SEAT PROJECTIONS & RIDING DISCUSSION -- SELECT PROVINCE/TERRITORY OR RIDING

Letter on Proportional Rep Published

Author: Chrystal Ocean (Green)

24 Sep

Cynic here didn’t think it would happen. The letter exceeded the Letter-to-the-Editor word limit. Times three. But my letter to the local paper made it anyway.

Originally titled Competition It Isn’t, here it is under the headline “Electoral systems needs change to promote democracy.”

Filed under: British Columbia, Chrystal Ocean (Green), Conservative, Democratic Reform, Green, Liberal, NDP, Party Platforms, Vancouver Island, Voter Decision Making

4 Responses for "Letter on Proportional Rep Published"

Skinny Dipper September 24th, 2008 at 5:10 pm 1
Congratulations on your letter. My next comment is not to defend any party but to oppose the current voting system. It will be a disgrace if the Greens get more votes than the Bloc but get less to no seats compared to the Bloc.
Whiskey Echo (N. Van, not affiliated or decided... yet) September 24th, 2008 at 9:28 pm 2
Our current First-Past-ThePost system is murdering Canadian democracy. It is a sick joke, archaic and useless in the reality of today where people simply do not want only two political choices.

Most voters go unrepresented, their votes counting for nothing.

Our “majority” (ha!) governments start off with a majority of the population against them from day one, yet govern with absolute power. This party, that party – who cares? It is a matter of democratic legitimacy. If you cannot garner a majority of the peoples’ support, you should not have majority power.

Proportional Representation is better – period. Better for the country, better for the citizens, and ultimately better for the governments we have in power since they aren’t ramming their particular issues past a mostly angry nation.

So yes, we need to switch to it. BC tried to have one – and ironically a big majority of citizens did support that, yet is missed the artifically high threshold. Funny how the only “true” majority of popular support was not good enough.

I wish the establishment parties were not so selfish and shortsighted. I wish they cared what was actually good for the nation, not simply scooping up seats they do not deserve. Each election I watch and see which parties support switching to PR, because that goes a very long way towards getting my vote.
Wayne Smith September 25th, 2008 at 9:09 am 3
if you haven’t seen Fair Vote Canada’s election contest site yet, you really should:

http://www.OrphanVoters.ca
Wasyl Wysoczanskyj (Non-Partisan) September 25th, 2008 at 12:20 pm 4
Pure proportional representation would be a terrible system for Canada as it encourages extremism. Special interests would form their own political parties and we would never elect a stable government capable of governing. Look at Israel or Italy for examples. Coalitions in which 2 or 3 member parties hold the balance of power are ridiculous!

We need representation by population first (PEI has 4 MPs vs while my riding whose population is greater than PEI’s has 1), we need an elected but smaller Senate to provide regional balance, and then we can look at adding a portion of seats, say 50, based on % of popular vote. Until then, first past the post at least ensures parties must earn votes from a good portion of the population to gain seats in parliament.

Leave a reply below or start a thread in the discussion forums

Note: Sometimes people try to portray more support for their candidate or their perspective in the comments section by posing as different people. If you attempt to do this, we will delete all of your comments.

Update: despite the above warning, people are attempting to use multiple aliases, so we are now moderating all comments to check against possible abuses. We apologize for this inconvenience, however we will work to get comments posted as soon as possible.