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Tom Monto

On Why Alberta and Manitoba dropped STV

Updated: Dec 11, 2023

There appears to be some who hold a cynical view of the UFA and Liberal Progressives granting PR in Alberta and Manitoba in the 1920s.


This view was aired in the electoral reform debate that happened in Canada in 2016 and was published in the official commission report.


Below is an excerpt accompanied by my rebuttal of that kind of analysis.


My rebuttal is based on the view that STV/AV was admittedly not perfect but it did ensure that elected in each city were candidates of different parties - no one party could take all the seats, and it did ensure that the representation elected did reflect the votes cast in the city.


STV/AV was dropped out of naked self-interest, especially in Alberta. The Alberta government wanted more seats than it was getting - it had a firm grip on government but wanted more and more seats. This despite having the support of less than half the votes cast by voters, judging by first preferences marked by voters!


Excuses such as the need to address urban under-representation or that the Alberta Social Credit government was losing under STV/AV just do not hold up, as I explain below.


Excerpt from the

STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY IN CANADA: PRINCIPLES, PROCESS AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT FOR ELECTORAL REFORM Report of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform

DECEMBER 2016 42nd PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION



C. Electoral Reform at the Provincial Level


1. Early Reform Initiatives

As noted above, from the 1920s to the 1950s, Alberta and Manitoba both adopted the STV for elections held in urban ridings and the AV for elections held in rural ridings.85 As well, in British Columbia, the governing Liberal-Conservative coalition adopted AV for the 1952 provincial election, though the system reverted back to FPTP after the Social Credit Party won the 1953 election.86 Finally, in the late 1910s to early 1920s, a number of municipalities in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan adopted STV systems,87 and in one case an AV system.88


In his appearance before the Committee, Harold Jansen provided the Committee with an overview of his research into the use of AV and STV in Canada, and what lessons may be applied to the current process of electoral reform. His comments on the use of AV and STV in Canada are included in the corresponding sections of this report.


82 Ibid.

83 Government of Canada, Public Consultations on Canada’s Democratic Institutions and Practices, 2007.

84 Jack Aubry, “Poll shows voters favour winner-take-all system,” Ottawa Citizen, 16 September 2007.

85 Dennis Pilon, The Politics of Voting – Reforming Canada’s Electoral System, Emond Montgomery Publications Limited, Toronto, 2007, p. 81. See also: Elections Manitoba, History of Electoral Process from 1870 to 2011.

86 Law Commission of Canada, Voting Counts: Electoral Reform for Canada, Ottawa, 2004, p. 28.

87 Calgary (1917–1961, 1973); Edmonton (1923–1927); Regina (1920–1926); Saskatoon (1920–1926); Vancouver (1920–1923); Victoria (1920–1921); Winnipeg (1920–1971). Source: Dennis Pilon, The Politics of Voting – Reforming Canada’s Electoral System, Emond Montgomery Publications Limited, Toronto, 2007, p. 81. [corrected dates in bold]

88 Calgary, from 1961 to 1973.


He noted the political contexts that led to electoral reform (and reversion to FPTP) in Alberta and Manitoba:

The lead-up to this was that in the decade of 1910 to 1920, there were big discussions on the Prairies on this. A lot of the complaints they were having about their electoral system were exactly the kinds of things you've been hearing here and we've been talking about today, around the lack of fairness in terms of representation. The single transferable vote was seen as the British form of PR, so it had a particular popularity, but there was this populist element to western Canada. The idea that it was candidate focused was attractive.


When the liberal progressives came in—actually the Liberal Party in Manitoba brought it in in 1920—they were facing farmers suddenly becoming active, and they figured that if they gave them this one demand, then that would help. So they brought it in to Winnipeg.


The other thing in Winnipeg was that there had been the general strike. It also helped, they thought, to contain some of the labour radicalism a bit because the labour parties might have absolutely swept Winnipeg. [


In 1922 the United Farmers of Manitoba came in, and they extended AV to the rural areas, which was a bit of a betrayal because everybody had argued about STV. This helped to preserve their power base, and it was a blend of idealism and political self-interest.


It was the same with the United Farmers of Alberta [UFA]. They brought in STV in Edmonton and Calgary. They lifted whole parts of the legislation from Manitoba and just copied it in Alberta. It was the same thing. UFA was strong in the rural areas and weak in the urban areas. This fragmented their opposition, but they were partly keeping their promise. [Actually, STV meant that no one party would take all the seats in Edmonton or in Calgary. The UFA ran for just one seat in Edmonton and never ran in Calgary so got no benefit from STV in the cities. During the Social Credit reign, it may be true that STV fragmented the opposition but it also meant that the Conservative, Liberal and Labour parties won seats in the cities. When STV was dropped, the SC took all the seats in Edmonton and all but one in Calgary. A move to FPTP did not unify or empower the opposition, quite the opposite.]


