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Tom Monto

Practical benefits of STV as seen in western Canada

Updated: Jan 4, 2021

Single Transferable Voting elects different kinds of people than First Past The Post. That is not just a guess -- it was seen in Canadian history. In Winnipeg and in Edmonton and in Calgary STV elected different people than FPTP.


This seems to have softened the hard governments that are elected by a minority of the voters under FPTP.


However the practical benefits of fairer representation are sometimes difficult to find. We don't know why governments make the decision they do, and governments usually take all the credit they can, giving as little to the opposition whose election was made possible under fairer elections systems.


However, a brief catalogue of possible effects of STV are:

-- election of candidates of hitherto overlooked groups - labour, socialists, women and others.


-- election of more-mixed legislature lessens frequency of majority governments supported by only minority of the vote by more often electing minority governments where no one party takes all the power. Alberta has never had a minority government (although it has had majority government elected by just a minority of the voters). Manitoba had had minority government even before adoton of STV in 1920. The federal government had a minority government back in the 1870s, more oftener since 1921, and very often recently, with most governments nowadays being minority governments. The leading party - to date only Liberal or Conservative - had had to placate other parties, with NDP being called on to prop up the Liberals. This historically has swerved the Liberals to a more leftist interventionist position.

-- easier election of individuals who may not have been elected under FPTP, thus using

human capital that otherwise might have gone to waste for the betterment of

all of society

-- election of hitherto-unelected parties and individuals sometimes swerves a

government's decisions, especially if opposition parties have enough seats to have

leverage and persuasive force in the legislature.

-- less easy election of extreme or ideologically strict candidates

-- retention of qualified politicians who might under FPTP lose their seats due to their

party becoming unpopular in a small district. But in larger STV districts, if his or

her party retains support of voters equal in number to the quota, he or she might retain the seat, ensuring the retention of that experienced politician or statesman.

-- less antagonist election contests. Elections held in multi-member districts mean

elections are not zero-sum games. This and other aspects of STV can mean

less partisanship. (see footnote)

-- mixed representation at district levels leads to more parties being represented in the

legislature

-- mixed representation at district levels leads to reduction in regionalism/

separatist sentiment, as reps of each party is elected in each region

-- mixed representation at district levels leads to all provinces being represented in all or

most of the party caucuses in the legislature, thus each region's views are

represented in the caucus discussions

-- mixed representation at district levels can mean government members elected in all cities, regions and provinces. This may lead to each province or national region being

represented in the cabinet discussions.


About 150 years ago, Professor William R. Ware of the Harvard University lobbied for using STV for elections within the University. He came up with 16 advantages of STV over FPTP.


Professor William R. Ware's 16 benefits of STV

1. It protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

2. It protects the minorities and majorities from the tyranny of the party chiefs.

3. It permits the utmost freedom of individual action. [for both voter and candidate]

4. it secures the most perfect co-operation and organization.

5. It gives every elector a representative after his own heart, whom he has actually helped to elect.

6. It gives representatives a constituency who are unanimous in his support.

7. It give the representative a certain security in the tenure of his place.

8. It affords a natural and reasonable method of rotation in office.

9. It makes for the interest of every party to put forward its best men.

10. It makes it worthwhile for good men to become candidates.

11. It is equally efficient whether one candidate is to be chosen or a dozen.

12. It is available in the filling of vacancies as well as in the general elections.

13. It is easy for the elector to cast his vote intelligently.

14. It is not difficult to count the votes with precision and promptness.

15. Hardly a ballot is ultimately thrown away.

16. Every ballot is assigned just as the voters who casts it desires." (Newman, Hare-Clark in Tasmania, p. 4-5)


These 16 advantages were reviewed by Australian STV expert Terry Newman in 1991 after a century of practical experience. His comments originally published in his book Hare-Clark in Tasmania (p. 280) are reprinted below.


I have added explanatory comments and some remarks based on the western Canadian use of STV from the 1920s to the 1950s, in square brackets.


1. It protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

[Such may be hinted at below in the description of the 2000 healthcare fight in Alberta. But John D. Hunt, Alberta STV campaigner of the 1920s was more accepting of majority rule - as long as it was a true majority. His mantra was "in democratic government the right of decision belongs to the majority, but the right of representation belongs to all." (Hunt, The Principles of Representative Government [1927], PAA info folders, "Politics Misc Election Notes")]


2. It protects the minorities and majorities alike from the tyranny of the party chiefs.

Distrust of party machines is less an issue now than it was a hundred years ago. Due to rotation on the ballots, once selected, the candidate does not need to fight for a good place on the ballot within the party factions.

[In Canada, having candidates' names listed in alphabetical order also precludes favouritism due to party.]


