After reading the news release of the Victoria Meeting, I have
the following observations.
The "first past the post" system is a complete failure as far
democracy is concerned. It may have produced "MLAs with a broad
spectrum of knowledge,experience and viewpoints", but at the same
time made them impotent to draw on any of these because of party
discipline. And especially where it has evolved basically into a 2
party system.The Voter has no assurance that the candidate will
represent him, as a matter of fact he can be 95 % sure that the
candidate will not either vote for what is good for the riding or
his or her conscience, but follow the partyline, imposed by the
governmentleader.
If the objective of parliament were to ease the passing of laws and
regulations, we all should be aiming for a dictatorship. I would
rather have a bad law "stalemated by a member with a narrow view",
than passed by a pliant Assembly.
A mixed voting [MMP] system is ideal, because it is the happy
marriage of two things. If the local representative is properly
selected, he or she would represent the traditional ideas of the
riding in parliament. Yet the members of parliament elected through
the party vote could represent new or controversial ideas, which in
a healthy democracy need airing and examination.
My preferred elction model would be the following:
Half the number of ridings [perhaps use the federal electoral
boundaries]. Each voter has 2 votes, one for a person, and one for
a registered party. I am leaning towards a 5% cutoff, primarily
because it has worked in Germany for more than 50 years.
N.B.The paraphrased sentences are drawn from Mr Patrick Thompson's
comments.
|
levelCMS