MMP referendum
October 14th, 2007
The significant margin of defeat of the MMP proposal suggests that Ontario voters don’t see the voting system as a big issue at the moment — unlike BC, where the proportional proposal was heavily discussed and got majority support (though not enough of a majority). The Ontario result may in part be the result of four years of middle-of-the-road Liberal government. While many are dissatisfied with the Liberals, they have not, since the health premium, instituted policies that are *intensely* opposed by a lot of voters — unlike the previous NDP and Conservative governments. So there is less sense that the will of a minority is being imposed on the majority. MMP might have done better in the previous three elections.
The idea of some kind of proportional representation (PR) is likely to come up again in the future, though, especially if the Green party continues to get significant support without winning any or many seats. So I think it’s worth looking at some of the key objections to the MMP proposal that was presented this time, and seeing if and how they can be addressed.
Also, given the seeming lack of interest of Ontario voters in perfect proportionality, it’s worth thinking about how the advantages of a proportional system can be presented to voters.
I would say that there were three set of objections to the MMP system that had some validity, or at least a lot of traction among voters and commentators.
1) It weakened the direct responsibility of politicians to voters
2) It made it almost impossible to get a majority government, and thus made unstable governments more likely.
3) It was unduly complicated
I think the first two issues can be addressed by changes to the MMP system that was proposed in this referendum.
A) the number of constituencies should not be reduced. Ontario already has the largest provincial constituencies in Canada (an average of over 100,000 people per riding, apparently). It was a bad idea to make them even bigger by reducing their number. Keeping the same number of directly elected politicians would partially alleviate the sense that PR reduces the direct connection between voters and politicians.
B) Prevent politicians from running both for the “list” and for a constituency at the same time. This feature made the list seem like an insurance policy for unsuccessful/unpopular politicians. Since a party that wins government will be made up almost entirely of constituency politicians, preventing this double-dipping would mean that constituency representation has priority — you have to get elected by a constituency to be part of government, which is the ultimate goal of anyone who goes into politics. So the list would be used for up-and-coming politicians, giving them experience and exposure in opposition until they are ready to run in a constituency. And the governing party would always be composed almost exclusively of people who were directly elected by voters in a local riding.
C ) Reduce the number of “list” candidates, to maybe 25 rather than 39. This would, first of all, raise the number of votes required to get a member into the legislature (to something like 4% of the vote), reducing the danger of including “fringe” parties. It would also reduce the influence of the list members within the legislature.
Most significantly, though, it would abandon the notion of strict proportionality, because there might not be enough list members to perfectly balance the constituency results. A party with significant support across the province could still win a majority, through constituency seats, without 50% of the vote. It would be more difficult to win a majority, but it would still be possible.
The Citizen’s Assembly report was very concerned about trying to be as strictly proportional as possible, but the popular vote suggests that people are not actually that worried about perfect proportionality. If someone is clearly ahead of the pack, voters seem to be ok with the idea that they can get a majority. On the other hand, making it *more difficult* to get a majority would probably appeal to voters, as people are generally happy to make things more difficult for politicians. Probably a greater concern is that parties like the Greens who get a significant number of votes get *some* representation in the legislature.
D) Finally, it would be worth exploring systems whereby the list candidates are directly selected by voters. For example, with 25 list places, the province could be broken up into 5 regions, each of which would choose 5 of the list members. Voters in each region would vote on which of their chosen party’s list candidates they prefer — or perhaps they could even vote on which individuals from any party they prefer. The candidates with the most votes would move to the top of the list for their party in that region. That would address the most serious objection to the MMP proposal, which was the idea of members being selected by parties rather than voters.
The drawback is that this would make the system even more complicated (you would need some complex formulas to work out who, from what parties and regions, ends up in the legislature). Although people complained about the complexity of MMP, I suspect it was chosen in part because it is in fact one of the simplest forms of proportional representation. Since that didn’t help, I would say that the complexity issue is simply one that has to be accepted as part of any PR system, although once a system is chosen, it is important to find ways to reduce that complexity as much as possible.
On the plus side, if one is going to take the time to go to a polling station to vote, in a way it’s more satisfying to be able to cast several different votes while you’re there.
