Ontario set to vote on electoral system

I've heard and read a lot about this citizen's assembly on electoral reform in Ontario. There are a lot of skeptics.

In issue #1 of Blackfly, we featured an article about the citizens assembly that will be recommending an electoral system for Ontario.

An independent assembly of citizens set up by the government voted overwhelmingly yesterday to have a referendum during this fall's provincial election on replacing the current winner-take-all system with a proportional representation system modelled on those used in Germany and New Zealand. The Globe and Mail

There are many who think that electoral reform would be bad for the province. Ian Urquart of the Toronto Star created this list of "consequences":

More politicians. There would be at least 22 more in the Legislature under MMP. Advocates say that would just restore the Legislature to its former size before Mike Harris cut it back by adopting the federal riding boundaries.

Bigger ridings. With just 90 constituencies, the average riding would have about 143,000 people, compared to about 125,000 today. Geographically, a northern riding like Kenora-Rainy River, which is already bigger than Italy, could grow to the size of France.

Permanent minorities. MMP is designed so that a party cannot win a majority of the seats in the Legislature without a majority of the popular vote, which no party has received in an Ontario election since 1937. The experts who advised the citizens' assembly tried to sugar-coat this point by saying that MMP would lead to "majority coalition governments," which is an oxymoron.

Seats for fringe parties. In the last provincial election, not even the Greens, with 2.8 per cent of the popular vote, exceeded the 3 per cent threshold established by the assembly. However, a forward-looking analysis of the proposed change suggests MMP would encourage votes for fringe parties so that not only the Greens, but also groupings like the Family Coalition (a pro-life party), could exceed the threshold. Toronto Star

Not everything he lists would actually be a bad thing. So-called fringe parties would no longer be the fringe -- as in, they would be able to impact decisions just like the "fringe" members of our society should.

By pulling out the pro-life party, his comments automatically scare the Left, but I don't think they should. If pro-life party can attain enough votes to get some seats, other progressive parties could do the same. The damage would really be minimal.

Further, permanent minorities are generally a good thing. When a party has majority control of the government, the Opposition is basically powerless. If parties have to work together, it means that all people's representatives are working together. Much better than being steamrolled over by the majority.

But, sadly, most predict that Ontarians won't understand the new systems proposed and we won't have any change at all.

Some links:
Fair Vote Canada
Ontario Citizens Assembly