Electoral Reform and a Citizen-Empowered Democracy in Ontario!
An interesting zoom panel discussion on electoral reform was held on June 28, 2021.
Watch it online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beD-1TFPn1Y
The whole discussion is enlightening but this transcript will centre just on the answers to questions asked at the end.
(1:02:39) How should we respond to those who point to Belgium or Israel or Italy and say that PR produces un-manageable political chaos?
[One answer was to present the examples of good government produced by PR in Switzerland and Scotland and New Zealand.]
A citizens assembly takes the process of reform out of the hands of politicians ...
(1:02:49) Peggy Sattler (of Ontario NDP)
the use of a citizens assembly also is important. Take the process of reform out of the hands of politicians and put it into the hands of a deliberative citizen-led process such as a citizens assembly, to build that level of confidence and trust and awareness and level of understanding that is needed for citizens to make that shift in voting.
failure of referendums in the past because investment was not made in that kind of broad education and understanding.
A referendum process does not produce that level of understanding.
In a referendum process, there is not the level of understanding. And without political leadership the effort is not made to educate voters, and the effort fails.
say in Ontario in 2007, the effort failed due to this. The effort was not made to share the report of the citizens assembly broadly enough.
We saw it in BC [in 2019] also.
Kate Graham
PR will not solve all the problem we now have.
Still in the last London election (held using Alternative Voting), there were problems... [rancorous negative campaigning]
But it is important to think about what kind of problems we hope to change, what we hope to accomplish but to take just one example and conclude that something will work or not is a very shallow read.
Mike Schreiner
Citizens assembly process needs to have adequate financial resources, not only to do the assembly part but also to do the education part.
in 2007 money went into the deliberative part but very little into the education part.
he recalled going door to door in 2007 and finding a real serious lack of public education.
on stability of government, we here in Canada have had more instability than many of those countries that use PR.
Some people say we need FPTP to avoid a fascist taking one or two seats and getting foot in the door of politics, but look at 2016 U.S. election, where that kind of person took control of one of the two main parties and we see the instability possible under FPTP.
in most cases PR actually lead to more stability in government, less policy lurches. And looking at Canada history some of our most iconic legislation was produced by minority governments that were supposedly unstable.
Peggy Sattler:
... the countries that have had the best response to COVID have been those with the most proportional governments.
Megen Mattes: answered a question on how Citizens Assembly is composed
...computer program would be used to ensure balance, a true sampling of the population...
What do we do if government ignores Citizens Assembly report?
Megan said we need to get things right at the start and ensure good democratic basis of the process.
Does technology make PR easier?
Megan: [CVID has shown us that zoom meetings are possible...]
Mike: PR systems predate the computer age. There is nothing that says you need computers to have PR.
obviously election results may be tabulated faster with modern technology but that does not happen either.
(1:15) Dolly Compeda Montefor:
we will be using digital technology no matter what... Facebook or zoom, etc. are a part of our world now.
Question: revitalization of democracy through lowering age to 16 - the "vote 16" campaign
Dolly: Youth may not support PR unless we educate them. What are we doing about the gap in knowledge? Are we getting youth to learn about systems used elsewhere?
Vote 16 cold have impact
Mike (1:17): said there was much confusion among college students about where they can vote, do they vote in home community with parents or in the college district? This creates a barrier for those going to vote when they are 18.
But if they have voted when they are 16 back when living with parents, they are more likely to carry that on and be lifelong voters. Getting people involved in politics earlier may set the pattern for increased involvement later in life.
Megan agreed saying that high schools and school boards have role to play in educating people in how they can vote and the different options they can have.
Peggy pointed out the voter turnout stats from New Zealand. voter turnout in last election there was 81 percent. among 18 to 24 yoa, it was 78 percent.
This is great contrast to the stats in Ontario where overall turnout is 58 percent and very, very low numbers of young people voting.
So anything we can do to increase the youth vote is critical because the policy choices that are being made will impact directly the futures of young people.
And PR is the most effective thing we can do to increase that youth voter participation.
How do we increase Indigenous representation?
Megan:
New Zealand sets aside seats for indigenous voters. that is good model for Canada.
also Citizens Assemblies must be inclusive of the people who shared this land that we live on.
Peggy: one of the most important things in the future will be having our response to the genocide and the legacy of colonialism in the residential schools be Indigenous-led. And that requires having Indigenous people elected in our legislatures.
A riding was established to have a majority of Indigenous people, the only district in Ontario that has this attribute. And it elected an Indigenous person, NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa, sits for the Kiiwetinoong district.
He brings such presence and dignity and garners such respect across the chamber because his voice is so important. And it is a voice that we have not heard in Ontario before.
people like Sol, people like Mumulak (sp?) need to be involved in this discussion...
people like them can be elected as top-up as part of MMP to be part of the chamber to represent those groups who have been historically under-represented.
