him as the winner.
His name was Joseph Bernier, and his political career was affected by Alternative Voting on two occasions.
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Effect of preferential voting on the career of St. Boniface's Joseph Benier
The political career of St. Boniface MLA Bernier was affected by preferential voting.
Bernier resigned to run in the federal election in 1926. His seat sat empty until the general election the following year - so a by-election, using preferential voting or otherwise, was not held there and then.
from Wikipedia: Joseph Bernier
"Bernier ran again for the provincial constituency of St. Boniface in the 1927 provincial election, this time as an official candidate of the Manitoba Conservative Party. This campaign ended in controversy, with a ballot-counting process marred by confusion and error. [perhaps there ware a large number of spoiled ballots due to the voters still being in-experienced with preferential voting.]
Liberal candidate L.P. Gagnon was initially declared the winner by one vote, but a recount saw Bernier confirmed as the victor. [Recounts resulting in a new winner happen occasionally even under FPTP so no blame should go to PR for this.]
He returned to the legislature, and rejoined the Conservative caucus on the opposition benches....
Bernier lost his seat in the 1932 election, falling to Labour candidate Harold Lawrence by 504 votes. He actually won a plurality of votes on the first count, [but did not take the majority of votes that is needed to win the seat under AV.] He fell behind on transfers." [Lawrence thus was determined to be the more-popular overall choice of the voters, and under AV was declared the winner.]
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[returning to Cherney's article:]
"The system of proportional representation adopted in Manitoba was based on a plan proposed by English lawyer Thomas Hare in the late 19th-century. Hare’s aim was to give each voter an equal voice in the election of representatives, and in multi-member ridings to give smaller parties a better chance of representation in an assembly.
[I would instead say:
STV provides approximately proportional representation, ensuring that all substantial groups, including minority factions, have some representation. No one party or voting block can take all the seats in a district. The key to STV's achievement of proportionality is that each voter only casts one single vote, in a district election electing multiple winners. STV always has multi-member districts.]
Preferential voting refers to the system of marking ballots with choices 1, 2, 3, etc., depending upon the number of candidates running.
The Manitoba model was in answer to the findings of the Mathers Commission investigating industrial relations in Canada, which, in turn, was a response to the labour unrest in the nation that manifested itself most evidently in the Winnipeg General Strike of May-June 1919.
After the First World War, labour began to demand a “square deal.” [Actually they had demanded a square deal earlier but had not had the critical strength needed to be heard.]
To address the concerns of labour, one recommendation from the commission was the introduction of voting by proportional representation in order to give workers a greater political voice.
Into the mix were thrown farmers and returning war veterans who also wanted to be heard in the halls of government. In the case of the veterans, they were either unemployed in massive numbers or poorly paid in their jobs due to the eruption of an economic recession following the war. [As well, they were going through re-adjustment to civilian life and having to take up the threads of their old lives or start new ones.]
The veterans played a significant role in the Winnipeg General Strike, with the ordinary troops taking the side of the strikers, while the officers sided with business interests, which was a reflection of the deep divisions then existing within Canadian society.
The movement toward proportional representation in Canada was endorsed by the Great War Veterans’ Association, the Canadian Council of Agriculture, the Labour Party, Social Service Councils and other reform groups.
[There actually was no national labour party at this time - that would not happen until the founding of the CCF in 1932. Manitoba's Independent Labour Party did support PR.]
In Manitoba, among those supporting the voting system were the United Farmers of Manitoba and numerous labour organizations. [Here's where Cherney could have mentioned the Independent Labour Party, Manitoba's labour party.]
Business groups also gave their endorsement in order to curtail the rise of more militant labour groups such as the One Big Union (OBU). It was the belief of business that proportional representation would result in the election of “moderate” labour candidates — which was mentioned in the Mathers report — and prevent the outbreak of a “Bolshevik-style” revolution. For business, advocating PR was more of a strategic move rather than acceptance of the alleged merits of the voting system. [Actually all, or at least most, of the groups supporting PR did so as a strategic move - to get representation for their members who were ignored and un-represented under the two-party straitjacket that was FPTP. They wanted PR so they would get representation, and they wanted representation so that they could get redress of the laws and conditions that were harming workers and farmers, the weak, the young, the old and ill. Wanting PR because it is fair is moral but it is not the usual rationale for supporting the reform.]
