[To see the submission in its original format, see the linked
document below]
SUBMISSION TO CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY
Arguments Against Proportional
Representation
Paul St. Pierre
We have an electoral system in the province of British Columbia, as
well as nationally, under which a political party can win more than
a third of the votes in a general election yet gain less than five
per cent of the seats or even no seats at all. At first glance,
this seems manifestly unfair. First glances are seldom worth as
much as long looks.
The contention of this submission is that the unfairness of
party representation is irrelevant and that to introduce some form
of proportional representation would further damage a parliamentary
system that is already badly disabled. The essential question is,
shall more political power be transferred from individual citizens
to faceless, nameless political party apparatchiks. To divide the
legislature’s seats more equitably among the parties
could have merit only insofar as the political party system itself
has merit. My contention is that parties are no longer a solution
in Canada, they have become the problem.
In developing this argument I shall deal here with three aspects
of it: 1. History of the party system; 2. The British political
tradition which we inherited; 3. Continental Europe’s
experience with proportional representation systems and in 4. my
final argument.
The Party System
It’s all too easy to forget that British Columbia
managed quite well up to the First World War with no political
parties whatever. Political parties are, in any case, a recent
development everywhere in the world. They appeared first. in
embryo, during the second half of the Nineteenth Century in Britain
and were then copied elsewhere.
The Canadian constitutions, both the old and the new, make no
mention of political parties. In the Canadian House of Commons it
is not unknown for Mr. Speaker to remind MPs “Honorable
Members should remember there are no political parties in this
place, there are Members.” a statement outrageously
inaccurate but also noble in that it expresses the ideal that all
MPs are equal and all are engaged equally in using their talents
for the good of their country and not for partisan maneuvers.
Political parties formed for good reasons and serve a valuable
purpose. I could write at some length on their merits. However at
this period of Canadian history the friendly aide is turning into a
monster and the Citizens’ Assembly may be on the verge
of feeding more power to that monster.
Canadians, more than any other people of the British tradition
known to me, have in recent decades made political parties far too
powerful for the good of democracy. Today, people who change
parties are now commonly branded as traitors, rather than as people
whose convictions have honestly altered. (It is good for the
British people that such a view was not held when Winston Churchill
was young, otherwise the British people might have experienced a
different outcome to the Second World War.)
Yes, the party system has merits. If it hadn’t it
would never have developed. Our world became increasingly complex
in the last century and is immensely more so today. The notion that
any single people’s representative could be
knowledgeable in all fields is absurd beyond utterance. it was
helpful to all elected people that they join a party, a collection
of individuals whose political philosophy came reasonably close to
matching their own. (There was never a perfect match and there
never will be.) In the larger group called party, expertise in a
great many fields existed. A political party member could, with
some comfort, vote for a measure which he did not understand but in
which he could have some confidence that more knowledgeable people
of his own group had studied and approved it. Most parliamentary
votes are party line votes for that reason.
Another advantage of the party system is that it can aid the
voters. They are offered a named set of political philosophies
under a party name, it is an easy paint-by-numbers form of voting.
People may vote for Party A instead of Party B because A is the
party to which they feel a philosophic attachment. This argument,
too, has merit, but far less merit than we prefer to believe.
Encouraging people to vote by party label is an encouragement of
lazy thinking and it rests on a somewhat spurious base, because
there is very little difference among any of the major Canadian
political parties. Liberals and various brands of Conservatives are
practically identical and although CCF and later NDP strove hard to
be ideologically new and radically different, in the end this party
has hacked its way resolutely toward the middle of the road where
all Canadian politicians wish to travel. Greens have a pet project,
as do Quebec separatists, but practically all the people of all the
parties are in agreement on almost everything and must search for
small discrepancies in their views so they can shout at one another
and throw ashtrays.
What is often mistaken for political ideology is in truth
nothing more than the apparatchiks of one party seeking to replace
those of another party in governing. Our elections are contests in
management styles rather than in fundamental policies.
Yes, parties do serve some purposes but alas, Canadians carried
the supposed unity and strengths of party systems to absurdity. In
parliaments and legislatures we have almost completely abandoned
the principle that elected people should vote according to their
convictions and their conscience. When some prime minister or
premier announces that a vote shall be
“free”, one in which members may vote
according to their consciences, newspapers, radio and television
rush to report this as a rare and unexpected generosity granted by
the party apparatchiks. Everybody, it seems, finds the idea of MPs
and MLAs voting conscientiously to be a startling political notion.
No wonder that the Canadian citizens’ participation in
elections dwindles steadily, following the path of the great
disillusionment visible in the United States where this is a cosy
all-party agreement within the hails of Canadian federal and
provincial government buildings. As the American experience with
their system of divided powers proves, losing a bit of legislation
now and then is something our parties could and would get used
to.
Instead of seeking remedies, we continue with a system in which
the party becomes more important than the country or the
people.
