Those designing any PR scheme in Canada would have to decide on five basic questions plus several minor ones:
Which general system?
district list PR
provincial-level list PR
district STV,
AMS (where top-up is sub-provincial regional or provincial at largest)
RUPR (mixed member -- STV or list PR in cities/FPTP outside cities, with list PR top-up -- top-up at sub-provincial regional or provincial scale at largest))
(Constitutionally, votes cannot mix from province to province so that excludes NZ's MMP, at least not without changes)
if top-up is used as in MMP or AMS, then decision will have to made on how many members elected in districts, how many in top--up.
Perhaps a ratio of 2 to 1 if FPTP is used in district elections, with 66 percent of overall members being district members and 34 percent being top-up seats.
if a fair voting system is used in districts (list PR or STV), then ratio of 4 to 1 is likely adequate, where 80 percent of overall members would be district members and 20 percent would be top-up seats.
Also, decision will have to be made on whether or not the existing number of members is to be maintaind or like in NZ, extra members will be added at same time as new electoral system is installed.
Redistricting -
some list PR systems may require province-wide districts
district list PR, district STV and RUPR calls for MMDs;
MMP calls for larger SMDs unless additional members are added to provide top-up.
Size of MMDs if any --
would they all have consistent DM or varying as in system where pre-existing units (cities, counties etc.) are used;
would SMDs be retained in the North of each province? (Single-member ridings would be retained in the Territories, one per each Territory at least until population growth.)
Issue of handling of casual vacancies --- different models available - byelection, countback, etc.
type of STV used, if any (choice of surplus vote transfer method - whole vote, Gregory, etc.)
type of list PR (Saint Lague, D'Hondt, etc.)
ER might also include guaranteed Indigenous representation (but still within each province is easiest Constitutionally) various models could be applied -- NZ's overlaid Maori districts create two parallel district systems (that mix together for the top-up). (Likely Canada's PR would have no overall top-up)
ER might also include guaranteed Women representation (but still within each province is easiest Constitutionally) various models could be applied. Zipper lists are easily applied in list PR.
Ethnic and racial fairness would be achieved through PR at least for voting blocks that have say more than 10 percent of population. Indigenous population of 3 percent of our population, spread from coast to coast to coast with much of it concentrated in the North, need help to be guaranteed 10 seats in a 338-seat HofC.
Those are factors that will have to be solved for a new PR scheme.
Today's quandary of which of several PR systems is something like what proportionalists faced back a hundred yers ago.
(List PR won out in many countries;
STV in others,
MMP came in later in NZ and elsewhere.)
Back in 1911, John H. Humphreys in his book simply titled Proportional Representation gave a "state of the world of PR" round-up.
By that time he listed
"single voting" in Japan (SNTV)
Belgian PR
Swedish PR
Finland PR
Bale PR p. 114 125 195 387 (I have not seen what he said yet)
STV as already used in Denmark, South Africa (Johannesburg and Pretoria cities and Senate election), Tasmania
Cumulative Voting, Limited Voting is also mentioned as having been used enough to have practical experience to report on. but he likely gave them only faint praise.
single-winner majoritarian systems -- two-round voting, IRV are also discussed.
FPTP and Block Voting (what he called "plural voting") were disparaged of course
plural voting (what we call block voting) was perceived rightly as being unfair as it allowed a voter in one district to cast multiple votes while in other districts where just one member was elected each voter had just one vote.
(He is referring to Britain but mix of MMDs with single-member districts, FPTP with Block Voting, occurred often in Canada history too -- in federal elections 1867 to 1970; and in provincial elections --AB 1909-1921, MB 1914-1920, BC 1875-1980!, ON 1914-1928 ish, SK 1920s-1940 ish, NS, NB and NL as well.
(PEI with all MMDs from 1860s to 1990s! never used Block Voting, I say offhand. The post/seat system was its style.)
in interesting parallel of our Court Challenge
Humphreys wrote
"Mr. Harcourt's Plural Voting Bill [is] a highly complex measure to give effect to the principle of one man, one vote The bill was strongly opposed on the ground that the reform was partial in characgter [like FVC's stand against Trudeau saying he wants to change to IRV]
If, said the opponents of the bill, it is unfair that one elector should have twelve votes whilst another elector has but one, it is equally unfair that the vote of an elector in one constituency should be twelve times as valuable as the vote of an elector in another constituency."