3. It permits the utmost freedom of individual action.

This is true still today and accentuated by having both candidates names and party identification, if any, on the ballot.


4. It secures the most perfect co-operation and organization.

With development of the party system in the 1900s, this has fallen by the wayside to a large degree. And with PR-STV candidate compete with other parties and with other candidates within the same party.


5. It gives every elector a representative after his own heart, whom he has actually helped to elect.

This is true although there is a weakened link between voter and representative. The voter would have to seek out among the MPs in his district the one who represents his/her interests.


6. It gives every representative a constituency who are unanimous in his support.

This may be true but it is the representative's job to find them. [That is, a representative's supporters are spread across a larger district, although separate poling results tells him or her where support is mostly clumped.]


7. It gives the representative a certain security in the tenure of his place.

This is not valid under Hare-Clark, where there is no safe seat. The rotation of candidate names on the ballot makes this even more true. [But being a sitting MLA of a party with a narrow base such as the CCF, meant that Roper would be re-elected three times, thus demonstrating a somewhat secure tenure. Only somewhat because he was not successful when he ran for his fourth re-election in 1955.]


8. It affords a natural and reasonable method of rotation in office.

Yes, there is high turn-over under Hare-Clark. Votes may not change parties but do change the personnel they support. High turn-over can also be achieved through legislated maximum number of consecutive terms a person may serve, such as in Costa Rica and Philippines.


9. It makes for the interest of every party to put forward its best men. [With less "accidental" elections through vote-splitting, an STV contest is more discerning and logical than FPTP.*]


10. It makes it worthwhile for good men to become candidates.


[This is because of less-heated election contests, looser control by party machines in the nomination process and the election and looser control by the party machines of the elected representatives whoever they are.


Elections held in multi-member districts are not zero-sum proposition. Just because you are elected does not mean a specific other candidate cannot be. This and other aspects of STV can mean less partisanship. Less-heated election contests was noticed in 1921 (see footnote).


As well multi-winner candidates means that election contests are cleaner as far as vote-buying goes. There are so many more votes and a single vote bought thus has less weight. Winning is not just a relative matter of having more votes the others but an absolute matter of having at least a quota.


Party leaders and their machines have looser control of candidates than under FPTP. Strong-minded men and women are not necessarily spurned from receiving nomination by a party establishment. Those turned down by a party executive may in fact run anyway and have some chance to be elected, requiring only the quota of votes to be elected, and not plurality. Independents have a somewhat higher chance of being elected under Australia's Hare-Clark system.


In 1925, it was noted that STV held the promise that it "would tend to help the independent candidate who is backed by no organization but can get necessary quota by reason of personal qualification." (James, National Municipal Review (April 1916) as per Beman, Proportional Representation (1925), p. 74-81)


Set down in different political cultures, STV produces different results. Malta has a two-party system under STV. In 55 years of use, STV has elected no independents there. STV in Ireland elects many independents. (Michael Gallagher, "The Political Consequences of the Electoral System in the Republic of Ireland," Electoral Studies 5 (1986), p. 263)


In Winnipeg Independents were elected. More on Stephen Juba and Lewis St. George Stubbs below.


However election of Independent candidates did not happen in Alberta's STV experience. No truly independent candidates were elected under STV in Alberta's 30-year experience.


The outcome for an independent candidates loosely affiliated with a party was better, but even then only one was elected under Alberta's STV. There was only one semi-independent candidate that got enough votes to be elected during Alberta's STV period. This was Independent Labour candidate Robert Parkyn. More on that below.


Although not necessarily producing Independent politicians, STV elections, being less confrontational, may attract good men and women who are turned off by party combat.


11. STV is equally efficient whether one candidate is to be chosen or a dozen. [No. 11 refers to use of ranked ballots in both single and multiple elections, that is, in both STV and Alternative Voting.]

Yes, true. Single preferential votes can be used to fill single seats (through Alternative Voting) or multiple candidates (filling as many as 10 seats or more at a time) through STV.


12. It is available in the filling of vacancies as well as in the general elections.

The results of the previous STV election can be used to fill an empty seat without the necessity of a by-elections, although STV Ireland holds by-elections to fill casual vacancies [as was the practice in Canada]. [Because STV involves thinning of the field of candidates, the second-best candidate is established in the last general election. If the person if willing to be elected, you have immediate fill-up without holding by-election.]


13. It is easy for the elector to cast his vote intelligently. Delay seems to indicate complicated process. But Is the system too complicated? [Much of delay is caused by waiting for final vote before starting to conduct vote transfers. This wait is unnecessary under FPTP.]