Even Clifford Sifton, the Brandon MP who was the Minister of the Interior under Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, endorsed proportional representation at the federal level. He proposed a PR plan to have two-thirds of the MPs in the House of Commons elected in single-seat constituencies and one-third elected on the basis of party popular support. [This is a form of Mixed Member Proportional.]
The federal Liberals adopted PR as party policy following the death of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who had been prime minister from 1896 to 1911, on February 17, 1919.
The party was in turmoil at this time so it had little to lose by endorsing what was becoming a growing popular movement. After Laurier’s death, Mackenzie King became the leader of the Liberals and the party began a near-miraculous resurrection, defeating the Arthur Meighen-led Conservatives at the polls in 1921. Meighen had replaced Sir Robert Borden as leader of the Union government, but his time as prime minister only lasted a few months.
[Here Cherney gives the background of the 1921 election:]
During the First World War, many Liberals had joined the ranks of the Union government formed by Prime Minister Borden. The issue that split the party was the conscription crisis with some English-speaking MPs who favoured conscription transferring their alliance to the Borden government. As a result, eight Liberals were in the federal cabinet.
Future Liberal, Thomas A. Crerar, a Winnipeg MP, was appointed as the minister of agriculture in the Union government. On June 6, 1919, Crerar became disillusioned with Borden and the Unionist high tariff policy, resigning from the cabinet and helping to form the National Progressive Party, which advocated policies such as free trade with the United States and the implementation of proportional representation.
[1921 election]
But the Liberal resurgence and the massive electoral defeat of Meighen’s government (the Liberals won 117 seats, the Progressives 64 and the Tories were a distant third with just 50 seats) allowed King to conveniently forget about implementing proportional representation to the chagrin of the Progressives who propped up his minority government. PR soon became a Liberal afterthought. [We can note here that the 1921 election was held using un-proportional First Past The Post. King won a slight majority of seats while receiving only 41 percent of the vote. Progressives took 21 percent of the vote and 25 percent of the seats; Conservatives took 30 percent of the vote and only 21 percent of the seats.]
By this time, civic elections in Winnipeg were run under a proportional representation model, setting the stage for such a system’s expansion to the higher levels of government. [By this time Winnipeg had been electing its city councillors and its MLAs through STV. And had been doing so for a full year. So STV had already been extended to a higher level of government. In fact Manitoba used STV in a provincial election for the first time (in June 1920) prior to using it for the first time in a city election (in December 1920).]
[Cherney then goes back to 1919, when Sifton called for the Mixed Member Proportional system described above]
Since Sifton owned the Manitoba Free Press, his Liberal-friendly newspaper became a PR advocate.
In a July 4, 1919 editorial, the Free Press claimed one large constituency should be adopted in each major Canadian city during federal elections, “returning three or more members. Voting should be by order of preference marked on one ballot comprising an alphabetical list of all candidates for this three or more vacancies. In the result a laborite or other minority voting party voting solidly for its own candidates would obtain one, two or three members according to the strength in the electorate and the support it might obtain from the other elements.” [It is also true to say "a majority voting party voting solidly for its own candidates would obtain one, two or three members according to the strength in the electorate and the support it might obtain from the other elements." So really it is better to say "each party or other voting block voting solidly for its own candidates would obtain one, two or three members according to the strength in the electorate and the support it might obtain from the other elements.” ]
In the same editorial, the newspaper encouraged the Liberal government of Premier T.C. Norris to “apply the Hare system to one large urban district of this province at the next provincial election ...”
As it turned out, this is exactly what the Manitoba government did as part of its overall scheme of electoral reform, which had seen women receiving the vote in January 1916, making it the first province to legislate universal suffrage in Canada. [Manitoba is said to be the first to give women the vote (although Treaty Indian women would not get the vote for many decades yet) but we should not that it was one of the last to let women use the vote. By the time Manitoba held its first election where women could vote, other provinces had already held their first elections where women (barring Treaty Indian women) could vote. Two Alberta women were the first elected in the British Empire back in 1917, three years before the first woman voted in a Manitoba general provincial election. Treaty Indians and others - such as Asian men and women - did not get the vote until much later. Sarah Carter's book Ours by Every Law of Right and Justice outlines the fight for suffrage as a right won only for some.]