[whether constituency is meant to be district or voting block is not clear - either way the statement holds -
a Liberal in an Alberta riding today has zero direct representation;
more poignantly, a Green voter in an Alberta riding today has zero direct representation,
a People's Party or Communist Party voter today has zero direct and zero indirect representation;
while a Conservative voter in Alberta (but outside Edm-Strathcona) has oodles of direct and indirect representation among Alberta MPs and across the country (barring PEI and central Toronto).
The point of the Court Challenge is -- sure everyone has one vote but if half the votes are cast aside and elect no one, as they are, there is no equal value. same as Humphreys was saying back in 1911]
Humphreys continued:
"The justice of the argument [agaisnt Block Voting] must be admitted, and explains why the rejection of the Plural Voting Bill by the House of Lords aroused comparatively little public feeling.
Yet the rejection of this Bill has focussed attention upon the deficiencies of our franchise laws and the eyes of all politicians are turning towards that more comprehensive measure of electoral reform which cannot be indefinitely postponed.
Such a measure has been categorically promised by Mr. Asquith on more than one occasion. So far back as 1908... [prepeat of Trudeau saying 2015 would be last...]
"what are the lines on which a truly effective [ER] scheme can be framed?...
It may be assumed that an effective scheme must deal with three problems:
[Britian in 1911 suffered under handicaps that it (and Canada) no longer suffer from, although PR is still un-achieved.]
- franchise (including registration) [at the time Britian had 20 different basis on which a voter might gain the right to vote - our present practice -- (almost-) universal adult suffrage -- is immeasurably simpler]
- redistribution [he meant changes to ensure the same voter-to-member ratio across the country, which is already done (mostly) in Canada. grouping of single-member districts into MMDs would also fall under this term.]
-three-cornered contests [today five-cornered contests are common].
Humphreys wrote that any fear that changes to electoral system may allow "the most numerous class in the country to monopolize representation may be met by linking the [change] with a system of election that shall give due representation to minorities." [PR]
Our job as proportionalists today is comparatively easier -- back in 1911 Humphreys and others were still fighting against those who were defending Block Voting for some and FPTP for others.
I am big supporter of STV. Partly this is due to historical reasons - it is the only PR system ever used in Canadian history.
(Limited Voting and CV being pale imitations of PR)
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Party list PR and STV seem, to me, to be the best replacements for our FPTP; SNTV with top-up could work fine - anyways it would be much better than our present FPTP.
I am not so fond of NZ's MMP, preferring Denmark's mix of multi-member districts and top-up, which in Canada's system would have to be at the province scale at the largest.
CV and Limited Voting being not quite as proportional as STV, and even the proportionality of STV is not universally accepted.
STV's transferable votes mean votes for small parties can go elsewhere on secondary preferences.
but also the higher District Magnitude possible under list PR means votes for some small parties will have no need to go elsewhere due to being due representation under the larger-DM.
STV does have advantage of ensuring voter can vote for candidate, same as present FPTP.
Candidate voting is also allowed under open-list list PR.
It will be interesting to see -- if we get CA-- what it will say about candidate voting versus party voting and then what government of the day will say.
for many voters, candidate voting versus party voting may not be big deal. some people vote along party lines even under FPTP.
any change from FPTP -- even SNTV -- would be big improvement
and in federal elections almost certainly would stop the artificially-created and long-standing one-party sweeps of whole provinces
or almost-total one party sweeps of them,
and the mostly-artificially-created regional (provincial) disparities.
PR NOW... (when will that judge make his ruling?)
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Put simply, Canadian PR can be:
-STV with some single-member districts (using IRV) if desired,
-List PR province-wide
-List PR in MMDs, with some single-member districts if desired,
-MMP (with top-up done at province level)
-Flexible-district PR (with multi-member districts in the cities using STV or list PR; single-member districts elsewhere using IRV or FPTP) and province-wide top-up
Variants of these are possible with some (smaller) provinces using STV (or list PR) province-wide, whlie others (larger ones) using STV (or list PR) in MMDs.
There would not have to be consistency across a province or across the country, but any change toward PR would be progress.
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.also see my blog
Electoral Reform - How MMP with STV could transform Canada elections
see also
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I disagree with those who say that list PR or NZ-style MMP should be brought in in Canada on the grounds that SV is not proportional enough or is against will of voters.
