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OPINION COLUMNISTS
GUNTER

Proportional representation breaks the community bond

BY LORNE GUNTER , EDMONTON SUN

FIRST POSTED: SATURDAY, JULY 30, 2016 06:00 PM EDT

Weve all heard the claims that

Canadas first-past-the-post electoral
system is unfair.
The candidate receiving the greatest
number of votes wins our local ridings
no matter how small a percentage of
total ballots he or she receives.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In last falls federal election, nearly 10%

LORNE GUNTER

of winning candidates (33 of 338)

secured under 35% of the local vote

Follow Lorne Gunter on Twitter

thanks to three- and four-way vote

splitting.
And seldom does a national party win a
majority of the votes even if it takes a

A maintenance worker uses a vacuum to clean and prepare the House of

Commons at Parliament Hill in Ottawa in this Sept 14, 2012 file photo.
(ANDRE FORGET/Postmedia Network files)

The last party to win a majority of the

seats in a federal general election while
at the same time securing more than

50% of the votes cast was Brian Mulroneys Conservatives in the 1984 election

Article
Recommend

majority of the seats.

32 years ago.
292

The last party to win a majority with more than 40% of the vote was the Chretien
Liberals in 2000. (Justin Trudeaus Liberals won 184 seats with 39.5%.)
Tweet

Thats not fair. So Trudeau has committed to ending first-past-the-post and

1

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Recently, a lot has been said and written
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has struck a Parliamentary committee to examine alternatives.

Already the NDP and the Green party have given their support to proportional
representation, a system in which parties seat totals are determined by the
percentage of the popular vote they receive. PR, as it is known, is popular in
Europe.

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Trudeau has not committed to PR, but has said he is open to it.

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I have two big problems with PR. The biggest problem is PR breaks the local
bond between constituents and MPs. I cant stand my MP, a Liberal, but at least
hes mine. He has to sell memberships in this riding to get his partys
nomination, and he has to come to town halls and knock on doors here when

New Blue Jay Feldman

tagged for loss against
former team

its time to get re-elected.

If I or any of my neighbours have a problem with the federal bureaucracy, such
as a delayed passport or a skipped pension cheque, we can reach out to our
representative in Ottawa, even if he is insincere and intellectually flatulent.
In a strict PR system, party leaders at national headquarters select who their
candidates will be, or at least in what order they will make it into Parliament.
For instance, if the number of votes a party receives on election day earns
them, say, 100 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons, a pre-determined
priority list set by party bosses decides who their partys 100 MPs will be.
Local voters have very little say over who ultimately gets to be an MP. As a
result, under PR, politicians pander to party bosses more than to local voters.

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There are variants to PR that mix list-selected and locally selected MPs, but in
no PR system is the local bond between MP and constituent as strong.
Members quickly become their parties representatives rather than their local
representatives.
The other big problem with alternate methods of electing MPs was highlighted
in a study this week from Vancouvers Fraser Institute. Alternate methods
increase the number of parties that win seats, which fragments Parliament
even more into warring special interests. This in turn leads to more coalition
governments (and almost no majority governments).

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And the drive to keep coalitions together, Fraser points out, leads to greater
government spending and higher deficits since there is more incentive to fund
each partys pet projects and less incentive to make cuts.

Stop using American facts

during Canadian policy
debates

Changing the electoral system isnt simply about making our elections fair. It
will involve vital changes to how Canadians are governed. Yet PM Trudeau

The green, bad and ugly of

winner-take-all elections

doesnt think thats important enough to put to a referendum.

It's all about power for the

Clintons

Police need not

manufacture new terror
threats

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