Much as I don't like single-member districts, here's how a MMP system with single-member districts could work in Canada. (Note though that a MMP using multi-member districts and single voting cold produce much more fair representation. More on that below.)
I had the understanding that votes in one province could not "splash" across provincial lines, and that that meant there could be no overall national top-up seats or proportionality,
but now I know that overall proportionality can be created under particular conditions:
- the number of seats in the House of Commons must be allowed to fluctuate - that is, necessary top-up seats would grow the House of Commons past the pre-indicated number of district seats.
- that each province must have its due proportion of the seats in the House of Commons, both in the number of district seats and in the number of seats after top-up is added.
The process would be basically like MMP anywhere:
district seats are filled, then top-up seats are calculated at national level and then allocated to each party as needed to being a party's seats up to required proportion
but due to Confederation requirements, top-up seats wold be allocated to each province in line with the province's proportion of district seats in the HofC.
(Obviously rounding off would play a part.
Allocating top-up seats per province Could work this way: each province gets its share of top-up seats rounding down, then if any seats are left to be allocated after that, they go to province with the largest un-used fraction. This is the process shown here.)
Looking at 2021 Canadian election:
[I made a mistake here --- see below]
national Seats as per PR District Top-up Seats
vote share In the end
Conservative 34 pc 115 119 0 119
Liberal 33 pc 112 160 0 160
NDP 18 pc 61 25 36 61
BQ 8 pc 27 32 0 32
People's 5 pc 17 0 17 17
Green 2 pc 7 2 5 7
338 58 396
58 is 17 percent of the HofC so each province must increase by (about) 17 percent.
(PEI I am leaving at 4 -- more on that below)
Seats count by province
Seats Seats by New
District seats 17 pc increase RNDD OFF LGT FRCTNS total
Ontario 121 20.57 20 1 142
Quebec 78 13.26 13 91
BC 42 7.14 7 49
Alberta 34 5.78 5 1 40
MB 14 2.38 2 1 17
SK 14 2.38 2 1 17
NS 11 1.87 1 1 13
NB 10 1.7 1 1 12
NFLD 7 1.19 1 8
PEI 4 Not applicable (PEI is already over-represented pop.-wise) 4
335 58 52 6 393
Territories 3 (Territories are already over-represented pop.-wise) 3
TOTAL 338 58 396
if it happens that two provinces have the same number of seats and there is only one seat to allocate, then the larger one by population gets the extra seat.
say SK and MN is tied === SK pop. is 1.174M; MN pop. is 1.369M so MB would get the seat.
In the above case, there was one seat for each of them
Under such a system, the provinces (except for PEI) maintain their original proportions so it is strictly in line with Constitution. (Aside from some grandfather clauses that I did not apply, because I don't know how to apply them)
Constitutional experts or pundits will inform me if I have it wrong and that PEI should get an extra seat if its fraction of increase dictates it. They will tell me if the Canadian constitution insists that PEI should get an extra seat or not on same basis as the other provinces.
But if so, it is easy to do, Simply include PEI in the comparison allocation of seats -- base the allocation of the seats on fractions same as for the other provinces. And if it is due a seat by fraction, then some other province with less of a fractional surplus will not get that extra seat.
Then once the seats are allocated by province, then allocate the top-up seats in each province according to party shares.
give seats to un-elected candidates of the party
thus all BQ top-up, if there had been any, would have to have been in Quebec.
Award top-up seats within each province and for each party to the most-popular un-elected candidates of the party. (as per open-list party list PR)
Like that...
So that is how national party shares can be used to set the membership of the HofC, despite the dictates of our Confederation constitutional framework.
Thus
top-up seats would go something like this:
(allocating seats to smallest provinces first,
seats in each province based on percentage of under-representation in that province
NDP PP Greens Top-up
ON 12 8 1 21
QU 9 3 1 13
BC 2 2 3 7
AB 4 2 6
MB 2 1 3
SK 3 3
NS 2 2
NB 1 1 2
NFLD 1 1
PEI 0
36 17 5 58
The percentages in each province will not be perfect proportionally compared to province party shares.
but top-up would be allocated based on national party shares and in each province, top-up would be allocated relative to under-representation of the parties that get top-up.
Despite any inconsistencies, the result would be more fair and balanced (party-wise and province-wise) than the present results.
- each party would get about its due share of the seats
- no clean sweeps by any one party across a whole province's seats as now.
-most-popular candidate(s) of each party is awarded top-up seats. (They would be candidates who ran in district contests but were not elected.) (if the party does not have enough un-elected candidates, then the party leader would name who should get the party's top-up seat(s) in that province,)
if district seats are allocated according to district-level PR or STV, then the result would be even more fair.
