[To see the submission in its original format, see the linked
document below]
Electoral Reform Submission
In my legal practice, I have been involved in several cases
dealing with controverted elections including judicial
recounts. I have also represented both proponents and
opponents under British Columbia’s recent recall
legislation. In short, I have had the opportunity to
consider our democratic process up close from a legal
perspective. I have also enjoyed hands on experience
with the electoral process as a partisan activist, campaign
manager, and candidate for Parliament in the 2000 federal
election. I have recently been elected Vice-President
of Fair Vote Canada, a national organization with members from all
political backgrounds, that has advocated for changes to our
electoral system since its inception in 2000.
I would like to begin my submission with a story which
illustrates first hand one of the worst characteristics of our
first past the post electoral system. In the 2000
federal election, I ran in a close race against incumbent MP David
Anderson. For most of the election, local polls showed
our race was neck and neck, some showed me ahead by a small margin,
others showed David ahead by the same small margin. The
recent history of our riding was that the Liberals and Canadian
Alliance (Reform) were the strongest parties, with the NDP and PC
vote having fallen in recent elections. In the last
four elections, our riding had elected MPs with a popular vote in
the high 30% to low 40% range. Logic dictated that my
job was to win over the PC vote, and to help the NDP hold their
vote, and that David’s was to win over the NDP vote and
help the PCs hold their vote. This is what the
electoral system forced us to do. In an ideal world, we
would have set out our own platforms before the voters, and tried
to convince undecided voters through a positive message that our
policies were the right ones for Canada. In the first
past the post world, we each set out to frighten voters of other
parties about the consequences of electing a Liberal or Canadian
Alliance government or MP.
My campaign message was directed to voters whose preference was
the PC party. It was not to convince them that the
Canadian Alliance was better than the PCs, only that David Anderson
or Jean Chretien were very bad and must be stopped, and that I
stood a better chance of doing that than their PC
candidate. David Anderson’s message was
similarly directed at New Democrats. He did not attempt
to defend his government’s record on issues of concern
to those voters. What he did instead was convince New
Democrats that their party had no chance, and that they had better
vote for him in order to stop Stockwell Day or even me.
The result of the first past the post system is to force even
unwilling participants into negative campaigning. The
result of this has been a steady increase in negative campaigning
by all parties over the past few decades. I believe
that this is the most direct cause of public cynicism in politics,
and in lower and lower voter turn out. Our democracy is
sick, and it will not become healthy again until we change our
electoral system.
There are many technical reasons why other systems are better
than first past the post, and I am sure that you will hear them
articulated much more effectively than I am about to
do. But my main reason for becoming involved with the
electoral reform movement has to do with the above issue, and the
harm that an inherently negative system of elections is doing to
our whole society. I was involved with electoral reform
groups before becoming a candidate in the 2000
election. I should advise you that I although I am
National Vice-President of Fair Vote Canada, and may be making an
oral submission to you in that capacity, my opinions expressed in
this letter are not necessarily positions of Fair Vote Canada, but
merely reflect my own thoughts.
Fair Vote Canada does not support any particular model of
electoral reform, but has articulated broad principles which should
inform the selection of a new electoral
system. In my view, these broad principles
are best expressed as follows:
• Broad Proportionality,
• Extended Voter Choice,
• Regional Representation,
• Equality of votes.
You will have many submissions before you providing ideas for
many different models of voting systems. I urge that
you consider all of them in the context of these criteria, which I
believe provide the right values for the kind of voting system
which will best serve British Columbia.
Broad Proportionality
This is the simple principle that partisan representation in the
legislature should be broadly representative of the total votes
each party received in the previous election. I do not
believe that strict 100% proportionality is necessary, but whatever
system is chosen should do away with the clearly unfair results we
have seen in this province in the last twenty years.
Clearly, all reasonable people agree that the party with the
most votes should receive the greatest number of seats, and the
anomaly which took place in BC in 1996 and has taken place
elsewhere in Canada too frequently, should not be permitted to
happen again.
The more fundamental problem, of course, is that parties which
have respectable overall support (5 to 15%) but enjoy no geographic
concentration of support, usually get shut out of the
legislature. This effectively disenfranchises a large
percentage of our population and breeds cynicism about the
opportunities for effective change and fair representation in our
legislature.