Finally, there’s the issue of how to market proportional representation. Its supporters tend to focus on the issue of exact proportionality as a fairness issue, but that did not seem to resonate with voters this time around. In my discussions with people about it, one of the biggest selling points was voting flexibility — the possibility of voting for a favoured local candidate from one party, but voting for a different governing party separately. I know I’ve often wished I could do that, and I suspect a lot of other voters have too — apparently, in New Zealand, up to a third of voters split their votes in any election. I think this aspect would appeal to a lot of voters.
I think another selling point would be the idea of a stronger opposition. People might not mind a majority government, but they are happy to ensure that government is kept on its toes by a vocal opposition with decent resources. If PR is presented as a way to make sure that any government is held more accountable by a strong opposition, I think it would get support.
There are other appealing aspects that did receive some coverage — less “wasted votes”, ensuring that parties like the Greens that get significant support get some representation — and I think these have more resonance than the concern about perfect proportionality.
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Permalink for Some thoughts on proportional representation
Posted by Dylan Reid
Categories MMP referendum
October 11th, 2007
There is something unique about a Canadian city the day of an election. Unlike a World Cup match or critical hockey game, what’s often striking is how normal the city seems; the masses of media that pervade party galas, to employ a cliched but useful expression, stand in stark contrast to the everyday atmosphere that pervades the rest of the city.
This isn’t, of course, a necessarily negative thing. Democracy can be seen, to crudely paraphrase Ernest Renan, as a daily plebiscite - we give our consent to the system daily so that election day becomes something of a routine, another task to take care of amidst our daily activities. Our elections are not the monumental and sometimes calamitous events they are in other countries.
Yet there is an obvious reality in which the routine appearance of election day reveals layers of apathy, disinterest, cynicism, and disconnection. The vote on MMP, which might have been able to avoid many of these concerns, which offered a solution to many of them and which emerged as a proposal from a new, seemingly more engaged and democratic process, was never able to fully draw itself out of the mire of the above realities.
Disconnection was certainly evident upstairs at the bar where members of the Citizen’s Assembly and the Student’s Assembly were gathering for one final get together. One bar patron next to me inquired about what event was filling up the basement, asking “is it a political party,” eliciting a sarcastic response from a fellow patron of “something like that.”
His next task, as he put it, was to “find out what’s going on in the world,” which he proceeded to do not by looking up at the screen of updating election results or speaking with any of the nearby fellow citizens who represented his interests at the Assembly, but by pulling out a Pro-Line ticket, checking to see which pre-season basketball or regular season hockey games he’d been successful with.
The fellow transit riders I spoke to expressed a more engaged, yet no more positive view. “Everytime they talk about MMP I don’t understand,” intoned one rider. Confusion seemed as relevant as political disengagement or apathy for understanding how this whole process had unfolded.
Further down the road, the atmosphere at the Green Party extravaganza was more hopeful, revealing a more vibrant democratic picture than the one I’d so far encountered. Acknowledging the inevitable defeat of MMP even before the polls closed, former Ontario Green Party leader Jim Harris pointed out research showing that 70% of young people favoured MMP, an incredible statistic given how soundly MMP has been defeated. “We will win, we will have fair elections, we will see Greens in the Parliament. And we will ultimately change the way our society works. We have to, it’s our responsibility.”
The MMP defeat from this angle looks less about disconnection or confusion than about demographic differences. Unless the young people of Ontario have their youthful exuberance for reform tempered by a George Grant like adoration of 18th British institutions, some kind of democratic change seems likely to make it to another referendum in the future.
This referendum was obviously inspired by the 2005 vote in B.C., which followed a similar Citizen’s Assembly process. Whether it resulted from the substantial difference in political culture in B.C. versus Ontario or the execution and timing of the referendum, the notion that the whole referendum process was a unique and vital democratic exercise didn’t take root here in the same way. The Citizen’s Assembly had a level of legitimacy in B.C. that it simply didn’t reach in Ontario, where many people there voted for change largely because a group of fellow citizens recommended it.