In Australia, the election count is delayed ten days to allow postal votes. They are needed to establish the total vote, which is needed before quota can be established. After they come in, it is just a day or two until results are out. It is said that the voter need only cast his/her vote and not have to know how the system works but this view is not wholly supported.


[Canadian jurisdictions during STV did not use mail-in ballots so vote totals were calculated within hours of the close of polling, with vote transfers taking one to three days normally to fill all the seats Consequently, full election results were announced within a day or two, or at most a week, with many early winners (such as those receiving quota on the First Count) being known even the night of the election.]


14. It is not difficult to count the votes with precision and promptness.

With trained staff, it is finished accurately in a day or two after mail votes are collected. [Better to wait a couple days for fair results than on election night to know who was elected under an unfair system!]


15. Hardly a ballot is ultimately thrown away.

This is true except for the problem of "exhaustion" (eliminations and vote transfers running past the voters' marked secondary preferences), rejected ballots and final eliminations where no transfer is conducted.

[In the 1948 Edmonton election, these amounted to 17 percent of the vote, including all the "exhausted" votes, some of which were cast for a winner, but not needed to elect him or her.

A benefit of STV is that only a low percentage of votes is wasted - not to say that all voters will elect their first choices but that a high percentage of ballots are used to determine the winners. If a voter's first choice not being elected, maybe his second or later preference would be, and that a candidate he/she does not favour would not be elected.]


16. Every ballot is assigned just as the voter who casts it desires."

This is helped by candidates appointing observers and scrutineers watching for accidental errors, etc.


* [This Joe Clarke, mayor of Edmonton 1919-1920 and 1934-37, should not be confused with Joe Clark, prime minister of Canada in 1979.]

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The list of benefits Ware composed overlaps surprisingly little with my list at the start of this article. My list centred on the candidates in the elections and the election itself.


Much of the benefits Ware pointed to had to do with the consequent government. Perhaps this is due to the fact the Harvard elections Ware is looking at may have had only one district.


The benefits can be categorized into these groups:

Government; Miscellaneous; By-elections; Chance of re-election, Voting; Electoral.

Following these groups is a exposition of electoral benefits in particular.


Government

1. It protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority. [In the legislature, at least to the extent that the minority has a voice. More pertinently it protects the majority of the people from being governed by a party supported by only a minority of he voters.


Under FPTP the minority of the voters often un-democratically elect a majority government, but sometimes it only elects a minority government. The election of minority government would happen more often under STV and therefore likely the valuable accomplishments that have been made by minority governments under FPTP in Canada's history would be multiplied under the more-frequent minority governments produced by pro-rep.


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Accomplishments of minority governments produced by FPTP

Even under FPTP, the leading party sometimes does not come up with a majority of the seats. Then if it hopes to continue its government, it must find support for its budget and legislation from among MPs of other parties. It may find sufficient support to stay in power from a small party that still does not give it approval of majority of voters. So even then majority rule is not produced.


But the main party finding it needs support from another party leads to bending of the party's old ways. The Liberal party in the old days often looked to labour, and farmers and more recently to the NDP to prop it up in power. And that support came with a price, the price often being the start or enlargement of social safety net programs.


In 1925, when the Liberals and Conservatives each had a crack at minority government, the government paid out overdue compensation to the depositors who had lost out when the Home Bank of Canada collapsed in 1923. Labour and farmer MPs cared mostly about the working-class depositors who had lost small deposits. Therefore the compensation - only 35 cents on the dollar of lost monies - was in effect only for deposits of less than $500. (John Turley-Ewart, "The Bank that went Bust", Canada's History (magazine), Aug 1, 2004)


The beginning of our federal pension plan began in the late 1920s when the Liberals did not have majority of the seats and Labour and farmer MPs, including Woodsworth, Irvine and Heaps - forced the Mackenzie King to initiate the Old-Age Pension program, Canada's first social welfare program.


Lester Pearson was prime minister during the 1960s when the Liberals were in a minority government position. His two back-to back minority governments are credited with these accomplishments:

introduced universal health care,

the Canada Student Loan Program,

the Canada Pension Plan (an expansion of the old Old-Age Pension plan initiated in the minority government of the 1920s),

Order of Canada and the Maple Leaf flag;


created Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism;


limited capital punishment to so few crimes that it was never used again in Canada; and


kept Canada out of the U.S.-Vietnam war.


Pearson is considered one of Canada's greatest prime ministers despite never leading a majority government.



2. (protects minorities and majorities from the tyranny of the party chiefs.) With more flexible elections, candidates and representatives have increased independence.


3. It permits the utmost freedom of individual action [for both voter and representative]


4. It secures the most perfect co-operation and organization.

Party allegiance is less strong, so chance of election is better for independent or candidate that can bridge two different parties. Larger opposition groups in the legislature, made up of more parties and independent reps, may free up even government members from party control and by sheer persuasion push governments to soften their hard lines. In some cases this will be ensured through election of a minority government. (My proposed Double-democracy system would obviate minority governments.)


