Coalition: Electoral Reform
If we are asked and do form the government, I think we, the NDP & Bloc could agree on electoral reform. At risk of repeating myself: I strongly suggest we adopt Dion's suggestion and introduce preferential voting while undoing some excessively restrictive provisions re. party financing. The aging boomers make an increasingly powerful conservative plurality a real enduring possibility for a generation, given our current electoral system. If the majority of more moderate Canadians, from centre-right to centre-left & beyond, want to ensure they have a government that reflects them, then a preferential voting system should ensure that, introducing an element of proportionality into the system as well as being easy to implement: the ridings & ballots can remain identical, just instead of a single X one could number the candidates/parties in their corresponding circles from 1 onwards. It may prevent any further outright majorities but it would also better reflect the popular will, encourage a more civilised discourse, and an enduring Liberal government, with various coalition partners coming & going.
posted by Eugene Forsey Liberal @ 4:38 PM
2 Comments:
At 4:48 PM,
WesternGrit said…
I really like preferential ballots... Go on!
At 5:18 PM,
Eugene Forsey Liberal said…
If it's good enough for leadership races, it's good enough for all Canadians. Its beauty is its simplicity. We can keep everything the same, maybe just making the circles on the ballots a bit bigger, so people have space to write 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.. If a party doesn't win 50%+1 on 1st preferences, we count 2nd preferences, etc., until a candidate has a simple majority (50%+1).
Since a candidate in such a system has to try to attract support from the other players if it goes beyond 1st preferences, he is obliged to play nice and speak to broader interests rather than just hitting hot-button issues to motivate the base. Better public discourse, debate, process and more legitimacy for winners: every candidate elected with at least simple majority in their ridings. Has effect of pushing and maintaining politics in the moderate centre.
It would also be a way to have future leadership races decided essentially the same way as now but much cheaper (without some of the emotionalism of convention floors, perhaps), by having us all vote locally - the leader would still be elected with at least 50%+1 support.
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