Documenting Canadian electoral reform,
especially Proportional Representation and Effective Voting (STV),
and Canadian or Canadian-related published works on the subject.
This is Part 3 of a four-part Montopedia blog.
(for Part 1. Beginnings to 1899, see
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HISTORIC NOTE:
By 1935 only two large cities were using STV - Calgary and Winnipeg, plus a couple suburbs of Winnipeg.
STV was also being used to elect Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg MLAs.
HISTORIC NOTE:
1935 Alberta Social Credit League convention called for five-seat districts across the province, with STV to be used to elect the MLAs. At that time Malta national elections had exactly that system and had had for 15 years. But Alberta never did apply STV outside Edmonton, Calgary and Medicine Hat.
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HISTORIC NOTE:
1936 The Special Committee on Elections and Franchise Acts
The House of Commons formed a special committee to investigate P.R. and electoral reform.
In the end, the Special Committe ruled against change.
Special Committee on Elections and Franchise Acts was struck to examine “the proportional representation system; the alternative vote in single-member constituencies; compulsory registration of voters; and compulsory voting.”
The study took a reserved approach and came out against electoral reform.
Ronald Hooper, self-taught PR expert, editor of the Winnipeg Tribune, reeve of the St. John rural municipality (in the Winnipeg area), gave evidence.
(His appearance is referred to on page 97 and 100. His appearance begins on page 101 and continues to page 126)
In its 1936 report recommending against electoral system reform, the Special Committee on Elections and Franchise Acts questioned whether the adoption of either some form of PR [its focus was on STV] or the AV would work across the Dominion of Canada and be “conducive to good government.” It appears that the Special Committee’s focus went beyond how electoral system change could impact the representativeness of Parliament, in terms of how votes were translated into seats, to what could be meant as “good government.”
see:
(House of Commons, Special Committee on Elections and Franchise Acts, Fourth and Last Report, Journals, 1st Session, 18th Parliament, 11 June 1936, pp. 446–448; and Second and Last Report, Journals, 2nd Session, 18th Parliament, 6 April 1937, pp. 390–394.62)
The transcript of the Committee proceedings is available online at:
see Montopedia blog: https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/1936-house-of-commons-special-committee-on-elections-and-franchise-acts-did-not-endorse-stv
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1936 Winnipeg election of MLAs vote transfers (reprinted in John Gall Glashan, PR in Canada, UofBC M.A. thesis (1951))
1939 Saskatoon -- Saskatoon adopted STV a second time. No other city that discarded STV has ever picked it up again (at least not yet). Saskatoon kept STV to 1942.
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1940s (perhaps 1930s)
Wilson M. Southam of the Ottawa Citizen, a leading figure in the Southam chain of Canadian newspapers, was said to be the Canadian P. R. movement's most active and effective leader since Ronald Hooper. (1948 National Muncipality Review)
1942 - Saskatoon dropped STV.
HISTORIC NOTE:
1944 Alberta election saw 23 percent vote for CCF but it won only two seats, both in districts where STV was used. If the CCF had had 23 percent of the seats, likely Alberta's whole subsequent history would have been different, especially as Tommy Douglas's CCF government, elected next door, would have influenced our own political culture.
1949 Manitoba changed its election system.
STV still used but city divided into three districts.
Winnipeg was henceforth three 4-seat districts, and St. Boniface had two seats.
The two cities elected their MLAs in city-wide districts using STV.
HISTORIC NOTE:
1951 BC adopted Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV) in provincial elections. IRV in use in 1952 and 1953 provincial elections. BC used mixture of single-member and multi-member districts at that time, each seat in MMDs filled by separate contest.
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1951 - John Gall Glashan, PR in Canada UofBC M.A. thesis (1951)
When he wrote the thesis, STV was being used to elect MLAs in Alberta and Manitoba and to elect city councillors in Calgary, Winnipeg and two Winnipeg area suburban municipalities. On page 7 he calls out the basis of single-winner FPTP -- that "the people who live within a defined area can be represented by a man or woman for Legislative purposes solely because they live within that area." The truth is under FPTP he "represents only a portion of the voters if the act of voting has any signficance." in the 1945 Canadian election, of the 245 MPs elected, 150 were elected by a plurality only. page 9 he shows how votes for the leading party or coalition were weighed more heavily that votes for less-popular parties in BC elections 1933-1949 (see Montopedia "Embedded inequality").