6. It gives every representative a constituency who are unanimous in his support. Government members do not have to try to appeal to all the people - an impossible job - but only to their supporters. So purer class or group representation presides but one coloured by the balanced, proportional representation under STV.


Miscellaneous:

No. 11 Ranked voting may be used in single member and multi-member districts.

No. 14 Stating that the counting of votes under STV is not difficult is not an advantage so

much as a defense against a charge often levelled against STV.


By-elections

No.12 (STV may eliminate by-elections) STV never used this way in Canadian history. Always a by-election was held despite the increased cost of an election across a whole city just to fill one seat.


Chance of re-election

No. 6 It gives every representative a constituency who are unanimous in his support.) If the representative stays true to his/her support base, he/she will be re-elected if the voters stay true to the rep.


No. 7 (representative has a certain security in the tenure of his place)


No. 8. (produces a natural and reasonable method of rotation in office) Voters are freer to trade up representatives of the same party. Wider choice (more than one candidate of a party) allows flexibility while still maintaining party allegiance.


No. 7 and 8 can both apply depending on the circumstance.


Voting

3. It permits the utmost freedom of individual action [for both voter and representative]

Voter has wide range of candidates and ability to vote among choice of candidate running fore same party. may vote along party lines or idiosyncratic ranking of own choosing. give one choice or many.


5. It gives every elector a representative after his own heart, whom he has actually helped to elect. leading to voter satisfaction and hopefully larger turn-out.


No. 13 (voting is not complicated); No. 15 (few votes wasted), No. 16 (votes used as voters directed)


Electoral benefits are derived from

A. different candidates running under STV than FPTP, and

B. different results (different people being elected) under STV versus FPTP.


A. Different candidates running under STV than FPTP

No. 9 (parties put forward their best men and women). This is difficult to measure in practice, but statements by those in the know after historical STV city elections in Canada, for example, do testify to a general raising of quality of representation. (see my blog "opinions...)

Sometimes parties put up star candidates so strong that they unseat sitting representatives of the same party.

There is more sense to the election results under STV than FPTP. It is less like a game and more like the serious thing that politics and government are.


The instances of vote-splitting causing undemocratic results under First Past the Post are legion.


in 1910, Fred Dixon ran for a seat in the Manitoba provincial legislature in 1910 as a Labour Party candidate. He was supported by the Liberal party whose platform he generally supported. But the Socialist Party of Canada opposed his reformist brand of labourism and ran a spoiler candidate against him. Dixon lost to a Conservative by 73 votes; the SPC candidate had taken 99 votes, depriving the left of this early victory.


In about a third or more of districts in almost any FPTP election, candidate are elected with only a minority of the vote. Vote-splitting among the other parties, which altogether have majority of votes, would seem to undemocratically award the seat to a minority candidate.


No. 10 (good men and women more willing to run)


More women candidates

Not evident in Edmonton's 1926 election - no women ran in Edmonton during STV experience while three had run in previous Block Voting election. (And because no woman ran, no woman was elected.)


But in Winnipeg's first city STV election, five women ran -- and one was elected.


B. Different results derived from STV versus FPTP

This refers to Ware's numbers 5 and 13.

"5. It gives every elector a representative after his own heart, whom he has actually helped to elect."

"13. It is easy for the elector to cast his vote intelligently."


Under STV there is no fear of wasting your vote by voting for whom you want elected. It is said that the straitjacket FPTP imposes on voters grows stronger with each election. As parties elected are seen as winners and others as long-shots, voters are trained more and more deeply to vote only for a choice of two main parties.


Often even voters feel compelled to vote just for the governing party. A voter might see it as important to have a government politician as the district representative (MLA or MP) and thus secure favourable treatment by the government for the district after election.


Certainly STV's electoral benefits of this type are easy to spot:


Calgary's adoption of STV secured the election of the first female city councillor in Canada.


In Calgary's first STV election, in December 1917, Annie Gale was elected. On Jan. 1, 1918 she became Calgary's first female alderman — and the first female city councillor in Canada. She was a member of the left-wing People’s Forum, devoted to progressive discussion of issues of the day. She was also a pro-labour activist who campaigned for workers’ rights, free public healthcare and city subsidies for food.


The benefits produced by STV are more easily seen in Winnipeg than in Edmonton or Calgary.


In 1920 Winnipeg held its first city STV election and also its first provincial election.


