Ontario referendum- let's get proportional!

Hey Ontarians, did'ja hear the news? There's a provincial election taking place on October 10th! And not just an election; this cereal box of an election comes with a real dinosaur-prize-sized bonus: a referendum, that wonderful, woefully elusive electoral concept that hasn't graced the ballot sheets of Ontario voters since 1924! And no sir, not just any referendum, but a referendum on a very important, worthwhile, and potentially groundbreaking topic: election reform!

Yessir, after many years of flirting with the issue, Ontario is going to pick the brains of its citizens, and pit the First-Past-the-Post system against its nemesis and challenger, Proportional Representation. And because this issue has been a favourite of mine for several years, I feel compelled to use this blog to do my civic duty, and present the facts of electoral reform (as objectively as I possibly can).

On October 10th, in addition to voting for your local riding candidate, you will be asked to vote on a separate issue (a referendum). You will be asked to choose between two electoral systems: the First-Past-the-Post system (the system Ontario uses today) or the Mixed Member Proportional system (a new system designed by the Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform, a group assembled by the provincial government to examine ways to improve, if possible, Ontario's electoral process).

So let's examine the pros and cons of each system, shall we?

In this corner...

First-Past-the-Post (FFP)

The FFP system is simple: Ontario is divided into 107 electoral ridings, and each citizen gets one vote to cast for the local candidate of their choice. Whichever candidate wins the most votes in his/her riding wins the seat, and the party that holds the most seats in the provincial legislature forms the government. Fair enough, right? This is the system we're used to.

Now, this system has come under criticism for being somewhat unrepresentative. How so? Imagine the following example: the results of an election are in for three ridings, and we are examining the results for two parties, Liberal and Conservative.

Riding 1
Liberal: 101 votes
Conservative: 99 votes
WINNER: Liberal

Riding 2
Liberal: 101 votes
Conservative: 99 votes
WINNER: Liberal

Riding 3
Liberal: 2 votes
Conservative: 198 votes
WINNER: Conservative

See why this is a problem? In total the Liberal Party won 204 votes, and the Conservative Party won 396 votes. And yet, even though more Canadians supported the Conservatives, the Liberals won two seats, and the Conservatives only won one. So in this simple little example, the Liberals would get to form the government even though the Conservatives had the support of a greater number of Ontarians. So many people have criticized the FPP system as being unfair to parties that have a lot of province-wide support, but don't have concentrated support (and thus can't win many ridings). The NDP, for instance, consistently wins a greater share of the province-wide vote than they actually win in seats. It irritates them to no end.

On the plus side, though, the FPP system is simple, and everyone votes for a candidate they know and understand (more on this below). Furthermore, the FPP system tends to produce stronger majority governments, since a party doesn't need to win an overwhelming majority of province-wide votes in order to win the majority of seats. So if you like decisive, strong majority governments, the FPP system might be OK with you.

And now, the challenger...

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

This system is a new idea for Canada, but is used in many other countries. Don't panic! It's not as complex as it sounds.

Basically, under MMP the Ontario legislature would grow from 107 to 129 seats, divided amongst two kinds of members: "Local Members" and "List Members." Ontario would be divided into 90 ridings, and each voter would get to vote twice- once for a "Local Member" and once for a political party.
Voting for your local member would work the way it always has; you pick your candidate and whoever wins the most votes wins the seat. There would be 90 of these in the legislature.

But you would also get to vote for a political party, or "List Member". There are 39 List Member seats to divide up in the legislature, and these seats would be awarded to parties that won more "political party" votes than they did "Local Member" seats. So if the NDP wins 15% of the "political party" votes across the whole province, but only 7% of the seats in the legislature, then they would be awarded enough of the 39 leftover seats to give them the 15% house-seats they deserve. So basically the 39 List Member seats are used to top-up parties that got shortchanged by the FPP system, and deserved more seats than they actually won.

But here's a good question: who gets to fill these "List Member" seats? Well, each party gets to produce a list of candidates that are waiting in the wings to fill these seats (this is where the "List Member" name comes from). The lists are made public well ahead of the election, so voters know who they might be getting if they vote for a particular party. Supposedly, the parties will have to be careful about who they put on these lists: if they select someone controversial, voters might be turned off and vote for other parties.

There are several pros to this system, it seems to me: it's more democratic in that it better reflects the wishes of Ontarians; it means you can vote for the party you like the best and the local candidate you like the best, even if that means voting for the Conservative party and a Liberal candidate; and it's relatively simple, meaning we wouldn't have to deal with runoff elections like many other proportional system candidates.

On the cons side, though, this system will likely tend to produce slimmer majority governments, or even minority governments, since there will no longer be any "false majorities." And people might not like the idea of voting for a party that then gets to select any candidate it wants to fill a seat in the legislature.

I have at least one major question: how will the parties select these List Candidates? Will party members get to vote for them in primary campaigns? I feel strongly that List Candidates should have to campaign for the privilege of being on that list, and win the confidence of their fellow party members. Another question: is the list ordered? If a party wins 5 List Candidate seats, will they have to select the top five candidates on the list?

If anyone knows the answer to these questions, please leave a comment. If I read anything myself, I'll be sure to blog my own response. And be sure to sound off on the comments section: which system will you be voting for, and why?

For more information, visit http://www.yourbigdecision.ca/en_ca/faq.aspx

Happy voting, Ontario! Savour it: you may not get to see another referendum for another 83 years.