According to the amendment to the Manitoba Election Act, which made its way through the legislature in March 1920, a Winnipeg candidate was elected by dividing “the total number of valid paper votes polled in a division by a number exceeding by one the number of members to be elected and the result, increased by one, disregarding any fractions, shall be the number of votes sufficient to return a candidate.”
The rather confusing amendment can be readily translated as meaning that for the 1920 provincial election [Winnipeg would] be one big constituency (previously there had been six single-seat ridings in the city), [Actually previously Winnipeg had been three two-member districts, with each seat filled independently through separate contests. The voters in each district had been allowed to vote in both contests in the district.]
[T]he returning officer set a quota derived by totalling the votes and dividing by 10 [actually 11] and adding one vote. If any candidate received [as many votes as] the quota, he or she was declared elected. [As well, at the end of the process, the last few remaining candidate were declared elected whether or not they had quota. In 1920, three MLAs were elected in Winnipeg with fewer votes than the quota.]
The system became more complicated when a candidate during the first count obtained more first place choices than required to be elected, which was called a surplus. All the candidate’s votes were sorted out according to second choices. Any ballots without second choices were set aside and were not used during the subsequent counts. The second choices were then allotted to the candidate for whom they were indicated, but not in their entirety. A complicated mathematical formula was used to portion the second choices with the remaining candidates receiving their share of the successful candidate’s surplus. [it isn't that complicated -- just multiply the number of surplus votes by the fraction made up of the number of the candidates' votes and the total number of votes held by the winning candidate to see how much is transferred to each candidate.]
When [if] there was no surplus to portion out, the low candidate was dropped and all his or her votes were distributed based upon second choices.
The process continued until 10 candidates received the necessary quota [or until there are only as many surviving candidates as the number of remaining open seats.]
In the 1920 election, it took 37 counts before 10 out of 41 candidates were elected in Winnipeg [actually the last three were elected after the 37th count when the number of candidates was reduced to the number of remaining open seats. Three were elected in the first two counts.]
Only Labour Party candidate Fred Dixon and Liberal candidate Thomas Johnson were declared elected in the first count. The other candidates had to exercise extreme patience until their eventual fate was determined. [In 1920, the third candidate was declared elected on the second count, so his wait was not that long.]
In 1932, it took two days to count all the ballots before a result could be announced.
Since the government realized that voters would be confused by the great number of candidates on the single ballot, it was decided to have the candidates listed alphabetically and their party affiliation indicated by colours: red for Liberal, blue for Conservative, pea green for Labour and Socialist, and Independent in black.
[Cherney here provides background of Manitoba's adoption of STV]
When proportional representation was introduced in Manitoba, the Norris government was facing the growth of the United Farmers of Manitoba (UFM), a rural-based small-c conservative movement opposed to traditional party politics. Individual members were expected to vote on the merits of a particular piece of legislation rather than along party lines — so-called “free votes.”
As its name implied, it was primarily interested in rural issues, but also called for fiscal restraint and a pay-as-you-go system of government.
Norris led a reform government which brought in such legislation as the vote for [some] women, a minimum wage, compulsory education, a temperance act, a rural farm credit, a mothers’ allowance and public health nursing. Since its landslide election in 1915 (55 per cent of the vote and 40 of 46 seats — a result not since equalled)...
[Note that the landslide victory was un-proportional. The government won many seats - a majority - but not all that many votes. 55 percent of the vote is not an actual landslide.]
... the Norris government led Canada in social, labour and political reform legislation, resulting in it being the most proactive in Manitoba’s history to this day. Norris also introduced an Initiative and Referendum Act, which allowed voters to write their own laws and then have them subjected to a province-wide referendum, but this act was declared unconstitutional by the courts.
But the social and labour legislation proved costly and led to three deficits in the first five years of the Norris government’s existence. It also didn’t help that a recession struck in 1920. [The two things are not un-related.]
While the PR amendment was a reaction to a growing populist movement, the Norris government also considered such a voting system as a potential method to rekindle their flagging political support. It was a false hope as the results of the 1920 election showed.
In the 1920 election, the UFM won 12 seats despite running candidates in only 26 of 55 ridings. [The number of candidate a party runs has very little to do with how many seats they win, other than of course setting a ceiling.]