List PR ala Netherlands or Isreal (at-large) is not feasible. constitutionally it cannot be brought in easily in Canada.
Likewise MMP ala NZ with overall country-wide top-up is impossible for same reason.
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Here's a list of systems that I see being possible in Canada.
They are similar in that in each no district crosses provincial borders, votes in one province are not combined with votes cast in other provinces.
- district list PR
- provincial-level list PR - district STV - AMS (where top-up is sub-provincial regional or provincial at largest) - RUPR (mixed member STV/FPTP with list PR top-up -- sub-provincial regional or provincial at largest))
(list is justified more fully above)
for list PR, best we can do is
- district list PR
districs of two to ten seats, like in Denmark's districts
which in Canada could be province-wide or subprovincial regional
district list PR is used in Belgium, Turkey and many more
or Additional Member System like in Scottish Assembly
with district FPTP and regional top-up.
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Here's how Canada-possible systems might be categorized:
Type of district Regional/provincial top-up
STV (Malta) MMDs* ** NO
District list PR (Belgium) MMDs* *** NO
Rural-Urban PR (RUPR)**** SMDs and MMDs YES
Additional Member System (AMS) SMDs only YES
(Scotland) (FPTP in district)
SNTV (Vanuatu) MMDs* NO
* an MMD may cover a whole province but more likely it would cover a city or a county, or 3 to 7 current SMDs.
If STV is used, District Magnitude might be as large as 21 but 5 to 7 is enough to provide acceptable proportionality/high rate of effective votes.
If list PR is used, no limit on DM.
If SNTV used, DM of 2 to 7 would be normal.
** SMDs may be used as well as MMDs in exceptional cases (North).
IRV would likely be used if STV used in MMDs (repeat of STV/IRV system used in AB and MB 1920s to 1950s),
*** SMDs may be used as well as MMDs in exceptional cases (North).
FPTP would be used in SMDs if district list PR used in MMDs
**** Rural-Urban PR (RUPR) is Canadian invention -- STV or FPTP used to elect district members. Top-up members are elected considering votes cast just in SMDs or overall.
At national level
STV (with no top-up) is used in Ireland, Malta and Australia (Senate).
District level list PR (with no top-up) is used in these countries:
Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Belgium, Iceland, Estonia and Latvia, Poland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechia, Indonesia, East Timor, Argentina, Peru.
Paraguay's Chamber of Deputies, Morocco's lower house, Algeria's lower house
and more.
Additional Member System used in South Korea (and to elect members of Scotland's Assembly.)
RUPR not used anywhere currently.
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List PR has never been used in Canada in the past.
Top-up has never been used in Canada in the past.
All members have always been elected in districts.
Wider top-up (levelling seats) has never been used in the past.
MMDs have been used in every province of Canada in the past.
Most provinces used a mixture of SMDs and MMDs at one time or another.
SMDs are used in every province today to elect MLAs and MPs.
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In defence of STV
if people don't like ranked voting they don't have to under the optional-preferential STV system used in ireland, malta and historically in Canada -- if you do not or did not want to mark back-up preferences you do/did not have to. (You just mark your first preference just like in FPTP.
Even at that STV worked better than FPTP - in STV you have choice of 15 or more candidates to choose from and choice even within a party slate.
Most votes go to first preferences anyway and most candidates in winning position in the first count go on to be elected ,so back-up preferences and vote transfers make little difference.
but what transfers do is either onfirm the fairness of the first count positions or make small changes so that more voters' choices are actually used to elect someone.
(any change in candidates in winning positon arises from electing someone more generally acceptable or if same candidates remain in winning positions the vote transfers shift votes so more votes go to the people already in winning positions -
those two different possible outcomes are what drives transfers -
- which will it be? will an initially-less-popular candidate pass someone initially in winning position or not?)
single voting in MMD is the backbone of STV and does not depend on vote transfers.
STV vote transfers do change candidates' vote tallies, and vote tallies at the end are different from vote tallies in first count.
Whether candidates' first-count vote tallies or candidates' votes at the end are used to collate and compose parties' due share of seats, the result is broadly proportional in either case. (I have not seen a case where that is not true - if DM is more than 3. I say because in every election in the first count the candidates in winning positions are of different parties (more than one party is represented) so mixed representation is already established in the first count.
Advantage of MMD and fair voting (STV or district list PR or SNTV) is that each voter has an elected member whose sentiment he or she shares, or someone very similar, actually representing the district where the voter lives.
no SMD can do that. but of course no one is defending FPTP.