Everybody saw that eventually this would get better and that it would switch. This was a stepping stone to STV everywhere, and it never happened. [St. Boniface did change from AV to STV eventually].


The big concern was over the size of the districts. At that time, where you're travelling by horse and buggy to places, that's a big concern. You can't use Skype.


The reason it ended was slightly different in each province. In Alberta it was strict political self-interest for the Social Credit. They were starting to lose. The Liberals and CCF [Co-operative Commonwealth Federation] finally figured out that they could use this to defeat Social Credit. [it is exaggerated to say the SC government was starting to lose. More truthfully, it was starting to win less massively but still in 1955 the government was re-elected with 61 percent of the seats. That is half again more than the opposition combined. Hardly a threatened position. This actually was a false-majority government as the party received less than half the votes cast based on first preferences. Previously the government had received 85 percent of the seats, more than five times the opposition combined, so the government in 1955 had less of an overwhelming dominance in the Legislature than it had been used to, but its tenure was not seriously threatened.]


Manitoba is a little more complicated. In Manitoba. The big issue was about the rural over-representation. There was a bit of a trade-off. If they solved this problem and started to bring in independent boundary commissions, then they would get rid of over-representation of Winnipeg. [the number of seats in Winnipeg could have been increased even under STV. Addressing urban under-representation did not necessitate changing to FPTP. (see footnote)]


They had another big complaint, and this is a very important one, because I've seen people come before you and suggest that we should adopt this model. If you do AV in the rural areas and STV in the cities, the problem is that going from 30% to 40% in a group of 10 single-member districts is going to pay off big time in seats. [This is true for FPTP but not for AV. 30 or 40 percent gives you no seats under AV if another party has more than half the votes in each district]


[Under STV,] going from 30% to 40% in Winnipeg, which had 10 districts, is going to get you one more seat.


Where did parties spend their efforts and focus their attention? In the rural areas. Winnipeg complained they were being ignored. [89] [Upping the number of seats in Winnipeg could have been done under STV. With more seats Winnipeg would not have been ignored.]


89 ERRE, Evidence, 1st Session, 42nd Parliament, 22 August 2016, 1730 (Harold Jansen, Professor of Political Science, University of Lethbridge, as an Individual).


footnote

another source, the Proportional Society of Australia website *, gives a differnt rationale for cancellation of STV/IRV hybrid system in Manitoba:

"The disparity between the quotas for election in rural and urban areas led to justifiable dissatisfaction at the rural areas gaining undue advantage, which would not have applied if each electorate had the same number of seats."


Yes, rural members were elected with much fewer votes than the city MLAs (but that imbalance could have been addressed by adding more seats to Winnipeg, not by the end of quota based STV and IRV.)


rural MLAs were elected with fewer, sometimes much fewer votes than Winnipeg MLAs. This is directly result of Winniepg having larger number votes cast per member than the rural districts.


Following is the number of votes received by successful candidate in some of the districts. Outside Winnipeg the winner needed to get majority of votes cast to win, or at least when the contest came down to just two, to have more votes than the other (Due to exhausted votes thhe winner sometimes had less than majority of votes cast.) So the fluctuations are stricly due to unequal districting of the single-member districts.

Arthur winner had 1900 votes

Assiniboia ditto 4200 votes

Birtle ditto 2100 votes

Brandon City ditto 3800 votes

Deloraine ditto 1900 votes

Ethelbert ditto 1900 votes

Gilbert ditto 1300 votes

Hamiota ditto 1700 votes

and so on

despite the range here, when we compare the above numbers to the quota in Winnipeg, we see the real inequality.

in Winnipeg districts, quota was 4100, 4300, 5800. The lowest vote count taken by a winner was 3100. (It is not necessary to have quota to win.)


so yes, cities were under-represented and this led to higher quota in Winnipeg (and Brandon City) but this had nothing to do with each district having same number of seats. In fact if each Winnipeg district was given one seat instead of 4, or if each rural seat was given four seats instead of one, the disproportionality would have been worse.

What was done in 1955 after the end of STV, was Winnipeg was given four more seats. That could have been done easily under STV.



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