In the Winnipeg provincial elections, the benefits of STV are more easily seen than in Edmonton or Calgary's first provincial STV experiences. The DM (the number of members elected) in Winnipeg was larger, 10 in Winnipeg versus five each in Edm and Calgary, thus producing more proportional results. As well, Winnipeg's change to STV from FPTP of six MLAs was more stark than that produced by the adoption of STV in Edmonton or Calgary where Block Voting had been used in each of the cities previously.

The first woman elected in Winnipeg was elected in Winnipeg's first STV provincial election. At least five candidates were women. One was elected.


Edith Rogers, known previously as a great philanthropist, had a 12-year stay in the Legislature, initiated and continued under STV. Her parents both being Metis, she was the first Indigenous woman in the Manitoba Legislature, perhaps in any in Canada. Her election launched a mini-dynasty of family female politicians. Rogers's daughter Margaret Konantz served as a Liberal MP from 1963 to 1965, and was the first woman ever elected as an MP in Manitoba.


(On the other hand, Winnipeg's STV did not open doors to the election of more women than Rogers. No other women were elected under STV. In addition to Edith Rogers, others did try. These women ran to be MLA for Winnipeg: three women in 1920 (Lipsett-Skinner, Holling, Dick) and four in 1922 (Brown, Munroe, McCarthy and Hample). But with only Rogers being elected, the glamour apparently faded and no more women ran in Winnipeg until two in 1936: Dyma and Beatrice Brigden. Then three in 1941, two in 1945, one in 1949. Other than Rogers none were elected, whether they ran under the Conservative, Liberal, farmers, CCF or Social Credit label.


The second woman MLA in the province's history, Elin Halldorson, was elected in 1936 with no special help from Alternative Voting in use in the rural district where she was elected. She was the first woman to run in a rural district in Manitoba.


The next three female MLAs -

Thelma Forbes 1959 (by-election) Cypress;

Carolyne Morrison 1960 (by-election) Pembina;

Inez Trueman 1969 Fort Rouge -

were all elected after STV/AV had been discontinued and were not elected in Winnipeg anyway.


Apparently after helping Manitoba women get the vote, Nellie McClung, a force in the Winnipeg women's struggle, moved to Alberta. Then Manitoba women became consumed with the war, then the Political Equality League fell apart. Apparently weakness begat weakness, and the Winnipeg women's movement, once at the forefront of the women's movement in Canada, fell way to the back. And even the benefits of STV in Winnipeg were not enough to secure more representation for women than Edith Rogers for many years. (See Linda McDowell, "Some Women Candidates for the Manitoba Legislature," Manitoba Historical Society Transactions, 1975/76 (online))


Winnipeg's first STV provincial election also saw progress for labour. While only two had been elected in the 1915 provincial election, four leftists of various hues were elected in this election under STV.


These four were not the only leftists candidates in the race. No. Winnipeg voters had a wide range to choose from, and not only on the left but across a wide spectrum of political ideas.


There were four Labour candidates, three Socialist Party of Canada candidates and a Social Democratic Party candidate among the 41 candidates running for the ten Winnipeg seats. There were also 10 Liberal and 10 Conservative candidates. Eight Independents, of scattered and idiosyncratic platforms, also ran. As well, two Independent-Liberals and an Independent-Progressive/Conservative candidate offered themselves. There was also a candidate running under the label of the Ex-Soldiers and Ex-Sailors Party of Manitoba, a sort of "Soviet" for returned veterans.


Voters chose not only the party they wanted to support but also the specific candidate from among the party chosen.

Among the four Labour candidates, Dixon and Ivens was elected but not Tipping nor James.

Among the Liberal candidates, sitting MLA Johnson, Cameron, Stovel and Rogers were elected but not sitting MLAs Jacob, Parrish and Hamilton, nor new candidate Gibben.

And so on.


And it is notable that while previously SPC candidates were described as "spoiler" candidates for splitting the labour vote, after the adoption of STV, they were regarded as authentic candidates. For one thing there was no vote-splitting under STV - if votes were lodged with un-electable candidate they could be transferred. A labour voter could easily vote right along the line for labour candidates. Eventually his or her vote could be used to elect a labour candidate even if at first placed on a unpopular choice such as less-popular SPC candidates Mrs. William Pritchard (whose husband was serving time in prison at the time for WGS activities) and Robert Johns. Some of Pritchard's votes and Johns' votes were transferred to help elect SPC candidate Armstrong and Social Democratic Party candidate Queen.

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Winnipeg's first city STV election did not produce much of a windfall for labour. But it elected a solid three councillors. There was no total sweep for either business organization nor labour under the fair STV system.