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More remarks on electoral reform for Canada
some seem to think Canada has used FPTP always except for a few provincial exceptions...
BUT more than just a few provincial exceptions to single-winner FPTP:
every province at one time or another has used MMDs, some to elect all their MLAs at any one time.
11 federal ridings had two members at various times prior to 1970
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AV has been stepping stone to STV (PR) two times in Canada's history
Lethbridge city went from AV To STV in 1928
St. Boniface (MB) provincial went from AV to STV in 1948
But those two cases are no striking reasons to adopt IRV.
most cities that have used STV in the past went from Block Voting to STV.
Lethbridge is only one that had AV, then moved to STV.
and of the five cities that have elected their MLAs through STV, three had used BV prior.
one had used IRV, and one had used the post/seat system.
so going from AV to STV can happen but it is not normal route to STV.
And changing from AV to STV is not easier than the shift from FPTP to SNTV.
in fact both entail the same change - changing from use of single-member districts to MMDs.
from AV to STV means one change -- shift to MMDs
from FPTP to SNTV means one change - shift to MMDs
add ranked ballots and you have STV.
from Block Voting (the rule in most of the MMDs used in Canada's past) to SNTV means one change -- shift to single voting
add ranked ballots and you have STV.
in all those, plurality or quota as set by candidates vote tallies are used to determine winners
changing from BV, AV or FPTP to closed-list list PR means voter dropping ability to vote for candidate of choice.
Many or most already vote for party of choice and hence whoever the local candidate is, and trust in him or her being clapping hands, nodding head in the backbenches, loyal to the party.
under FPTP vote have choice of various one-name party slates and we can't know whether the candidate's name or the party label is uppermost in the minds of the voters.
STV allows voters to vote for candidates, even if party labels may be most important
open-list PR allows voters to vote for candidates or party list. (But it has never been done in Canada.)
closed-list list PR allows voter only to vote for a party label, which might be in line with how many vote anyway. (But it has never been done in Canada.)
But with switch to party list, even though voters might already be voting along party lines, the format of the ballot and the vote count would be different under list PR.
plus consideration of the electoral threshold if used.
and perhaps under list PR (where list PR is province-wide), representation would be viewed differently
- no district member providing illusion of local representation,
under FPTP that was the myth put across -- that a often-minority-elected member represents all who lived in the district.
STV would preserve local members and good and true local representation where most votes would be used to elect a candidate, and majority of votes cast in the district would be used to elect the members.
list PR if used in districts would preserve local members and good true local representation where most votes would be used to elect representation for a party (but under closed-list PR not individual candidates) and majority of votes cast in the district would be used to elect representation for a party.
if open-list list PR used in districts, voter could vote for candidate or party would that would preserve local members and good true local representation where most votes would be used to elect representation for a party or a candidate and majority of votes cast in the district would be used to elect representation for a party or the individulal candidate.
but still under any list PR system, ballot would be designed and vote count would be conducted differently from the "plurality and/or quota" method used in district elections under BV, FPTP, SNTV or STV.
MMP allows the illusion put forward for FPTP that a often-minority-elected member represents all who lived in the district.
and top-up has the complexity of list PR, plus compensatory factoring, plus consideration of an electoral threshold if used.
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But Canada could have PR under any of these systems and could get it by making whatever switch is required - it just depends on will and application of the minds of the elected members (the government in power)
Although FPTP-to-AV-to-STV route is not easier than FPTP-SNTV-STV, AV does achieve one party-strategic democratic advance for Canada today, in the short term.
AV might prevent some local district Conservative candidates from being elected, where the Conservative does not have district majority. IRV's vote transfers would allow the Lib-NDP-Greens to concentrate behind the candidate of one of those parties. Likely in most cases Liberal.
not proportional but if it happens in enough places, it would prevent Conservative getting a false-majority government that under FPTP might be formed against will of the NDP-Lib-Green voters who together might make up a majority.
NDP-Lib-Green voters together did make up a majority of votes in the last election and now do hold a majority of seats in the HofC.
so Trudeau's AV might have been good for country and democracy but we don't even have that.
and yes we should ask for PR, and not accept substitutes.
even if STV or list PR is thought to be unavailable now, SNTV alone is easy to get and would stop the artificial regionalism we live under - and more.
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