[To see the submission in its original format, see the linked
document below]
A Baker Initiative for Canada: A New Canadian
Vision
Election Reform
OVERVIEW
The following document is a proposal for a solution to flaws in
the electoral process in Canada:
LET’S (NOT) HAVE ANOTHER PARTY!
A year has passed since or last provincial election and, the big
questions are: what has changed, and are we satisfied with the
outcome? Have we Canadians been satisfied with the performances of
any of our recent governments? Does the picture look any different
since administrations have changed? Reading the news and
overhearing the coffee-break chatter would reveal that people are
still not satisfied.
So what’s wrong? Why are so many of us totally
frustrated by the huge burden of the National debt, the constant
aggravation of the GST, the huge loss of jobs since the inception
of NAFTA, a costly and ineffectual Senate, huge expenditures for MP
pensions, and fiascos like the Softwood Lumber debacle? Local,
provincial and federal levels of government continue to increase
the strain on our individual pocketbooks with more taxes and
surcharges. We feel that the government is irresponsible and
unresponsive to the voters of Canada. Why do we have this list of
woes? Are we being properly represented by our MPs and
MLA’s?
My theory is that we are being governed by the wrong people!
That through a twist in our system we are consistently sending the
wrong people to Ottawa, Victoria, or even our city council. Let me
explain.
Some terms that I use may require clarification:
1. eligible voters. This is the number of
persons in any election who are legally eligible to vote.
2. turnout. This indicates the percentage of
eligible voters who actually did cast a ballot.
3. Popular vote looks at an election from the
perspective of an overview rather than from the point of view of
any specific seat or position. In a federal election, a party has
said to have won the popular vote if more people across Canada
voted for them than for any other party. A party does not need a
majority (more than 50%) of the popular vote to win a majority of
seats. This fact is the root of many of our political woes.
What’s wrong with the present
system?
In the 1988 federal election, the Conservative Party formed a
majority government by winning 153 of 295 seats in the House of
Commons. A cursory look at the election statistics shows that they
did not, however, win the majority of the popular vote.
It’s a matter of record that they actually only
received "X"s from 43.2% of the people who did vote, so, "How," you
may ask, "did they end up with a majority of the house seats?"
Let me briefly explain how this is possible. Simple arithmetic.
For ease of demonstration, let’s say that each riding
has 50,000 registered voters and we get an 80% turnout. This means
that in 295 ridings across Canada, we get 80% of 50,000 x 295, or
11,800,000 votes cast. Lets suppose Party "A" won a majority with,
say, 153 seats. Let’s further
suppose that in each riding that they won, (153) they took an
average of 50% (20,000) = 3,060,000 of the votes. In each of the
ridings they lost (142), they averaged a little more than 35% of
the turnout (approximately 14,155 each) for another 2,014,000
votes; in all, a total of 5,074,000. This represents 43% of the
popular vote, and yet they won 52% of the seats. This is made
possible by the vote being split among a number of parties or
candidates in each riding.
At one time, our elections were simpler in that we only had two
parties, the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives (PC). In
this 2 party election, if the Conservatives only get 43% of the
popular vote, then they will likely win close to 43% of the seats
and the remaining 57% will fall to the Liberals. Simply, the party
with the most votes wins.
Enter the granddaddy of our present day NDP party, the CCF into
the fight. Let’s grant them a pretty good first time
showing and give them 12% of the popular vote but because they get
a fairly even 12 % in each riding, they fail to win any seats.
Let’s suppose that most of these votes come from former
Liberal party supporters who see the need for the changes proposed
by the CCF, but most of the PC votes stand firm with their party,
leaving them with a solid 43% of the popular vote. The Liberals
have shared their 57% with the CCF, are left with 45%. This makes
the split between these two parties so close (43% to 45%) that
it’s any body’s guess as to who would win
more seats, and, regardless of whether the Liberals or the
Conservatives won, the party that formed the government of our
country would have the approval of less than half (at best, 45%) of
the people!
To make it more interesting, let’s suppose the
fledgling CCF party had fielded very charismatic candidates in a
few ridings and had actually won 4 of the 295 seats, leaving the
Liberals and PCs to split the remainder with 147 and 144 seats
respectively. The Liberals would form a minority government and the
power would lie in the lap of the CCF party who, by siding with the
Conservatives, could defeat the Liberals in the House. Our Liberal
government would have to be sure that any proposed legislation was
given the blessing of the CCF members creating an unfair advantage
for a party that only received the nod from 12% of the people.
In recent elections, we have as many as 14 different parties,
plus independents, looking for these votes. I will limit my
examples to 5 parties for clarity, but please keep in mind that the
more candidates running in each riding, the worse the situation
will be. Let’s use the Liberals, PC’s,
Reform, NDP, and NAT. The new parties have been formed because
with things going the way they have been, a lot of Canadians are
disenchanted with the present choices, and might even be looking
for an avenue to cast something of a "protest vote".