1954 Manitoba dropped STV
(1954 seats in Winnipeg area increased by four. (Greater Winnipeg went from 16 to 20 seats.)
system changed to single-member districts and FPTP.
(STV had been used in Winnipeg and St. Boniface;
single-winner Alternative Voting (AV) had been used in rural districts 1923-1954))
(Winnipeg continued to use STV for city elections until about 1970)
1955 -- last Alberta provincial election to use STV
1956 Alberta dropped STV (and IRV)
(Calgary continued to use STV for city elections)
As early as 1955, Social Credit constituency associations were being encouraged to pass resolutions asking for the abolition of the IRV method of electing. "The faithful have responded, and so by the time of the next season of the legislatue, [in summer 1956], that cabinet will have before it a number of these requests, passed in most instances by those who had little or no conception of what they were doing, or the attack they were innocently making on a most essential phase of democracy." (Jack Southerland, Hanna) (Farm and Ranch Review, March 1, 1956, p. 48)
The cancellation of preferential voting (STV and IRV) was said to be due to the large number of spoiled ballots. But actually in 1955 there had been fewer spoiled ballots than there had been in 1952. And even if seven percent of the votes cast were declared spoiled, it would be slight problem compared to how under FPTP in many cases more than half the votes are ignored and elect no one. (Bob Hesketh, "Abolition of Preferential Voting in Alberta", Prairie Forum, Spring 1987)
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1967 New Brunswick dropped its MMDs (DM ranging from 2 to 4) (no single-member districts anywhere) and adopted strictly FPTP.
1967 Saskatchewan dropped its mixed use of multiple-member districts (city-wide districts) (four MLAs in Regina, three MLAs in Saskatoon, two MLAs in Moose Jaw) (Block voting) and single-member districts (elsewhere) (FPTP), and adopted strictly FPTP.
1968 Federal elections switched from using mixture of MMD(s) and single-member districts to just using strictly single-winner FPTP. Between 1867 and 1968 eleven ridings had elected multiple MPs (two at a time) at one time or another.
These were: three in Ontario (Ottawa, West Toronto and Hamilton), three in Nova Scotia (Halifax, Cape Breton and Pictou), St. John City and County (NB), Victoria (BC), and three in PEI (King's County, Queen's County and Prince County).
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HISTORIC NOTE:
1971 Calgary city election -- last use of STV in a government election in Canada.
As of 1971 these provinces were still using multi-member districts, sometimes in conjunction with single-member districts:
-Newfoundland and Labrador dropped its MMDs in 1975
-Nova Scotia dropped its MMDs in 1978
-BC dropped its MMDs in 1990
-PEI dropped its MMDs in 1996.
MLAs were elected in MMDs using Block Voting, except PEI which used a post/seat system.
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GENERAL INFO ON HISTORY OF ELECTORAL REFORM IN MONTOPEDIA:
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Switch away from MMDs
The provinces and territories switched to electing all their members in single-member districts elected through First past the post in these years:
Quebec 1867 (had formerly used four two-seat districts when it was part of the Province of Canada)
Ontario 1926 (used MMDs in Toronto 1886 to 1894, 1914-1926)
North-West Territories 1894 (see 1891 North-West Territories general election)
Yukon 1905 (had used MMDs 1900-1905)
Manitoba 1954 (formerly Winnipeg used DM-4 districts and St. Boniface had two members)
Alberta 1956 (formerly city-wide MMDs -- Edmonton 7 MLAs; Calgary 6 MLAs)
New Brunswick 1967 (formerly all MLAs were elected in MMDs)
Saskatchewan 1967 (formerly three city-wide MMDs were used. DM 2-4)
Newfoundland and Labrador 1975
Nova Scotia 1978
BC 1990
PEI 1996
(PEI's elections were special cases. Each district elected two members. At one time voters who owned property in the district voted for the Councilman while voters resident in the district joined with the property-owners to vote for the Assemblyman. Later the exact same voters were allowed to vote for each of the two members in a district but still each seat was filled in separate contest.)
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