Finally, the phenomenon of the exaggerated majority, which
exists in our current legislature, serves to further deny
representation to large segments of British
Columbians.
Extended Voter Choice
Our current system denies real voter choice, for the reasons I
outlined in my preamble. Most voters head to the polls
with an awareness that only one or two candidates have a chance to
win their riding, and they should limit their choice as a
result. In some cases, their choice is limited for them
because the political party they do support may not be on their
local ballot.
Choice is also limited when voters are formally asked to vote
for a local representative, but the system really requires them to
vote along party lines on a provincial basis. Research
shows that the vast majority of voters select the party they want,
regardless of who the local candidate is. Sometimes,
voters will instead choose the local candidate, even if he or she
represents a party they do not support. Either way, the
voter is not allowed to satisfactorily express their
wishes. Ideally, voters should be provided with an
ability to express these distinctions.
Regional Representation
500 years ago, when our present electoral system was being
formed, and perhaps even 100 years ago, people’s
primary identification was with their local community or
neighbourhood. That is no
longer the case with most people today. Many people,
especially in urban centres, do not know their immediate neighbours
and have no connection with the place that they reside except that
they sleep and eat there. People today often identify
with social communities, religious communities, and workplace
communities before identifying with their geographical
community. In doing so, they share values with voters
who form communities of interest that are not defined by
traditional geographic boundaries.
Neverthtless, although geography might not define the issues
that are most important to them, many British Columbians do
continue value the idea of having a local representative who can
pay particular attention to their local issues.
Particularly in rural British Columbia, but also in urban centres,
there is a value to knowing that there is at least one person in
the legislature who has a reason to care about your community and
the issues that affect it.
Adopting a more proportional system need not mean doing away
with regional representation. But I do believe that our
new voting system does not need to focus exclusively on regional
representation.
Equality of Votes
British Columbians want to know not only that their vote counts,
but that it matters as much as every other British
Columbian’s vote. Systems which treat
voters differently based on where they live, or their gender or
ethnicity for that matter, should be rejected. Systems
which do not translate votes for small parties into any
representation in the legislature should equally be discarded.
If electoral boundaries are going to be maintained, the
population differences between electoral districts should not be
kept very small. If a list system is going to be
established, the cut off for small parties should not be so high
that it creates significant distortion in the proportional
allocation of seats in the legislature.
A voting system is, at its most basic, a means of translating
people’s votes into seats in a legislature.
Our current system fails to do this with any mathematical
efficiency. Any new system we adopt should be
guaranteed to improve significantly on that translation, or it
should be rejected by you.
Conclusion
I will personally be happy if you recommend any system which
meets the above criteria more than the present system.
There are some proposals you have before you which trouble me
because they do not meet these criteria.
For example, the transferable ballot system which British
Columbia briefly employed in the early 1950s can actually provide
less proportionality than the current system. It is a
system that might also encourage to even more negative campaigning
than the current system does, by rewarding parties for solidifying
second choice votes by bashing other leading parties.
Another troublesome example can occur if you choose a Mixed
Member Proportional system with too large a regional
component. With MMP, the larger the number of
constituency-based seats there are, the more difficult it is
mathematically to ensure proportionality through the list
seats. For example, in a system where 2/3 of the seats
are constituency based, one party could still obtain 2/3+1 of the
constituency seats with 40% of the popular vote, and form a
majority government. Even if that party obtained a
minority with 2/3-1 of the constituency seats, the other parties
would remain under-represented because they are distributing 60% of
the popular vote into only 51% of the seats.
Invariably, if the number of seats is not large enough, some
parties will suffer further from mathematical rounding.
A final value which I do not think is essential, but is
preferable, is simplicity. Between two systems of equal
utility, that which is simplest to use and understand should be
preferable. I think that British Columbia voters are
very intelligent and educated, and can certainly handle a lot more
choice than they have now. But long and complicated lists with
fractional voting could be a deterrent to some voter
participation.
Having looked at all the systems presented before you to date, I
personally like the Preferential Plus system presented by Nick
Loenen and others. I also believe that MMP meets the
criteria I have set out, provided it is well designed.
I thank you for the opportunity to present my views to you, and
look forward to seeing the results of your deliberations.