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Permalink for 1:17: Democratic Disconnect…
Posted by David Pal
Categories Election Day, MMP referendum
October 10th, 2007
10:45 - As I’m watching the results come in, I have to think it’s sad irony that, on the night that the MMP proportional representation concept has been rejected, the results show just how much some kind of proportional representation is needed.
The Liberals have dropped about 5 percentage points in the popular vote, but have kept almost exactly the same majority as they had before, possibly even increased it. The Greens, meanwhile, have jumped over 5 percentage points and took something like 8% of the vote, but will have no seats and no representation in the house.
In Toronto itself, it looks like the Conservatives actually got more votes than the NDP, but they will have no seats to the NDP’s 4 or 5.
Whatever one thinks of the MMP system proposed this year, the results suggest something needs to be done going forward.
photo from Toronto Archives
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Permalink for 10:45: The painful irony of the MMP result
Posted by Dylan Reid
Categories MMP referendum
October 10th, 2007
9:54 — MMP has been rejected: 63% voted for our current system, 38% for MMP.
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Permalink for 9:54: MMP rejected
Posted by Spacing Votes
Categories MMP referendum
October 10th, 2007
Spacing will not endorse any candidate or political party as we head to the polls tomorrow. But we are not shy about our support for the Mixed-Member Proportional system proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform.
In recent years, urban concerns have not been well represented at Queen’s Park. In a political system that favours rural ridings over urban ones, Toronto and other urban regions have seen their influence marginalized, as they’ve suffered from a mixture of provincial indifference to outright vindictiveness. At a time when cities around the world are assuming more importance than ever, provincial politics have dragged urban regions backwards.
How would MMP affect this problem?
A fairer government means that by nature urban areas would be more represented in the provincial legislature. The thousands of urban votes that currently go to unsuccessful candidates would help to elect the 39 list MPPs. Toronto voters would be electing a large number of these new MPPs, purely by benefit of the city’s population. This means that the value of the Toronto vote to all parties would increase significantly. This extends to urban regions generally, as the decreased importance of ridings and the increased importance of individual voters would favor areas with high population density.
Parties would be obligated to tailor their platforms to urban voters in order to secure votes for list MPPs; “vote rich” areas would be as important as “seat rich” areas. Areas with a high population density will see their value increase, as their votes will be more consequential. The possibility of electing a party with an anti-urban platform would decrease, as urban elected list MPPs from other parties could compensate for any success such a party could have across the province. A party pursuing an anti-urban strategy would be doing so at great risk, given the increased power of the urban vote.
MMP would also allow for alterations to the province’s party makeup, and a Toronto or urban-oriented party could emerge to advocate on behalf of urban issues. This party could operate in a coalition or play “kingmaker,” helping a more successful party form a government and ensure that urban issues — transit, housing, uploading, etc. — are given priority in government. Such a party could have significant power in the legislature, able to work over time to ensure that urban concerns are heard.
Succinctly, urban voters would be less marginalized under MMP. They’ll have a greater say in provincial affairs, and could even elect local issue or pan-urban parties if they so choose. And while MMP isn’t a panacea for the problems of urban regions, it provides a real and improved opportunity for cities to articulate their concerns at Queen’s Park. For these reasons, Spacing supports switching Ontario to a mixed member proportional system. We hope you support this too.
On election day, say yes to MMP.
graffiti by Banksy
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Permalink for EDITORIAL: say yes to MMP
Posted by Spacing Votes
Categories MMP referendum
October 4th, 2007
In Spacing Votes’ first piece on disproportionality, we looked at how the presence of the 90 local ridings can affect whether a party gets a percentage of seats in the legislature smaller or larger than their popular support merits. In this post, we’ll consider how the discarding of votes for parties that don’t meet the 3% threshold inflates the percentage of seats in the legislature that the remaining parties receive.
For a closer look at the mathematics that produce this, check out the exploration of the Hare formula in Part 2 of Spacing’s MMP Primer. Recall that under MMP parties that receive less than 3% of the vote do not qualify for any of the list seats, a mechanism designed to prevent extremist parties and the negatives of proportional representation seen in countries like Italy and Israel.
