October 2022:
Danielle Smith is now our premier although she does not have a seat. This is not unusual in Alberta history. But what she plans to do about it does shed light on the myths that our electoral system is based on. In the history of Alberta we have had several premiers who initially did not have a seat. Herbert Greenfield in 1921 and William Aberhart in 1935 did not have a seat. Conservative Jim Prentice did not have a seat when he became premier in 2014. In each case where a person who became premier did not have a seat, an MLA of their party resigned so that the new premier could take a seat. The new premier did not live in the district he would represent as MLA. And that was okay. Under our system MLAs do not have to have any personal connection to the district he or she represents as long as the district voters elect them. Danielle Smith needs a seat to be present in the Legislature. The MLA for Brooks-Medicine Hat has resigned so she can get a seat. there. Does she know that district? She never has lived there. Will she be elected there? Likely. Her political aides tell her it is an easy seat. Smith running in Medicine Hat where she has no local respect proves local representation is a fiction. In fact, most voters vote for the party, for the policies that they think best serve their interests or what they see as the best interests of Alberta. Voters in a district believe in different policies but despite this reality, under our system we elect just one member for each district. Having just one member means that the district can be small - containing about 1/87th of the population of the province or so the myth goes. And in each district the single winner according to myth represents all the voters in the district. How he or she can do this when the district contains a wide variety of interests and sentiment is beyond me. And especially so as that single winner may not have received the votes of more than half the voters in the district. In almost any election in Canada more than a third of members - sometimes more than half - are elected with the support of less than half the votes in their districts. But the one-member districts are defended on the grounds of local representation. This is baffling to me how local representation can be thought to be produced when the Member sometimes does not even come from the district. While Smith prepares to take the Brooks Medicine Hat seat, meanwhile the Calgary-Elbow seat sits empty. Its MLA resigned and the voters now have no representation. Smith says that the MLAs in the neighbouring districts will represent them but then how is this local representation? So let’s say we do what Smith suggests and throw out this myth of local representation and how each little 1/87th of the province needs its own member. Fine. In Edmonton and Calgary let's replace the old districts with a city-wide district that elects the same number of MLAs as Calgary or Edmonton elects now. A Conservative elected in that district can represent the Conservative voters anywhere in the city. An NDP elected in that district can represent any NDP voter in that city. No longer will voters be separated from the candidate they truly want to see elected just because they live in different areas of the city. With each voter casting just one vote, no one group will take all the seats in a city as happens sometimes under single-winner First Past the Post. Having a multi-member district that covers a whole city would allow about 80 percent of voters to actually elect someone - while under single-winner elections about half or more of voters often do not elect anyone. Smith is saying she will not authorize a by-election to fill the empty seat of Calgary-Elbow. Such a decision delays the time when the voters of Elbow will again have direct representation in the Legislature. As it was, in 2019 the Calgary-Elbow MLA was elected with support of less than 45 percent of the voters. More than 55 percent voted for candidates other than the one elected. But now to say to even those 45 percent that they don't need direct representation flies in the face of the basis of our parliamentary system, of our democracy. What would it take to have fair results? Basically all we need that we don’t already have are multi-member districts. That is the only way that the variety of voters in a district will be truly represented. A district no larger than three to five of our present districts put together would allow three to five MLAs to represent the voters there, and most voters would see their votes used to elect someone. If Calgary was made into three districts, each electing eight or so MLAs, the representation would be even more local than Smith's representation of Medicine Hat. And with each voter casting just one vote, no one group could take all the seats. Each substantial group in each district would elect someone to represent it. Meanwhile, Danielle Smith became premier with the support of barely half of the members of the Conservative party who voted in the leadership election. That is, she had the support of just 42,000 people. With that support, she ascended to be premier of a province of 4.4 million people. So with support of less than one percent of Albertans, she now leads the government. The Conservatives hold a majority of seats in the Legislature. They did receive a majority of votes across the province - 54 percent. So in all fairness they deserve a majority of seats but not the 70 percent of seats that they now hold. Our archaic election system gave the Conservatives far more seats than their due.Then our parliamentary system allowed one percent of Albertans to choose Smith to be premier, to hold the reins of the super-sized Conservative caucus. Premiers come and go and each party can choose its own leader, but, for gosh sakes, let’s have fair elections where each party gets about the same number of seats as its share of the votes. Then when new premiers come, they have no more power than makes sense based on the number of party supporters. Let’s let Conservative MLAs elected in Calgary represent all Conservatives in Calgary, and NDP likewise. Liberals too. If a party across a city has enough votes to elect a member, let it elect a member. Let’s let supporters of each party elect people of their own party to represent them. Let’s do this in an even-handed fashion where each party has that right and privilege. Let’s not let our government deprive some of representation (Calgary Elbow). And let’s not swallow the make-believe that Smith will be providing local representation in her new seat. Let’s have true representation of voters through multi-member districts and fair voting. =========================================
(originally published in Millwoods Mosaic Octobe 2022)
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