The Conservatives took seven seats, Labour 11 and four independents were elected. The Liberals formed a minority government by electing 21 [members]. It was a disastrous result for the Liberals, who lost nearly half the seats they held prior to the election. [The result was very proportional. The vote was fractured among several parties, each party got approximately its due portion of the seats. The Liberals received about 20 percent less of the vote than it had received in 1915 so that accounts for its decimation. However available info concerning this election does not tell me whether Liberals received more or fewer votes than the party received in 1915. Smaller portion, yes, but absolute numbers of votes - not known.]
An editorial in July 5, 1920, Free Press ran under the headline, PR Vindicated, asserting that the election had demonstrated the “practicability and merits of Proportional Representation.” The editorial called for PR to be expanded into rural Manitoba, which didn’t occur until seven years later. [actually electoral reform came to rural parts three years later, when rural parts got IRV, but PR was never extended outside of Winnipeg until 1949 when PR was extended to St. Boniface.].
When PR reached rural Manitoba, individual constituencies were retained and candidates in each riding were elected by a single transferable vote (STV), a voting process far less cumbersome than the one used in Winnipeg. [actually the system adopted for rural districts was Alternative Voting/IRV.]
“Some of the advantages of the new system are very apparent,” continued the editorial.
“In the first place Proportional Representation eliminated the excitement and bitterness from the election campaign; the knowledge that each party could only get its fair proportion, and no more, of the available seats made the old-time strategy and electioneering useless; it also saved thousands of dollars which would have been spent in pushing the individual candidates, and it enabled the electors to approach the ballots with a calmness of mind which gave them an opportunity to cast their votes with the greatest possible understanding and intelligence; the trifling number of spoiled ballots is an eloquent testimonial to the fact that the electors were cool and clear-headed when they went to the polls.”
On the other hand, the newspaper did admit that the presence of so many candidates on the ballots did make the voting process “a formidable affair.”
The fractured legislature meant little consensus was reached [It seems the Liberals did not negotiate a coalition or a deal with other parties. PR does often produce minority government and these work just fine as long as the leading party works out a deal with other parties to get enough votes in the chamber of power to stay in power. Prime Minister Lester Pearson of the 1960s was good at that and his minority federal government was very effective and productive. His minority government established many of the iconic Canadian laws we have today. ]
The Norris government fell two years later when it lost a vote of confidence.
[After the 1920 election] The UFM could have formed the Official Opposition, but refused, a signal that partisan politics in Manitoba was coming to an end. [This showed that the traditional two-party system was at an end, not that partisan politics was over. Once the UFM ran candidates it began to participate in partisan politics. Coalitions are not non-partisan - not really. The appearance of coalitions marked an end to single-party domination. It ended the historical pattern of single-party dictatorships. It meant a more-open collaborationist style of government, one where most of the voters were represented by the parties in power.]
What arose was an era of non-partisan UFM government and coalitions under a variety of banners, including UFM, Progressive, Liberal-Progressive or simply Liberal, all of which fell under the term Brackenism, derived from the political philosophy of Premier John Bracken. [More on this in another blog.]
This era only ended in 1958 with the election of Duff Roblin and the Conservatives in the first election after PR was dropped.
Under the PR system, the coalition governments formed by Bracken and by those who adopted his philosophy stayed in power from 1922 to 1958 with only one hiccup in 1936.
[In 1936 even the Bracken-led multi-party coalition did not have a majority of the seats.]
Following the 1936 election, the government had 22 seats, the Conservatives 16, the CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the forerunner of the NDP) six, Social Credit five, while three Independents and one Communist were elected. Bracken stayed in power when the Social Credit MLAs helped the premier form a coalition government. This allowed Brackenism to survive another five years before another election had to be called.
In 1942, Bracken left for Ottawa to lead the federal Conservative Party under the condition that it be renamed the Progressive Conservative Party.
[In 1949 Winnipeg was broken down into three multi-member districts]
Roblin wrote in his memoirs, Speaking for Myself, that as many as 10 to 12 names could appear on the ballot for each of Winnipeg’s [three] constituencies in 1949 with only four candidates elected in each riding. [actually 10 to 12 names are not so many. Winnipeg voters had dealt successfully with a ballot bearing 41 names in 1920.]
In the 1953 provincial election, the ballot for Winnipeg Central was 18 inches long since 14 candidates were running in the four-member riding. At the time, there were three constituencies in Winnipeg with each electing four members, while St. Boniface was a single riding electing two members to the legislature.
Roblin was nominated to run in 1949 as a Progressive Conservative (PC) candidate for Winnipeg South.