On election day, (fictitious, of course), lets pretend that the
popular vote looks like this:
Conservatives 43%
Liberals 17%
NDP 15%
Reform 12%
NAT 13%
In this scenario, the Conservatives could easily win a big
majority of seats with only 43% of the popular vote! At this point
we may have a new Conservative Prime Minister reserve
prime-time on your television station to tell you how the people of
this country have given him an overwhelming mandate to proceed with
his platform. Is it possible that he just did not notice that 57%
had voted against him? In real Canadian politics, we had a very
similar situation which resulted in 5 years of government that gave
us GST, NAFTA and the Meech Lake Accord fiasco. Do you believe that
this is what a majority of Canadian voters wanted?
Let’s look at this a little closer.
Let’s imagine an individual riding in which there are
50,000 eligible and 5 candidates. On election day we get an 80 %
turn-out (40,000 votes are cast). They vote like this:
12,000 vote for the PC candidate
11,000 vote for the NDP candidate
7,000 vote for the Liberal candidate
6,000 vote for the Reform Party
4,000 vote for the National Party
The PC candidate wins the seat, right?
Did he get a majority of the votes? No. As a matter of fact, he
received the nod from less than 25% of the eligible voters and only
30% of the actual votes cast! 70% of the voters did not choose this
candidate, yet he is already packing for his flight to Ottawa! How
does this represent the choice of the people? Did the majority of
voters want the PC? No, and it is this basic flaw that has resulted
in the overwhelming disappointment among Canadian voters about how
we are governed. Clearly, the system does not work.
In a two-party election, a vote "FOR" one is effectively a vote
"AGAINST" the other and the system accurately reflects the
voters’ desires. Add a couple of more parties and the
system fails miserably. I propose that the reason is that when more
than two parties are involved, we effectively lose that AGAINST
vote. I believe that in the 1988 election,
there were many Canadians who were actually AGAINST the idea of
having another term of Conservative government. Because our only
option was to vote FOR, someone else (and actually 57% did just
that) we ended up with a Conservative government anyway because
that vote was split among too may choices. In the 1993 election, I
believe that many Canadians decided that they would not repeat that
mistake and voted Liberal as their only real hope of ending the
PC’s term.
Just say NO......
With this thought in mind, it is my proposal that we give the
Canadian voters the right to just say NO. How could we implement
this change and what might the repercussions be?
I propose that we simply modify the ballot itself. Give each
voter one "FOR" vote and one "AGAINST" vote, an easy and cost
effective change to implement. The new ballot would have two peel
and stick dots, one green, marked FOR, and one red, marked AGAINST,
and the voter would simply put the green one beside his preferred
candidate and the red one on the candidate he felt the most
negative about, and that’s it! This would nullify the
possibility of spoiled ballots by pencil errors or people simply
marking a whole bunch of "AGAINST"s on the ballot (Hmm....,not a
bad idea, whoops, you heard that didn’t you!). Each
AGAINST vote would register as a minus 1 and each FOR vote would be
a plus 1. That’s it!
Lets imagine an election now, using the same statistics as
before, but allowing a hypothetical AGAINST vote for each voter as
well as a FOR choice.
12,000 cast their FOR vote for the PC candidate, and of this
12,000,
4,000 vote AGAINST the REF
candidate,
3,000 vote AGAINST the NDP
candidate,
3,000 vote AGAINST the LIB
candidate,
and 2,000 vote AGAINST the NAT
candidate
11,000 cast their FOR vote for the LIB candidate, and of this
11,000,
4,000 vote AGAINST the PC
candidate
3,000 vote AGAINST the REF
candidate,
2,000 vote AGAINST the NDP
candidate,
and 2,000 vote AGAINST the NAT
candidate
7,000 cast their FOR vote for the NDP candidate, and of this
7,000,
3,000 vote AGAINST the PC
candidate
2,000 vote AGAINST the REF
candidate,
1,000 vote AGAINST the LIB
candidate,
and 1,000 vote AGAINST the NAT
candidate
6,000 cast their FOR vote for the REF candidate, and of this
6,000,
2,000 vote AGAINST the PC
candidate
2,000 vote AGAINST the LIB
candidate,
1,000 vote AGAINST the NDP
candidate,
and 1,000 vote AGAINST the NAT
candidate
And, finally, 4,000 cast their FOR vote for the NAT candidate,
and of this 4,000,
1,000 vote AGAINST the NDP
candidate
1,000 vote AGAINST the REF
candidate,
1,000 vote AGAINST the LIB
candidate,
and 1,000 vote AGAINST the PC
candidate
Now who wins the seat? How have the voter’s dislikes
affected the outcome?
The PC candidate had 12,000 FOR votes and a total of 10,000
AGAINST for a result of 2,000 positive votes.
