Justin Trudeau will officially become Canada’s prime minister on Nov. 4. His government will have to make haste setting to work on the 60 or so campaign promises made leading up to the election.
One of those promises that could have a profound effect on democracy in this country is in doing away with the first-past-the-post voting system.
Trudeau promised if he were to win the election he would convene an all-party committee to explore voter reform and come up with a replacement within 18 months.
“We want to make sure there is all-party, open debate, discussion drawing on experts looking at international models, making sure that we’re actually digging into what’s the best for Canada [in future]—and not what’s best for a particular party that happens to wield power at this particular moment,” Trudeau told Maclean’s.
We have been down this road before but it’s definitely worth taking another tour.
In 2007, voters in Ontario may remember a referendum on mixed member proportional (MMP) representation.
MMP is a system that would result in parliament reflecting the actual voting ratio.
For example, in the recent federal election Liberals got 54.4 per cent of the 338 seats with 39.5 per cent of the vote and the Conservatives got 29.3 per cent of the seats with 31.9 per cent of the vote.
In the past, Prince Edward Island and British Columbia have also rejected voting reform.
The question is, should Trudeau’s all-party committee take its recommendations to MPs for the final decision or back to the public in another referendum?
At the risk of sounding cynical, people barely pay attention to elections in the grand scheme let alone get into the minutiae of party platforms and policies. The learning curve of MMP scares people away. It is a tough decision to change the way we vote when we are not fully certain of how the new system works.
But a representational system could help restore the faith of voters and make them more engaged.
Many people feel their vote is wasted – such as non-Conservative voters in a Tory stronghold such as Simcoe-Grey. A proportional system would encourage those who were so inclined to vote from the heart, taking away the need for strategic voting and vote swapping. A person could go to the polls knowing that no matter what, their vote counted for something. Their choice would be reflected in the government that would put in place laws and policies that would form the future of the country.
We inherited the first-past-the-post voting system and we must ask ourselves if it is truly the best way to proceed. Trudeau was elected on the theme of real change and although voter reform is not among the sexiest of campaign promises it will result in change that should suit all voters because we will get exactly what we asked for.