Since Confederation, the federal and the provincial governments in Canada have used a variety of electoral systems. Sometimes a government has used a mixture of types in different districts at the same time.
Some worked better for reasons of convenience; some worked better as regards fairness of results; some worked better for ensuring re-election of the government.
Here they are:
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SINGLE-MEMBER DISTRICTS (voter casts single vote)
non-transferable votes
First past the post ("X" votes)
The largest voting block wins the seats, even if it does not have support of a majority of the voters.
Used in most elections in Canada since 1867 (exceptions indicated below)
Used in conjunction with Block Voting in several provincial elections in Alberta and Saskatchewan
Used in conjunction with Block Voting in all BC elections prior to 1987, except 1952, 1953
transferable votes
Alternative Voting.
To win, a candidate must have or accumulate support of a majority of the voters in a district. Each voter could cast one vote by marking numbers to indicate the voter's choice, giving a first preference and back-up preferences.
Used in provincial elections
Used in part of Alberta 1924 to 1955
Used in part of Manitoba 1924 to 1955
AV in single-member districts used in part of BC 1952, 1953 (AV in multi-member districts used in other parts in those elections)
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MULTI-MEMBER DISTRICTS
non-transferable votes
Block Voting (voter casts multiple votes)
Voters can cast as many votes as there are seats in multi-member election. The largest voting block usually claims all the seats under this system.
Used in federal elections in these two-member districts:
Ottawa 1872 to 1933
Halifax 1867 to 1966
Cape Breton, N.S. 1872-1903
Pictou, N.S. 1872-1903
St. John City and County, N.B. 1872-1896
Hamilton, Ontario 1872-1903
West Toronto 1896-1903
Victoria, BC 1871-1904
In PEI: King's County 1873-1896; Queen's County 1873-1896; Prince County 1873-1896
(The reason for the creation of some of these two-member seats was to allow a Liberal voter to give one vote to a Catholic Liberal candidate and one to a Protestant Liberal candidate; Conservatives likewise. Otherwise, perhaps just to simply increase the seat count for a city without having to create two single-member districts.)
Used in provincial elections
BC Used in part of BC 1856 to 1986, except 1952, 1953 AV elections
(in at least one of the BC Block Voting elections, the Government benefited from system: half the districts elected two Government members; one quarter of the districts elected one Government and one Opposition; one quarter of the districts elected two Opposition members.) (See footnote)
Saskatchewan Used in Regina, Saskatoon and Moose Jaw 1920 to 1967
Alberta in Edmonton and Calgary 1909 and in Edmonton 1913 (Population growth required more MLAs given to the city-wide districts. Doing it this way avoided trouble of re-districting.)
Election of two soldiers representatives during WWII - 1917. A Nursing sister, Roberta MacAdams, called for soldiers to give their "other vote" to her and she won one of the two seats, becoming one of the first women in the British Commonwealth to be elected.
in Edmonton, Calgary and Medicine Hat 1921 (Edmonton's was ploy by Liberal government to capture all 5 Edmonton seats. It worked.)
Atlantic Provinces 1800s to at least 1970s.
District Magnitude ranged from 2 to 5. (PEI used double-slate system described below.)
Nova Scotia in only some districts 1928-1974
Newfoundland and Labrador in only some districts 1949-1972
New Brunswick some three-member districts 1938-1970 (done to allow representation of different religious and ethnic groups, where three-seat district to allow election of French Catholic, English Catholic and English Protestant.)
(FPTP was used in by-elections held in districts that were using Block Voting in general elections at the time.)
non-transferable votes
Limited Voting (voter casts multiple votes)
Voters cast two votes in election electing three members. No one voting block took all the seats in the district under this system, so it created mixed representation in each district.
Used in Ontario provincial elections in 1886 and 1890, in Toronto
transferable votes
Single Transferable Voting (voter casts single vote)
Each voter could cast one vote by marking numbers to indicate the voter's choice, giving a first preference and back-up preferences.
The vote is transferable if it otherwise would be wasted on surplus votes for a successful candidate or by being cast for an unpopular candidate. The multiple members elected in a district under STV ensures mixed roughly-proportional representation of the substantial groups in the district.