The NDP candidate had 7,000 FOR votes and a total of 7,000
AGAINST for a result of 0 positive votes.
The LIB candidate had 11,000 FOR votes and a total of 7,000
AGAINST for a result of 4,000 positive votes.
The REF candidate had 6,000 FOR votes and a total of 10,000
AGAINST for a result of 4,000 negative votes.
The NAT candidate had 4,000 FOR votes and a total of 6,000
AGAINST for a result of 2,000 negative votes.
The LIB candidate wins this seat as the most ACCEPTABLE
candidate to all of the voters.
Some will cry, "Unfair! More voters chose the PCs than the LIB!
They should win!"
I say that when more than two candidates are running, we must
recognize the rights of the voters to reject as well as chose. In
our scenario, the PCs were also the party that received 10,000
AGAINST votes, more than any other party and this is why they
should not win.
Bringing this all closer to home, let’s look at the
federal election in my home riding, Nanaimo/Cowichan. Consider
this: rough figures given to me by the IWA state that 2800 to 3000
persons living in the general area of Nanaimo are directly employed
by the Forestry /Sawmill industry. Add in the members of the PPWC,
and various support services for these industries as well as their
family members and other voters who may be sympathetic to their
specific concerns. In our next provincial election, this one block
of like-minded people could conceivably vote in a candidate with a
radical pro-logging platform. Likewise, their livelihoods could be
in jeopardy if a radical group of environmentalists were able to
muster 12,000 votes for a candidate whose intent was to greatly
diminish the industry’s activity in this area, with a
"let them eat cake" platform. In either scenario, the big question
is: would either of these candidates best serve the concerns of the
majority of their constituents?
Choosing a platform......
Considering that the focus of each candidate is to get elected,
how might the present system be affecting the policies and campaign
tactics of each party? With 5 to 10 candidates splitting up the
pie, it is political suicide to attempt to please a broad majority
of voters because candidates who promise to address specific the
needs of special interest groups will each be taking a share and
the faction that is largest will win. The parties must campaign on
more controversial and divisive issues like abortion, or free
trade, the environment or unemployment. No matter which party forms
our government, we are left with a situation in which a select
group wins, and the majority loses because, we almost assuredly end
up with a representative who is not the choice of 3 out of 4
voters!
The present system forces the parties into diametrically
opposing platforms, and historically we have see-sawed back and
forth between leftist and rightist governments with a huge amount
of resources wasted on building and tearing down, like
BC’s motor vehicle testing stations, for example. We
also have set up our governments with a structure that makes equal
representation for all constituents a joke; a joke that no one
should be laughing about! John Doe, LIB, gets elected in Pooskapay,
and Bill Smith, NDP gets elected in Spuzzum. The LIB party forms
the government. Are these two representatives equal in the House?
Do the voters of these two ridings receive equal opportunity and
representation? The party who has the majority of seats, seeing the
people’s votes as sweeping mandates for their platform
promptly take control of the playing field. Some of our elected
officials who do not align to their particular views of this party
are relegated to the strange other-world called the "OPPOSITION"!
This is a rough place. None of these elected officials will ever be
the Minister of Labour, or Finance, regardless of qualification!
Couple this with the fact that the governing party and the
opposition are probably in little agreement about anything, and you
get the type of nonsense that you see on the Parliamentary
channel!
Because our present voting system spawns real "opposition" of
ideals, we cannot help but end up with opposition in the house. A
dose of opposition is healthy in any process, but can our system of
segregating our elected officials to positions of unequal status be
healthy for our country? How is this affecting our progress? I feel
that the criteria for appointing our elected representatives to
ministerial positions should be done on the basis of merit, not
patronage. Strangled with the present system, it is no wonder that
the governments of this country have consistently failed to serve
the united and best interests of the people.
In my newly proposed FOR/AGAINST system, supporters of
diametrically opposing candidates would cancel both of them out,
giving the middle of the road candidate a more likely chance for
election. This tendency would force candidates to listen to their
constituents and adopt policies that were more acceptable to all
voters, rather than volatile opposites. This would result in the
candidates coming closer together in their views and increasing the
probability of agreement in the House, whether government or
opposition.
Although I would ultimately propose dropping the
Government/Opposition setup entirely, I believe that if we made
changes to the ballot as I have described earlier, that alone would
serve to cause the candidates and the parties to move to more
constituent responsive platforms and goals. Those elected would
have appealed to the most voters and at the same time, offended the
least. The result is that the parties forming the government and
opposition should be on close to parallel courses resulting in less
controversy in the house and frankly, achievement of a lot more
with a lot less effort and squabbling!
We Cannot change our past, but our future lies before us, and a
provincial election is not that far away. We could change the
system in time to make our provincial parties re-assess their
platforms and offer us some new and genuinely progressive solutions
that would benefit a TRUE majority of British Columbians.
It’s easy to implement. Let’s try it! We
have nothing to loose.