When making calculations about seat distribution, all of the votes cast for parties that did not meet the 3% threshold are discarded. A party’s share of the seats in the legislature — the percentage they deserve based on their popular support — is thus calculated not out of the total number of votes, but out of the votes that have been cast for parties meeting or above the 3% threshold. If, for example, 4% of the votes are discarded, then the “new” party vote becomes 96% of voters, rather than 100%.
This means that the seat numbers for the remaining parties can become inflated. The more small party votes that are discarded, the greater the percentage of seats in the legislature that the remaining parties receive, and the more likely it is that “extra” seats would be given to those parties.
…continue reading Disproportionality, Part II: Discarded Votes
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Permalink for Disproportionality, Part II: Discarded Votes
Posted by David Pal
Categories MMP referendum
October 3rd, 2007
Two years ago, the Ontario government launched the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, a courageous and ambitious initiative. Risking the very system that brought him to power, Premier Dalton McGuinty responded to the growing number of voices calling for electoral reform in the Province by creating the Assembly, which consisted of 103 randomly selected citizens from across Ontario. The Assembly was incredibly diverse in terms of culture, age and political background.
The members of the Assembly were given an enormous task: evaluate our current electoral system, study systems used in other countries and develop a recommendation to meet Ontario’s needs.
Assembly members spent eight months working towards their goal through research, discussions, election simulations, public consultations and finally their own internal vote to endorse a recommendation. They voted overwhelmingly in favour of a unique system that attempts to find a compromise between the conflicting values of local representation and proportional results.
But their work didn’t stop there. In preparation for the province-wide referendum on their proposal, the Citizens’ Assembly created education tools including pamphlets, booklets, videos and a website. These tools were developed to help citizens make an informed decision.
As a process, the Citizens’ Assembly was a great model of democracy in action. A great recipe was chosen and all the ingredients were carefully picked, prepared, measured and mixed together. The problem now facing Ontario is that the cake was never put in the oven. Through a series of unfortunate decisions, the Assembly’s materials have barely been seen or read by the Ontarians who will vote on their referendum proposal on October 10.
The blame for the public’s lack of awareness about the referendum should be aimed in a few directions. First, there is a general consensus that the media has grossly underreported this important process. The creation of the Assembly, the consultations and the recommendation itself all could have been treated as significant news items, but were not. A televised debate on the referendum could have been organised, but was not. In the final weeks before the vote, we have seen an increase in coverage, which is encouraging, although much of the coverage has focused on the lack of awareness and has mistakenly interpreted it as apathy.
Equally unfortunate is the approach that has been taken by Elections Ontario. In a general election, the arm’s-length body encourages voter participation through advertising campaigns, but does not inform the public about party platforms. The parties themselves promote their policies through very well-funded campaigns that include placing literature at every doorstep and ads in papers, on the radio and on television. Elections Ontario has taken a similar approach for the referendum, but the formula doesn’t work: without large organisations who can step in to fill the void, the public has been left in the dark.
To be fair, Elections Ontario has created a website and a campaign that attempts to explain to voters what their choices are. But they have interpreted their non-partisan mandate so strictly that they have excluded any arguments in favour or against either voting system. The campaign, entitled “Your Big Decision”, has very little useful information to help voters form an opinion.
This lack of information is particularly frustrating because the Citizens’ Assembly specifically requested that voters be informed about their referendum recommendation. The Assembly’s final report states that “a comprehensive, well-funded public education program is vital.” They also stressed that the outreach campaign “should include the Assembly’s rationale for recommending a Mixed Member Proportional system for Ontario.” Sadly, this has not happened. The batter the Assembly mixed is sitting out on the counter, full of good intent but going to waste.
There is still time to bake this cake.
During the final week leading up to the referendum, it is incumbent upon all media outlets to give this historic process the attention it deserves.
Elections Ontario must take action as well by ensuring greater exposure to the work of the Citizens’ Assembly. In particular, the Elections Ontario website should feature prominent links to the Assembly website, as well as to the registered campaigns that have built informative websites both in favour of and against the Assembly’s recommendation. These grassroots campaigns do the not have the resources required to promote themselves province-wide.