“I laid it on the line that I was running against my own party, which was part of the coalition, and I explained to the (nomination) meeting why good government required a return to to the traditional parliamentary operations in our legislature.”
The PCs also nominated a pro-coalition candidate, Alec Stringer. “Either the South Winnipeg Progressive Conservatives were hedging their bets, or they didn’t know which way they really wanted to go,” wrote Roblin.
[Having multi-member districts meant that each party ran a range of candidates and voters had wide selection - not just different parties but even choice of different candidates within a party. For example, they had a choice between coalition-PC candidates and non-coalition PC candidates, such as Roblin.]
[history of Bracken's coalition]
Bracken had convinced Errick Willis, the leader of the PCs, to join his coalition government. The Liberals had joined the coalition in the 1930s.
In an October 15, 1940, letter Bracken wrote Willis and the leaders of the other opposition parties: “In whatever we may do in this connection, if anything, there is involved no sacrifice or compromise of principles on your party or our own ... We are not today only CCF-Labor or Liberal-Progressive or Conservative or Social Credit, but rather Canadians and democrats and freemen. Our cause, even Manitoba’s cause, is at this time greater than your party or our own.”
Bracken was appealing to the patriotism of the other parties at a time when Canada was at war with the Axis powers. He also cited a need for a united front as the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Rowell-Sirois Commission) prepared its report on the financial difficulties of provinces such as Manitoba. His arguments were intended to make his coalition sound more palatable. Combined with their fear of the popularity of Brackenism in rural Manitoba, the other parties were quite willing to go along with the premier’s proposal.
[1949 Winnipeg election]
In Winnipeg South, J.S. McDiarmid, a Liberal coalitionist, finished first. He was followed by another Liberal coalitionist, Ron Turner, and then by Lloyd Stinson, a CCF candidate, and in fourth, and thus gaining a seat in the legislature, was Roblin.
“I had to admit that it took the counting of many second, third, fourth and fifth choices to get me elected, and I only scraped in over the quota by the skin of my teeth.”
[Actually Roblin was fourth in the first count and held his position through vote transfers. By holding that position, even if he did not attain quota, he would have been elected to the fourth seat when the field of candidates was reduced and he was the last surviving candidate.]
In the 1953 election, the last under proportional representation, Roblin was re-elected.
Until redistribution for the 1958 election, representation in the Manitoba Legislature reflected a significant rural bias. In fact, the coalition's election platform for 1953 contained nothing for Brandon and Winnipeg voters.
PR [he means Alternative Voting] and coalition governments had an unanticipated side effect upon voter turn out. In rural constituencies, voter turnout was often less than 50 per cent and many candidates were returned by acclamation. In the 1949 provincial election, 20 of the seats in the legislature went to the coalition through acclamation. In the 1941 election, of the 45 seats outside Winnipeg, 16 were won without a challenge. [This may not have been due to preferential voting but to overwhelming group-think among rural districts. (It is also been seen in Alberta rural districts since 1921.)
Also with Manitoba having a coalition between the Progressives and Liberals, these two major parties together had massive clout in each rural district.
The political structure was as if the Liberal and the Conservative party had melded. Such joint candidates would likely be elected in a great many of the federal seats, and any candidates running against such candidates would have a hard time. In some districts the seat would not even be contested. The supporters of each coalition party may be happy because the policies of such a government would reflect each of the parties (as much as that was possible). So election contests could be a non-starter but the result would still be fair and the government having a great amount of support.
However such elections did not produce competitive elections. This is one of the four goals of democratic governments, along with effective government; fair representation, and free and fair voting.
If this was seen as unfair and responsible for low voter turn-out, districts could have been grouped and STV installed. STV makes every district election a competitive affair. Every seat is a "swing" seat, up for grabs.
But we must keep in mind that most voters were satisfied with the result. AV ensured and proved that the majority of voters who voted were satisfied (or at least that a majority of votes still in play at that point in the count were in support of the successful candidate).]
An Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission was set up in 1957 to review the electoral system and address voter apathy. The commission’s report recommended abandoning PR and creating single-member constituencies in Winnipeg, and first-past-the-post results in each Manitoba riding.
The commission also recommended that Winnipeg's representation be increased from 25 per cent of the seat total to 40 per cent to more adequately reflect the city’s share of the provincial population. This would give Winnipeg 20 seats in the 56-member house. [This change could have happened easily under STV. Simply give each of Winnipeg's three districts two or so more seats.]