John Queen

John Queen was elected in Winnipeg's first STV city election. He was later a long-time MLA, serving until 1941, and two-time mayor


Queen (February 11, 1882 – July 15, 1946) was an Independent Labour Party city councillor from 1916 to 1921, Winnipeg MLA from 1920 to 1941. In 1941, Queen, the mayor of Winnipeg at the time, lost the legislative seat he had held since 1920. CCF lost popularity due to its support for wartime coalition government is one theory. He served as mayor 1935-1936 and 1937-1942.


Independents

While few Independents are elected under FPTP, In Winnipeg during its use of STV a few were elected.

Lewis Stubbs and Stephen Juba were long-time Independent MLAs elected in Winnipeg.


1936 former judge and leftist Lewis Stubbs, running as an Independent, was elected. He served as MLA until 1949, when did not run for re-election, being 71 years old.


As well, Lewis St. George Stubbs sat as an Independent from 1936 to 1949 in Winnipeg.


After his re-election in 1945, he supported CCF MLA Morris Gray in his efforts to increase provincial old-age pensions, and spoke in favour of electoral reform. His efforts resulted in the break-up of the 10-member city district of Winnipeg and its replacement by three four-member districts.


Stubbs did not run for re-election in 1949. Perhaps this was because he did not want to be seen to be trying to benefit from the redistricting.


He was a candidate in the new four-member district of Winnipeg Centre in the 1953. The election was held using STV. Stubbs was unsuccessful. He placed fifth in the first count and did not accumulate enough votes through transfers to overtake those who were more popular.


Independent candidate Stephen Juba was elected under STV in the four-seat Winnipeg Centre district in 1954. He was the first Ukrainian-Canadian MLA elected in Winnipeg. This despite the city having a large number of Ukrainians and despite STV being in use since 1920. With the profile produced by his legislative presence, he was elected mayor two years later. He would serve an astounding 20 years as mayor, 1957-1977. Without his start under STV, it is unlikely this obviously popular mayor would have had the opportunity to serve as mayor


Communists/ LPP representatives

William Kolisnyk became the first Communist elected to public office in North America, when he was elected to Winnipeg city council under the banner of the CLP in 1927.


in 1936, the second-most-popular candidate in the city-wide provincial election in Winnipeg was Communist James Litterick. He was the first openly self-declared Communist to win election at the state/province or federal level in North America. (He was followed by Winnipeg MLAs Bill Kardach and Joe Zuken, and MP Fred Rose.)


Litterick would sit until his party was declared illegal in the early years of WWII. He went into hiding at that time and has never been seen since.


1941 Bill Kardash,

elected 1941 as Worker's candidate,

re-elected as LPP, served until 1958


LPP

1945 13 candidates 5 percent of vote one elected (Kardash)

1949 2 candidates 2 percent of vote one elected (Kardash)

1953 1 candidates 2 percent of vote one elected (Kardash)


Joe Zuken Communist alderman

on council 1962-1983. continued to be re-elected even after STV was replaced with FPTP.


Jacob Penner on council 1933 to 1960, excepting time when interned during WWII


Joe Forkin filled Penner's seat during WWII, when Penner was put in concentration camp for being a Communist. Forkin ran as an "Independent". He had previously served as councillor 1935-1940. After filling Penner's empty seat in a by-election, he served as councillor until his death in 1962.



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Labour

Labour used the label Independent Labour Party until the 1930s when CCF came into use, followed by the NDP label in 1961.


Seymour James Farmer ILP MLA 1922 to 1949

Seymour James Farmer (June 20, 1878 – January 16, 1951)

He served as Winnipeg MLA from 1922 to 1949.

mayor of Winnipeg 1923-1924

city councillor in the late 1920s and in the '30s.

He was the leader of the Manitoba CCF from 1935 to 1947.


Other prominent Labour city councillors were :

Fred Dixon

Lloyd Stinson on council in 1940s and 19760s, and CCF MLA


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Manitoba elections



Manitoba wrong-winner elections

1945 election a disappointment to the Conservative party. Although it received more votes than the governing Liberal-Progressives (35 percent to 33 percent), it won only ten seats in the legislature.


1958 -- first election held with all FPTP elections. It produced a minority Conservative government that lasted only one year.



Name of political party determined by STV

The name of a political party was partially determined by STV.


1920 provincial election minority government

soon replaced by United Farmers of Manitoba government

Bracken, leader of UFM government in 1922. Bracken served as premier 1922 to 1941.

brought in AV elections in rural districts before 1927 election


In 1927, farmer movement took the name Progressive Party and were re-elected, continued in power.


1931 Progressives merged with Liberals thenceforward operating under name Liberal-Progressives.


1940 coalition government formed.


Bracken left premiership in 1941. At that time there were only five opposition MLAs.

CCF left the coalition at that time.


Premier Bracken became leader of the weak national Conservative Party in 1942 on condition that it change its name.


