Tonight, as I write this, the CBC news carried a reportage on
the drop in voter participation in Canadian elections. The small
voter turnout is particularly serious among young voters, the
report said.
They blamed a variety of reasons, such as poor awareness of the
politics of this country, low newspaper readership, or poor
education in civics.
The one major reason that was not mentioned was the electoral
system. Most people I have spoken to complain that their vote just
doesn't count, and that they might as well not bother to vote. So
they don't.
I have to agree with this conclusion. For many years now my vote
has not counted. Not that the party I have voted for did not get a
respectable number of votes, but simply not enough to be first past
the goal post in my riding.
The first past the goal post system was devised for a two party
political system. And even there its possible that the party with
the lower popular vote actually wins. But the system becomes
particularly skewed when you have 4 or 5 parties in the slate. Some
two elections ago a member in the riding I lived in at the time was
elected with 20% of the popular vote.
We all remember how in the last BC election the Liberals got 97%
of the seats with 58% of the popular vote. This does not represent
the will of the electorate.
One has to ask if that sort of pattern represents real
democracy.
I will suggest two possible alternatives which would make
government more responsive to the popular will. In the first case,
I will assume that we are going to be keeping a multiparty system.
If that is the point of departure, we need some form of
Proportional Representation [PR] in British Columbia.
Most democratic countries have opted for one form or another of
this system.
1. Two years ago we had a citizens'
initiative to establish a New Zealand type of Pro Rep system in BC.
This system combines the current system, in as far as
voting for a candidate goes, with the party vote. In other words
people would vote both for a Party and a Candidate. In case of
discrepancy in these two, the party could top up the number of
candidates to its percentage of the popular party vote from a list
of worthy candidates. The details will probably be presented at
these hearings by the Proponent, Adrianne Carr.
In other words, voters would vote for two things: a person and a
party. Any party with more than 5% of the popular vote would be
guaranteed a seat in the Legislature. This would be a very critical
difference from the present system, and would make the BC
legislature much more democratic, and representative of the
political spectrum.
Another possible detail might be for the party list of members
to be elected in local riding votes, in other words
each riding would vote for their candidate in a local vote, before
the election. The successful riding candidates would
then be placed on the party list. Then during the election people
would vote for the Party only, with the members elected by the
riding placed in the requisite number of seats as per the
party's percentage of the popular vote.
In some countries Cabinet is also multi party. The cabinet posts
are assigned according to the importance of the ministry, and the
percentage of the vote a party received. In other words the larger
parties manage the more important departments.
This system might have both positive and negative features. On
the positive side, it would require a more cooperative approach to
governing. It would also give several parties the experience of
participating in government. It might possibly have the negative
side effect of more frequent conflict. It does seem to work in a
number of European countries, however.
2. I am intrigued by the system of
governing recently introduced in Nunavut. Here there are no
parties, but members are elected by ridings and govern by
consensus. The stress is on the MLA¹s representation of
his district, and their local interests.
In view of the fact that most political parties in recent years
have not had widely divergent policies, the Nunavut model seems to
have merit. Perhaps we should study it, and observe how successful
it is in practice. It may be that political parties are obsolete in
Provincial elections, just as we have opted against them in
municipal politics in Canada.
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