The British Tie
I am not British but I come from a hard-headed race of people
who know a good thing when they see one. The British parliamentary
system, very weak and inadequate as it is and as all systems are,
remains less weak and inadequate than any other devised on this
planet. When operational it gives the citizen a voice and retains
common sense at the top echelons of the ruling class. It has been
copied around the world. It has given birth to more democratic
governments than any other system. We should think long and hard
before we depart from the British fundamentals.
In respect to the party system we should consider how far the
Brits have gone down the road of “my party, right or
wrong.”
Not far, is the answer.
Few controversial pieces of legislation pass through the British
House of Commons without some members of the governing party voting
against it. When it passes from there to the House of Lords there
is even harsher scrutiny. Almost a third of the legislation passed
by the Commons in London in the past few years was returned to the
Commons by the Lords for review and change or for quiet burial.
These distant politicians are far from flawless. To people of my
convictions, the British system now seems weak in that the
apparatchiks choose the candidates for most of the
country’s ridings. “Here’s one
where we haven’t had a win for 75 years and
you’ll have trouble understanding the accent in that
part of the country but give it a whirl, old chap; next election
we’ll have a better riding for you.” In
this they seem to have departed from the basic principle of people
of a geographic region delegating one of their own to be their
spokesman in Parliament.
However, whatever that weakness, once elected the British
parliamentarian seems to know where his duty lies and it is to
Britain, not to unelected backroom boys in smoke filled
rooms. Also, the British appear to have retained an
appreciation of the fact that a parliament and a government are
different entities and that what one does, the other need not or
can not. In Canada, the line between parliamentarians and
government has become so blurred that it is quite common for a
sitting member of a majority party to be called a
“member of the government” although in most
cases he is not. In more cases than non-elected people realize, a
sitting MP does not want to become a member of government, he wants
to speak on behalf of his people at home, in their interest.
Europe’s Ways
Many European countries have proportional representation in
their legislative bodies. As a result, it is rare for a party to
have an absolute majority in the legislature and coalition
governments are the rule rather than the exception. It may be that
coalition governments are better than single party steamroller
style governments, that is not an issue I deal with
here.
What does seem to me demonstrably bad about their proportional
representation systems is the power it confers on the party
apparatchiks at the expense of the electors. In most such nations
the people get to elect only some of their representatives; the
rest are chosen for them from groups of reserves who have been
selected by unelected party apparatchiks.
It seems to me not unreasonable for Canadians who, like me, are
almost entirely of European stock, to remind ourselves that our
ancestors just wanted to get the hell out of the place. My first
European ancestor to land on these shores has, today, about 60,000
living descendants in North America. I have never heard of even one
of them who wanted to go back to Europe to live in states which
are, by our definition, close to police states and where wars are
regular occurrences. This is not to suggest that Europeans should
change. Their countries and their ways are their own and should be.
It is to suggest that the continental Europeans have little to
teach us about politics or justice that we want to learn.
Their changes of government, often as not, can only be brought
about by people throwing paving stones at one another or doing
things even more violent.
Taming the Apparatchiks
The crux of the problem in instituting proportional
representation is clear enough. A hypothetic example will
serve.
Assume that in a legislature of 100 members, elected by the
first-past-the-post system we now have, Party A with 45 per cent of
the votes obtained 70 seats, Party B with 40 per cent obtained 30
seats and other parties, which obtained 25 per cent of the vote,
had no members elected.
These are not improbable figures.
If political parties, rather than elected members, are to be
considered the effective forces of democratic government, Party A
must surrender its majority position and tell 25 of its elected
members to go home, they are not wanted in the legislature. Party B
would also have to tell ten of its members to stand down. The small
fringe parties which were unable to elect anybody will take over
the 25 ridings where the winners have been delisted and people in
those geographic areas will be told that for their own good, the
way they voted did not count and substitutes will serve them.
This is an extreme scenario. Of course modified forms of
proportional representation could be devised.
For example, using the same 100 seat legislature, 70 could be
chosen in 70 provincial ridings by the present first past the post
method. ‘The other 30, MLAs-at-large, could be
appointed on the basis of the popular vote, 14 for party A, 13 for
B and 3 to minor parties in the hypothetic case listed above.
The essential problem remains even in this modified system.
Somebody must select Proprep MLAs from the spare list. Who else
than party people are suited to do that? To whom are the new
Proprep MLAs answerable? Not to an electorate, for they were never
elected. Some may have been candidates who ran but were defeated in
the election but they will enter the House beholden to nobody
except to their party leader and to party apparatchiks.
The party system will have been strengthened immeasurably and
under the above systems or any other that can be devised, it can
only be done by taking power away from the citizen electors. Unless
we despair for democracy, let us leave in ordinary
citizens’ hands the power to choose their own
representatives from whichever party they choose or from no party
at all. The link between MLA and constituent will be severely and
perhaps permanently damaged by introduction of proportional
representation and the link is none too strong now.
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