As head of the Conservative Party, Bracken changed the party's name to Progressive Conservative in order to help sell it. As head of the Liberal-Progressives, Bracken had received support from farmers and he figured that adding the name Progressive to the Conservative brand, he would get their support once more. (Arthur Ford, As the World Wags On, page 36-37)


Thus STV played part in the naming of one of Canada's largest parties today.


Thanks for reading.


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Caveat:

Independents not elected under STV in Alberta

In Alberta, votes voted along party lines more than in Winnipeg. This likely led to the fact that Independents had little success in STV election in this province.

Alberta STV pundit Jansen noted that "Preferential balloting allows voters to support an independent candidate loosely affiliated with a party without fear of jeopardizing the success of that party." (Jansen (1998), p. 205) This was possibly seen with large support for Independent-Liberal Joe Clarke* in 1926.

But there was only one independent candidate to get enough votes to be elected during Alberta's STV period. This was Independent Labour candidate Robert Parkyn, an independent with strong ties to the labour movement and a solid career on city council, elected in Calgary in 1926. And even Independent candidate Johnnie Caine, who placed high in the First Count in Edmonton's part of the 1944 provincial election, did not get enough vote transfers to take a seat.

(Independent Social Credit MLA Arthur Wray was elected in 1944 in Banff-Cochrane under Alternative Voting, a different form of preferential voting.)

In 1952 only one Independent candidate ran in all of Alberta. This should be taken as proof that STV and AV is not kind to Independent candidates.)

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Under STV, a United Farmers MLA was elected in Edmonton in 1926 and 1930. A UFA candidate had run in Edmonton in 1921 but had not been elected. Without STV, it is doubtful Farmer candidate Lymburn would have been elected in Edmonton. Lymburn was named to the UFA government cabinet. This meant that Edmonton had representation in the cabinet, with probable but unknown positive effects for city residents, whether farmers or not.


The transferable vote also showed, as outside PR expert Hallett reported (as reprinted in my blog on the 1926 election), that Lymburn's support was from supporters of all other parties. His ballots' second choices, consulted for transfer of his surplus, went to all the other parties, not just Labour as might have been expected. STV thus provided a better polling of the voters than FPTP elections do.


The 1926 election also saw the election of the first Labour MLA elected in Edmonton and his re-election in 1930, giving voice to the workers of the city. His election put an Edmonton representative in the Labour caucus of the Legislature between 1926 and 1935. (By comparison after FPTP was adopted in 1959, there was no Labour, CCF or NDP MLA elected in Edmonton until 1982.)


In part due to the Single Transferable Voting system in use in Edmonton and Calgary, there were four opposition groups in the Alberta legislature between 1926 and 1930. and later?


STV in Edmonton in 1926 also elected Conservatives and a Liberal, putting an Edmonton voice in those caucuses as well. It was more difficult to evoke regionalism or pit a part of the province against another part, urban against rural, north against south, Calgary against Edmonton when each part (mostly) elected representatives to all four major parties. This is bound to be good, but its practical value cannot be measured easily.


Fairer representation under STV and AV meant that all-around-great guy and much-respected local businessman and labourite Elmer Roper was able to rise up the rungs of local politics, while perhaps under FPTP he would not have have had the chance. For instance, look at how no Labour MLA was elected in Edmonton under FPTP from 1959 to 1981.


Roper was a union pressman working for the Edmonton Bulletin, then went into business for himself in 1921. He was editor of the Edmonton labour movement's newspapers, Edmonton Free Press (1919 to 1920), Alberta Labour News (1920-1936) and the People's Weekly (the organ of the CCF) (1936-1944). His political career started at a time when the Edmonton public school board used STV for its election. He served on the board from 1926 to 1929. With this experience, he was elected to the Legislature at first in a 1942 by-election held using Alternative Voting, then re-elected in 1944, 1948 and 1952 under STV. His high profile and proven efficiency at this level helped him be head-hunted by a group of concerned civic leaders in 1959, be elected and serve as mayor 1959 to 1963.


Would Roper ever have been given the post of mayor of Edmonton without his successes under STV at two levels? We don't know.


The Electoral benefits of STV lead to different performances as government.

Through easier election of candidates of hitherto overlooked groups - labour, socialists, women and others - and election of more-mixed legislature. STV lessens frequency of majority governments supported by only minority of the vote being elected by more often electing minority governments where no one party takes all the power.


Alberta has never had a minority government (although it has had majority government elected by just a minority of the voters).


Manitoba had minority government after adopting STV in 1920.


The federal government had a minority government back in the 1870s, more oftener since 1921, and very often recently, with most governments nowadays being minority governments. The leading party - to date only Liberal or Conservative - had had to placate other parties, with NDP being called on to prop up the Liberals. This historically has swerved the Liberals to a more leftist interventionist position.