Without them, then we will not have the diversity we need around the table to move forward on these major, major policy issues.
Dolly:
List PR could produce this diversity because parties set up the list. But also we can work on this for the nomination for the 2022 election. Parties choose their candidates. Parties when they seek out their candidates can seek out Indigenous people not only where there are reserves but also urban Indigenous people. They experience poverty at higher rates and malnutrition.
PR can help but at the end of the day parties are the ones that make the lists and the MPPs. I encourage the parties to think more about diversity .. to make sure those voices are represented.
Kate Graham
we need diversity in our chambers but also need to incorporate First Nations governments as part of our governance. nation to nation relationship. not just more diversity in our government, to have proper reckoning may mean quite different governance.
Mike: the importance of recognizing traditional Indigenous laws and political traditions, which are political systems don't. nation to nation engagement.
Parties need to look at how they put up barriers to diversity.
Peggy:
NDP has put onus on district association to show they have worked at diversity. 40 NDP were elected. 20 are women. That does not happen without a very specific party commitment to ensure that women were nominated to winnable seats and are supported to run winning campaigns.
But FPTP makes nomination in winnable seats and winning campaigns very challenging for diverse candidates. so there are limits to what parties can do without changes to overall electoral system.
How do we get more involvement of the broader people on this issue?
Megan: electoral reform is not an issue that people emotionally connect with.
What we need to so is connect it to issues that people are very passionate about, such as climate change and healthcare system. And make it very clear how our political system is blocking progress in those areas. This could bring attention to the failings of FPTP and also point to the different ways that PR could lead to progress at last on things that have been stalled for very long time.
Kate:
A PR parade with celebrity speakers and popular bands sounds like a lot of fun.
London election: education in advance of the ranked ballot election was good -
"easy as 1-2-3," and the message was about choice. "you get more choice."
Who does not want choice?
Every day people rank their choices, and every day we do more complicated rankings than what we do with X voting.
We must frame calls for PR around simple concepts. Choice is a very powerful one.
we can sell transformational changes because it speaks to what people already want.
They feel they don't have options that they like. They feel they are trapped by our system... we need to present PR as something giving that back.
Making it fun, not so serious and speaking to what people already want. Choice is what people are looking for in politics and PR gives them the choice they are looking for.
Peggy Sattler:
Ontario NDP issued platforms for 2022 includes green targets that include PR, collaboration and working together with other parties.
Similarly the housing crisis. we need long-term solution and there will be no long-term solution if we don't have parties working together.
Same for long-term care. we must get for-profit care models out of our long-term care system. we can't do that in four years [to avoid policy lurch, we need PR.]
Mike: We must not argue about arcane difference between ranked ballots, MMP, etc.... we sometimes self-sabotage our movement with our internal squabbling...
let's put our minor differences aside for the greater good of electoral reform.
Ted:
Getting any kind of change is better than fighting to get the specific system you want.
The dominoes then start to fall.
London. You guys have tangible experience of what it is like to vote in a ranked ballot.
The more we talk about the real experience, that is the stuff that can really reach people.
[Sidenote: That is what I try to do in my Montopedia blogs on the history of STV in Canada.]
(1:35:30) Dolly:
We must make partnerships with those who have interests that intersect with ours.
We get in bubble where people are enthusiastic but out in the world a lot of people just don't care about electoral reform...
Electoral reform gets to the root of alot of the issues that people do care about, so making connections is good way to get people involved, to get people to know about this because now not everyone does.
Get people more involved will lead to the marketing that Kate talked about and making the connections that Megan, Peggy and Mike talked about and get people to push for this from their own political institutions
What can people do to ensure that Electoral reform is part of next provincial election campaign?
Kate: panel discussions like this one. It is very fun - it speaks to what we all want politics to be. Discussions like this matter alot.
I know some people attending this panel discussion are involved in the Liberal party policy process so speak up...
Great to see people from different spaces and places joining together, being committed to the same kind of changes.
Push for more discussion on this, more awareness, push people in positions with influence to build it into party platforms.
Peggy [NDP putting PR forward in next election]
Mike: Engage with the public,
Signs -- march in a PR parade, show your neighbours that you support PR
Creating ways to show that there is building public support and a citizens movement for PR is vital for going into the next election.
Ted: Fair Vote volunteers meeting coming up on July 15...
... learn how to engage on PR in your circle...
Thanks.
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Apologies for leaving anything out that others think should have been noted, or any mis-understanding of speakers' comments.
Hope this partial transcript encourages people to watch the full broadcast.
Watch it online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beD-1TFPn1Y
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