Used in Manitoba provincial elections
- Winnipeg city-wide 1920 to 1949
- Edmonton city-wide and Calgary city-wide 1924 to 1955
- Medicine Hat city-wide 1926
- Winnipeg multi-member districts 1949 to 1955
- St. Boniface, Manitoba 1949 to 1955
(Alternative Voting was used in by-elections held in districts that were using STV in general elections at the time.)
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Multi-member districts where each member was elected in a separate ballot
(Separate ballots create single-member elections in multi-member districts.)
(Each voter casts single vote in each ballot in the district)
(not common)
non-transferable votes
First past the post
example: Election of the two seats in each district was done by two separate First Past The Post (FPTP) elections in each district, in each of which each voter could cast one vote by marking "X". (Most of these elections resulted in multiple members of same party representing the district.)
Used in Manitoba provincial elections
- in Winnipeg's 3 multi-member districts 1914, 1915
Used in PEI provincial elections 1927-1993
Used in some Ontario provincial districts (Toronto NE for example) 1914-1926
transferable votes
Alternative Voting
example; Election of the two seats in each district was done by two separate AV elections in each district, in each of which each voter could cast one vote by marking numbers to indicate the voter's choice, giving a first preference and back-up preferences. (Most of these elections resulted in multiple members of same party representing the district.)
AV in multi-member districts used in part of BC 1952, 1953 provincial elections
(adopted to avoid vote splitting between Liberals and Conservatives in hopes of
excluding CCF)
By-elections were held across the whole district by whichever system was in use.
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Information on these different systems can be seen by looking at my other blog "Have Canadian governments ever changed electoral systems?"
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Other innovations used in Canadian elections include:
- seats for military forces representatives during WWI and WWII (Alberta)
- automatic re-election of sitting MLAs serving in army during WWI (Alberta)
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No Canadian election at any level has used Single Non-Transferable Voting (SNTV). Used in multi-member districts to fill multiple seats in one election, this system produces mixed somewhat-proportional representation at the district level. Similar to STV. Without STV's transfers, it takes the results created by the first count under STV. As mixed proportional representation is mostly achieved under STV in the first count just by virtue of single votes cast in multi-member elections, SNTV produces similarly-fair representation, but with much more waste of votes than under STV, although not necessarily more than under FPTP in single-member districts.
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No Canadian government has used a party-list proportional representation system, which would look at a party's standing overall and issue seats accordingly.
No government in Canada has used a system under which supplementary seats are issued to ensure a fairer, more proportional distribution of seats.
For proportionality, two provincial governments did adopt STV, a voter-driven candidate-based district-level system that is in line with British political tradition of electing persons, not parties. These were Alberta and Manitoba. They used STV in their major city/cities for more than 30 years.
Thanks for reading.
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Footnote: BC Block Voting
"British Columbia had a long history of multi-member districts combined with a plurality (first past the post) voting systems. There have always been some single-member districts but these have been combined with two, three, four, five, and occasionally six member districts. The largest of the multi-member districts were to be found in the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Victoria, but much of the province has had multi-member districts at some time over the last 130 years.
One in four MLAs were elected from multi-member districts for most of the period since 1871. Only since the 1991 general election have all seats in the Legislative Assembly been single-member seats. The combination of a plurality voting system and multi-member districts often produces disproportional results. A party with the most votes in a multi-member district, even with only a third of the votes, can win all the seats.
But the use of multi-member seats is one way of responding to the growth of population in an electoral district without having to redraw electoral boundaries—just add one or more seats to those districts with a large increase in the number of voters.
(the point expressed in "Electoral Experimentation in BC and Canada," paper for the BC Citizens' Assembly, Weekend 2, Session 3 (available online)
Not mentioned is the fact that even when a district is given multiple members as an easy way to "re-district" seats, a voter in a multi-member district does not have to be given ability to cast as many votes as the number of seats. With each voter casting only one vote in a multi-member district, the Single Non-Transferable Voting system is created, which can immediately produce mixed roughly-proportional representation.
keywords: electoral reform, proportional representation, SNTV, STV
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