Alberta Views carried debate on adopting PR. Anti-PR voice frankly less than convincing!

FVC's own Anita Nickerson was our champion in a four-page debate in the most recent issue of Alberta Views (September 2025) on the question 

"Should we adopt a Proportional Electoral system?"

Anita presented a well-written position (and stayed out of the weeds)

Her opponent Univ of Windsor professor Lydia Miljan made these odd points:

1. Lydia thinks she is disproving Anita's claim that FPT is unfair on grounds that it is unfair to small parties, by saying this off-topic statement: "PR systems have more parties and less co-operation in terms of platforms" 

2.  Lydia thinks she is disproving Anita's claim that FPTP harms national unity by giving BQ chance to form Quebec majority government with just 33 percent of the vote, saying that BQ has 78 seats; PR will still give Quebec 78 seats so therefore BQ will always be official opposition, with no perception that

a.  under PR BQ would take just 33 percent of the seats if it took 33 percent of the votes and 

b. anyways confusing total provincial seats in the Quebec National Assembly (125) with QU's federal seats (78).

3.  Lydia thinks she is disproving Anita's claim that FPTP exacerbates regional tensions [and] and that minority views in provinces dominated by one party aren't represented, by saying  that one-party sweeps are "not due to the voting system [sic] but due to party platforms and leaders"... "party competitiveness"

ignoring the fact that 30 percent of voters in Sask voted NDP or Lib. and got no seats in 2021 election 

- so yes it is actually due to the election system. 

SK voters did not vote for  one-party sweep.

she also claims that because in 2021 in Alberta, two thirds of ridings elected their MP with majority of the district vote,

 therefore there was no disproportionality with the election outcome 

- this despite fact that Conservatives got just 55 percent of the vote and took 88 percent of Alberta's 34 seats.

4.  Lydia thinks she is disproving Anita's claim that FPTP reduces political polarization and the chances of extremist politics by saying that "radical right-wing parties have double chance of gaining seats under PR than under majoritarian [sic] systems" - 

despite fact that under PR, right-wing parties will never get much more seat share  than their vote share  

while under FPTP they can take majority government with only 33 percent of the vote.

(not to mention how a small power group (radical right-wing movement) can infiltrate a major party and by taking a plurality position in the party, can leverage 100 percent of the power in the legislature with just a minority of votes.)

fifth, she  thinks she is disproving Anita's claim that PR systems often have higher voter turnout, by saying that voter turnout is based on "many sociodemographic factors," 

despite the record that under PR, voter turnout is usually higher than under non-PR election systems -- it is just a fact

Sixth and most hilariously, Lydia herself expresses concern that electoral reform will alter election outcomes, 

when in fact that is the intent of Electoral reform!

the corollary is - she would be in favour of electoral reform as long as it did not affect the election outcomes - frankly weird.

she seeks to prove her point by saying that higher debt and deficits are produced by PR with no evidence,

and that PR governments are not held accountable because no single party is held accountable.

while of course we can cite examples where under FPTP, governments grew more popular and still were thrust out of power;

where governments with less than a majority of votes were maintained in power or put into power, against will of the majority of voters.

and no, I will not let Lydia try to make it seem like i am confusing district results with overall party vote shares,* 

because under PR we want both things:

in the district - for most votes to be used and for the majority of votes to elect the majority of district members  ,

and overall - for most votes to be used and for each party to get its fair share of the seats.

This is not confusion - it is our twin demands.

and yes a proper PR system would do both, 

or under MMP, reduce influence of district results to where the overall PR is there anyway.

*this is reference to Lydia's statement that PR advocates point to how "in many ridings the member gets less than 50 percent of the vote" and the problem with that position is "the metric used is the total vote compared to the percentage of seats."

She is conflating a valid complaint with the measure of the dis-proportionality that it produces, instead of seeing them as cause and effect.

Because as many as two-thirds of votes are ignored in many districts, a party's share of seats bears little resemblance to that party's vote share. It can be more or less but seldom the proportional share, as PR says it should be.

minority rule in the districts is bad 

dis-proportionality overall is bad, 

one leads to another 

both do not happen where MMDs and fair voting are used such as Denmark's mmp and Ireland's STV

overall dis-proportionality does not happen in NZ under MMP

overall dis-proportionality does not happen in Netherlands under at-large list PR.

and Lydia missed that important  point.

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