top of page
Tom Monto

Electoral reform in Canada -- Eight provinces have used ranked votes or PR at city or prov. level, or investigated or held vote on Electoral Reform

Updated: Oct 11

Most of Canada's provinces have used alternative ranked-vote voting systems or held referendums on PR, or had a legislative committee investigate electoral reform


Alberta and Manitoba did use STV/IRV for many years.


Ontario, B.C., and P.E.I. all have had referendums and citizens assemblies on the issue.


Quebec and New Brunswick had MLAs seriously investigate possibility of electoral reform.


so that is seven provinces -- all except Sask, NS and NFLD -- that engaged in electoral reform toward PR or investigated such.


Saskatchewan cities did use STV in city elections, as did cities in Manitoba, Alberta and BC, so that makes eight provinces that have used ranked votes at either prov or city level or have investigated electoral reform at prov level.


And electoral reform can also be widened to include change from Block Voting to FPTP.


Back in 1800s, all provinces and both Territories used multi-member districts and Block voting, as oposed to striclty FPTP, to elect their provincial or territorial members.


Quebec's use of MMD and BV occurred just prior to Confederation.


Both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have used multi-member districts at provincial level (or colonial government level) and city level too, so that includes them too in provinces that have not only used FPTP in its history.


NS was site of Canada's first known election (Halifax 1758) where each voter cast multiple votes to elect multiple winners. (see separate Montopedia blog for info on this.)


In our history since 1867, each province (except Quebec) has changed its election system, each one time or another using multiple-member districts before switching to single-member districts.

Quebec too if we include pre-Confederation history.


(These experiences are chronicled in the three-part Montopedia blog series on Canada's use of MMDs:


==============================

Jared Wesley, UofA prof, gave an unusual summary of electoral reform in Canada in May 2023, leaving out important bits IMO.


Wesley was quoted in May 2023 article in MountainView Today


"...about half of the provinces have at some point and in some way, shape or form experimented with forms of majoritarian systems such as the alternative vote (AV), Single Transferable Vote (STV), and Instant-Runoff voting.


[STV is not majoritarian. It is proportional.


Only BC, Alberta and Manitoba have ever used ranked votes (STV and IRV) so that is a little short of "about half of Canada's provinces".


He is right if he is looking at city elections. Cities in five provinces have used ranked votes in city elections. (This is including Ontario by virtue of London ON 2018 election.)


Every province has used multi-member districts, mostly with Block Voting, so FPTP is definitiely not universal. But ranked voting at prov level was never used in as many as half the provinces to elect provincial members.


If you are using the term "Instant-runoff voting" separate from Alternative Voting, then actually no place in Canada has used Instant-runoff votoing, where only two go on to a second round of vote counting. So why he used the two terms is inexplicable to me. Today mostly the term IRV means AV.

IRV (with two-name second round) is not so common in the world anywhere.]


Some proponents of electoral reform seem to think that PR will usher in a “proliferation of minor parties and that will give folks a greater variety of choice on their ballots,” he said.


But the bar is already set fairly low for a fledgling party that wants to enter Alberta politics, he said.


“So if (new) parties wanted to start up, they could,” he said. “But then we’d still be in the same position…in that while there may be a greater variety of parties on offer, there’s only a select few of them that have a hope of forming government.”

[but small parties can be lesser players in coalitions. The age of majority governments would likely be over once we get PR.]


The options on a ballot must be measured not only by the diversity of choice, but also by their viability, he said, calling that a downside of PR.

[Under STV, this downside is addressed by transferable votes. Viability as a thing to consider is much stronger under FPTP than under PR, and viability is only a slight consideration under any system that uses ranked votes.]


Under pure proportional representation [he might mean at-large allocation of seats as in Netherlands or he might mean list PR], people go to the polls and vote followed by a couple of months of backdoor dealing among the parties to determine which ones will form a coalition government, he said.

[under any (good) PR system, there are no false majorities and if no party takes majority of votes or majority of effective votes (leaving out votes for small parties and other votes that are wasted), then yes, there must be some wheeling and dealing to determine working majority in the chamber. I understand previous government is in power until new government can be assembled.]


“People say PR is more democratic; there’s nothing less open and grassroots democratic than the Queen’s Round they call it in a lot of European PR systems, where people go behind closed doors and hash out who’s actually going to govern,” he said. “That has very little to do with the way people actually voted.”

[But the way the seats are allocated is democratic. And that is very much to do with how people vote - under PR. I would posit that FPTP where half the votes are ignored and unrepresented is less democratic than the behind-the-doors negotiating by elected members under PR.]


Given Canada and indeed even Alberta’s history of flirting with electoral reform, there today seems to be little appetite for proportional representation. Both STV and AV have a record of being temporarily implemented earlier in Alberta’s history [and in Manitoba], while Ontario, B.C., and P.E.I. all have had referendums and citizens assemblies on the issue, he said.

[In BC (2005) and in PEI (2018), a majority of voters did vote in favour of change.

Was the 30-year use of STV in Manitoba and Alberta a temporary thing?]


“Quebec had a special all-party committee examine it. New Brunswick’s had a similar kind of parliamentary process to examine it,” he said. “Everybody’s kind of gone around the bend on this twice.”

[Around the bend means going crazy. perhaps he meant to say gone down the road.]


For the time being, “we’re in kind of a dark period again in terms of the debate about electoral reform. It just doesn’t seem to be on anybody’s map because it failed so many times in so many provinces.

[actually in BC (2005) and in PEI (2018), a majority of voters did vote in favour of change, just the result was ignored.]

=======================


while some might say that for over a century, politicians - fed and prov. - have been promising they would end FPTP but used clever ways not to.


BUT actually:

Most politicians never promised ER and never broke the promise they di not make.


some did promise to and did reform electoral system - in AB 1924


some did not make promise to but did reform it anyway -- MB 1920, BC 1951


AND that does not mean FPTP was always in use in our elections.


AB and MB did not use FPTP to elect anyone in general elections between 1924 and 1956.


BC did not use FPTP to elect anyone in 1951 and 1952


if FPTP is election of a single member elected by plurality in single-member district, PEI did not use FPTP to elect anyone prior to the year 1996.


in fed elections it was never used universally until 1970.


FPTP was ended at some point in some of our province's histories.


FPTP was never used in some provinces.

For a couple provinces it was not used for more than hundred years, 

then at a certain point it was brought in. 


SURE -- now we all have FPTP, and that is what, IMO, electoral reform should be centering on - not some pretend history where FPTP was universal.

===================================

1 view

Recent Posts

See All

Early Labour culture

Clarissa Mackie "Elizabeth's Pride A Labor Day story"    Bellevue Times Dec. 5, 1913

Comments


bottom of page