The rural-urban voter ratio was set by the commission as seven to four in favour of rural ridings.
“Why should four housewives in Portage la Prairie be equal to seven in Brandon?” asked CCF Leader Stinson in the legislature.
“You don’t know those Portage women!” a heckler shouted.
“Do you?” retorted Stinson.
Roblin said Douglas Campbell’s Liberal government recognized the inequities in the system and to its credit passed the necessary legislation.
Historian Ed Whitcomb said the demise of PR ended “the hopeless splintering of the Winnipeg vote.”
“For a government long in power, reform carries the political danger of estranging its conservative support without attracting an equal number of votes from the progressive elements of the population, people who have possibly been alienated from the government and distrust its reformist intentions and regard them as death-bed repentance,” wrote Whitcomb in A Short History of Manitoba.
“This is precisely what happened to Manitoba in the mid-1950s.”
[Actually perhaps the government's move away from PR was seen as a cynical power grab. The move was not progressive but a return to more barbaric old-style politics.
And the P-Cs, the party of the right compared to the Liberals, reaped the reward.
In the first FPTP election, many of the P-Cs candidates received less than a majority of the votes in the district.
P-Cs received majority only in Brandon, Cypress, Dauphin, Fort Garry, Fort Rouge, Morris, Pembina, River Heights, Rock Lake, Rupertsland, Souris, The Pas, Turtle Mountain, Virden, Winnipeg Centre, Wolseley.
P-C won with minority of the vote in 10 districts.
LP candidates received a majority in Carrillon, Emerson, Ethelbert Plains, Gladstone, Lakeside, LaVerendrye, Rhineland, Rockwood, St. George and Ste. Rose.
L-P candidates won with minority of the vote in 9 districts.
An Independent (Juba) won a majority in Logan.
CCF won a majority in St. Johns and Seven Oaks.
Nine CCF candidates won with minority of the vote.
Election by a minority of the voters in a district had not been possible under Alternative Voting at all, and now under FPTP 28 members were elected with just minority support. ]
After the votes were counted for the 1958 provincial election, 26 PCs were elected, 19 Liberals and 11 CCF. Roblin was able to form a minority government, which was increased to a majority following the election a year later. [But was this fair? Roblin's government only had 47 percent of the vote. So a majority of voters opposed his government, had shown they preferred that someone else had been elected.]
Prior to his passing. Roblin told the Real Estate News that electoral reform is required in Canada, but it should not include proportional representation.
“It sounds awfully good,” he said, “but in a country like Canada to get a government into office, it would take an extraordinary amount of wheeling and dealing.”
What Roblin favoured was single-member constituencies decided by preferential voting, the same system used in rural ridings between 1927 and 1958. Such a system would ensure the people’s overall choice was elected, he added. If 50-per-cent-plus-one of the vote isn’t attained in the first go-around, then the last-place candidate is dropped and voting continues until one candidate obtains a simple minority.
[Why Roblin would say that PR requires "an extraordinary amount of wheeling and dealing" eludes me. Unless he means because it (often) produces minority government but with voters spread over four or five major parties, such as they are in Canada today, minority governments are being produced by FPTP anyway.]
The hybrid system used in Manitoba may not have reflected the best intentions of proportional representation, but it was experimented with for over three decades and was eventually deemed a failure.
[In my mind all three of these statements are false.
STV in Winnipeg did reflect the best intentions of PR.
AV did ensure majority representation for the single member in each rural district. STV in Winnipeg meant that most of the members in Winnipeg had support of most of the Winnipeg votes.
It was not just an experiment.
it cannot legitimately be deemed a failure as it produced balanced representation that reflected the votes cast by a majority of voters, through all those years.]
The experiment also was a victim of a surging economy in the post-war era, “ameliorating some of the historic grievances of both farmers and workers (Dennis Pilon, "Explaining Voter System Reform in Canada, 1874 to 1960", Journal of Canadian Studies, fall 2006).
In such a strong economic climate, “voting system reform no longer seemed necessary to address or contain class interests.”
[I would add that Manitoba's later experience with non-proportional FPTP proved that STV was necessary after all. This will have to be explained in another blog.]
Thanks for reading.
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For more info on Manitoba's STV , see my other blog:
https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/manitoba-s-stv-av-system-1920-1952-not-a-failure-as-reported
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