I believe it would work!
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Actually my calculation is wrong. I calculated proportional share of seats for each party based on 338 seats but top-up adds seats,
so I should have done it based on 397 seats or whatever.
I guess that is why one should work out how many top-up seats before you calculate the proportional share of seats for each party.
I gave 58 top-up seats which was what under-represented parties needed to bring their P up to right amount for 338 seats but this did not address Cons.Lib disparity (and was wrong compared to 397 seats)
62 is better as number of top up, setting number of HofC seats at nice round 400, but maybe it is not important.
PMy plan suffers from extreme overhang. my plan did not actually give Conservatives more seats than Liberals.
Either district seats should be made more fair or more top-up than 58 or 62 is required in Canada to overcome district dis-proportionalities.
so here it is with proper party proportionalities
Here are the proper proportionalities for each major party:
Looking at 2021 Canadian election:
Seats as per PR Needed Available
national (based on District Top-up Top-up Seats
vote share 393 tot. seats) In the end
Conservative 34 pc 133.62 119 14 10 129
Liberal 33 pc 129.69 160 0 0 160
NDP 18 pc 70.74 25 45 31 56
BQ 8 pc 31.44 32 0 0 32
People's 5 pc 19.65 0 19 13 13
Green 2 pc 7.86 2 5 4 6
338 83 58 396
58 is 17 percent of the HofC so each province must increase by (about) 17 percent.
(PEI I am leaving at 4 -- more on that below)
Seats count by province (this is same as what I put above)
Seats Seats by New
District seats 17 pc increase RNDD OFF LGT FRCTNS total
Ontario 121 20.57 20 1 142
Quebec 78 13.26 13 91
BC 42 7.14 7 49
Alberta 34 5.78 5 1 40
MB 14 2.38 2 1 17
SK 14 2.38 2 1 17
NS 11 1.87 1 1 13
NB 10 1.7 1 1 12
NFLD 7 1.19 1 8
PEI 4 Not applicable (PEI is already over-represented pop.-wise) 4
335 58 52 6 393
Territories 3 (Territories are already over-represented pop.-wise) 3
TOTAL 338 58 396
Thus
top-up seats would go something like this, using my new 396 numbers:
(allocating seats to smallest provinces first,
seats in each province based on percentage of under-representation in that province
Conserv. NDP PP Greens Top-up
ON 4 11 5 1 21
QU 4 6 2 1 13
BC 1 2 2 2 7
AB 4 2 6
MB 2 1 3
SK 3 3
NS 2 2
NB 1 1 2
NFLD 1 0 1
PEI 0
10 31 13 4 58
party percentages in each province based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_breakdown_of_the_2021_Canadian_federal_election
top-up seats allocated in such a way as to
- prevent one-party sweeps of a province
- give no party more than half of the seats in a province unless in accordance with votes cast (up to limit of available top-up seats in that province)
- to ensure that every party due at least one seat in a province does get at least that many (up to limit of available top-up seats in that province)
(most of the last two things were taken care of by the FPTP district results, not because the elections were fair but because the dis-proportionality in one area was balanced by the dis-proportionality of results in other districts.
Liberals were under-represented or totally un-represented in some provinces still after top-up. Liberal party was allocated no top-up seats because it was over-represented in district results. so there was no way to balance up Liberal representation in Saskatchewan or Alberta for example.
But MMP did mean that in the end, no party made a one-party sweep of any province's seats.
Top-up would be more effective -- and possibly Liberal under-representation in Alberta and Saskatchewan could be fixed -- if the district results were more proportional.
The simple expedient of multi-member districts in cities (say of districts of about three to seven seats) and single voting (STV preferably, but even SNTV would be enough) would ensure that a good third of seats in the country would be allocated in somewhat fair fashion, thus freeing up top-up to address more of the dis-proportionality than it is able to do under MMP with FPTP in single-member districts.
As well, when the multi-member districts are created, the number of district seats could be reduced. This would open more space for top-up seats members.
Under the new system, much more votes would be used to elect the district members than would be used under FPTP in single-member districts and almost all would be used to help elect top-up members. So a reduction in the number of a city's seats may seem superficially to be un-democratic, but actually the effectiveness of a vote under MMP and the satisfaction experienced by each voter (or a large proportion of voters) would be so different than under our present single-member districts (where as many as 82 percent of the votes cast are ignored) that it would be a whole different situation and district-to-district equivalency would not be at all important.
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