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Tom Monto

MMP as Sifton proposed in 1919

Updated: Jul 6, 2021

Clifford Sifton, a Brandon MP who served as the Minister of the Interior (1896-1905) under Prime Minister 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. (I have not seen where he articulated this. My secondary source for this is Cherney, "A different way of voting" in the [Winnipeg] Real Estate News, Aug. 12, 2011 (online). This article is critiqued in another blog.)


This type of voting system was a type of "parallel or mixed-member majority system (also known as a non-compensatory mixed system)," as Dennis Pilon described it in his book The Politics of Voting.


Of course now many recognize that single-seat constituencies lead to unbalanced representation.


While STV is known to work in a more fair way. We know this from its use to elect Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary MLAs from 1920s to 1950s as well as in its use in 150 elections in Canadian cities.


Today Sifton's basic idea could look like this

228 MPs elected in seats, some in grouped districts electing multiple MPs through STV

and

100 seats (roughly one third of the whole) allocated to each party based on the percentage of the vote. Each one percentage of support wins a seat for the party.


That way any party or independent candidate with at least one percent of the vote will be given at least one seat.


Overall this would not provide exactly proportional representation but it would be much more fair to all parties large and small than the present system.


Something to try.


(Clifford Sifton was younger brother of Alfred Sifton, premier of Alberta 1910-1917)


Thanks for reading.

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