As for practical results of STV,


if we take Roper's re-election to the Legislature in 1944, 1948, 1952 as a result of STV,

then we can look at the successes achieved in his career and credit STV to that.


What did Roper do as MLA?

As an opposition (CCF) MLA in the Social Credit-dominated Legislature he had no direct powers but he did later state that he was at partially responsible for this:

when oil leases were being issued, it was customary to grant a lease over a wide area, in which the oil company had monopoly right to drill in that area, Roper suggested in the Legislature that the government should retain the right to drill for oil in every second section (square-mile land plot) in the leases. And awhile later the government did bring in a policy where the right to drill in every other township (36-square-mile land plot) in a lease was retained. Roper said the policy brought billions of dollars into the government coffers over the ensuing decades.


(Revealing the uncompromising attitudes of governments under our present style of government, Premier Ernest Manning dropped STV in 1956. This was after Roper was not re-elected in 1955 (due to Liberal upsurge and SC and Conservative continuing strength). Roper later said that STV was dropped to keep him from returning to the Legislature. He never did return, and under FPTP it would be 27 years before the next CCF or NDP was elected in Edmonton, despite for example party candidates getting 13 percent of the city vote in 1971 when the city had 16 seats.


Other benefits can be seen elsewhere:

Lewis St. George Stubbs

He was re-elected in the 1945 election,[1] but again with diminished support. He supported CCF MLA Morris Gray's efforts to increase provincial old-age pensions, and again spoke in favour of electoral reform. His efforts resulted in the break-up of the 10-member city district of Winnipeg and its replacement by three four-member districts.

Stubbs did not run for re-election in 1949. Perhaps this was because he did not want to be seen to be trying to benefit from the redistricting.




Value of opposition MLAs keeping government true to the people

Under arch-conservative Premier Klein, protests at the Legislature slowed his government's move to privatize Alberta healthcare in 2000. At the tie Klein's government had a majority of the seats in the Legislature so had the legal ability to push the legislation through.


But it was likely the presence of 18 opposition Liberal and 2 NDP MLAs in the Legislature, principally the two NDP MLAs, that pushed him to look at the uproar he was evoking and eventually to back down. In fact later in the legislature Klein, pointing his finger, blamed the NDP MLAs for having made him back down.


The NDP MLAs were not elected under STV, but were elected in part due to concentration of NDP-ers in Edmonton strong enough to overcome the barrier to minority representation under FPTP. But it shows how the presence of even two NDP MLAs can use persuasive powers to force a government to back down or at least swerve. The relevance being that it is known that minority MLAs will be more often elected under STV than under FPTP.






Value of elected minority representatives at least in starting discussions


Wikipedia "Fred Rose" -- "As a Member of Parliament, Fred Rose proposed the first federal medicare legislation[1] and the first anti-hate legislation.[6]"






Footnote:

"Proportional Representation", 1921

All that is sought by the STV in the election is to bring into effect the will of the electors, first as to choice of parties within the electoral area, which must be large enough to afford opportunity for the formation of various parties, and secondly as to choice of candidates within the various parties.

The enlarged electoral area fulfils the requirements as to choice of parties; the STV gives adequate scope for choice of candidates within the different parties.

The idea is to have every ballot perform its part in affecting the final decision as to who should be the representative. With Smith out of the contest, the electors who made him their first choice should not debarred for having their votes counted in the real contest between Jones and Brown." (page 4)

"Much evidence can be produced to show that the multi-member district with the use of the transferable ballot invariably results in cleaner elections, that electoral campaigns under the system gain in dignity, and corruption is almost entirely eliminated...

In the multi-member district one candidate is not pitted against another in such a manner that to win he must necessarily defeat an opponent for the simple reason that every candidate who has a following in the district sufficient to give him a certain number of votes is sure of election.

The success of one does not prevent the success of another. Neither must party crush party. Both will be successful in proportion to their strength so there will be neither the temptation nor the power to purchase enough to materially affect the election... Few dishonest candidates would care to spend money with such a slim chance of getting any return for it." (page 5) ([Hunt?], "Proportional Representation", 1921. PAA 71.138, file 126)




So that is all I can think of right now.


Thanks for reading.

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Shaw:

Although leader of the Liberal party, he never served as [[Opposition (parliamentary)|Leader of the Opposition]] in the legislature, after a Speaker's ruling divided the Official Opposition funding between all the opposition party leaders. In part due to the Single Transferable Voting system in use in Edmonton and Calgary, there were four opposition groups in the Alberta legislature.<ref>A Report on Alberta Elections (1982)</ref>

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