Lastly, the government should immediately reverse its recent decision to stop printing copies of the Citizens Assembly’s materials, which have somehow been deemed as inappropriate “advocacy tools.” The Assembly spent eight months developing their recommendation. A meaningful referendum must highlight their work as the centerpiece of the debate.
Let’s get this cake in the oven, and then leave it up to the voters of Ontario to decide how it tastes.
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Permalink for Ontario’s Referendum: It’s Time to Bake the Cake
Posted by Dave Meslin
Categories MMP referendum
October 2nd, 2007
The Green Party of Ontario, supporters of MMP, announced late last week at Queen’s Park how they would choose the 39 individuals that would compose their party list should the MMP referendum be successful.
The Green Party’s list will feature gender parity — the first five members of the list will be the opposite gender of the previous member. “At the top of the list will be the leader, and then the two deputy leaders,” said Green Party leader Frank de Jong. “The second person on the list will be the opposite gender of the leader. And then the third person on the list will be the opposite gender of the other deputy leader.” The leader and the deputy leader will be chosen according to their current internal processes of the Green Party.
“The next two people are chosen by the voters,” said de Jong. The fourth and fifth positions will be filled by the most successful male and female candidates in the previous election. “We will setup our list based on who received the highest vote, for a male and a female, in their riding.”
The last 34 members will be chosen by the members of the Green Party, either through a mail-in ballot or at a party conference. “Every Green Party of Ontario member will have an equal choice of who will be representing the party on the list after the first five positions.”
De Jong, the party leader since 1993, also provided a strong critique of our current voting system.
“The Westminster system [that Canada inherited from Britain] was designed for two parties so that automatically one party had to get the plurality of the vote, over 50%. But as soon as you have more than two political parties, the Westminster system is no longer functional. It doesn’t produce a fair system.”
De Jong also argued that the problems of the current system are just as prevalent at the riding level, rejecting the idea that list MPPs are in any way unelected or less legitimate than current riding based MPPs.
“[List MPPs] are not unelected of course, they’re elected by voters across the entire province.”
“We have a huge problem with unelected MPPs now. Because it’s very rare that an MPP will receive more than 50% of the vote in the riding. In fact it’s often 30% or even 26% is enough to elect someone if you have a close race or a four-way split. Most MPPs now are not democratically elected in the riding because of the first-past-the-post system.”
“List MPPs are equally valid and just as important to democratic systems as riding MPPs. List MPPs will be particularly suited to being cabinet ministers or issue critics. They will be able to travel more widely across the province and represent the people that actually voted for them.”
Contrary to the concerns of critics, de Jong argued that MMP has produced strong governments in the countries in which it’s used. “In New Zealand and Germany and Scotland they have very stable governments with long standing coalition partners, which of course do change upon occasion. Governments always go the full term, there’s very little volatility. They are stable, productive governments that represent more than 50% of the population.”
photos by Shaun Pierre
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Permalink for The Greens Announce their MMP List Platform
Posted by David Pal
Categories Platform Announcements, MMP referendum
October 2nd, 2007
Frank de Jong is the leader of the Green Party of Ontario and a candidate in the riding of Davenport.
Spacing: Do you think your omission from the leaders’ debate shows a disinterest in the environment from voters and the province?
Frank de Jong: I think it shows our dysfunctional electoral system, and I think we need to encourage everyone to vote MMP, Mixed Member Proportional, to make our electoral system more favourable to minority opinions. The Green Party is going to start electing people now, but there are other parties that are going to come behind us.
It took us a long time to get to where we are today, because when we were smaller, we were persecuted against. We know who we are now, and we’re going to elect people, but we should have a fair system so that minority opinion gets a better chance to become majority opinion.
Spacing: How far away are we from the “walkable cities” that you’ve spoken about?
FdJ: It depends. It’s hard to know. Sometimes I think it’s a hundred-year project. But the point is, the best time to start is today. Oil was over 80 dollars a barrel today…and we know we’re hitting peak oil and it’s going to be the end of peak oil, so I think we’re going to have to expedite our plans to get to walkability. And I think it’s doable. It’s a question of how it will actually work. I think public schools and high schools and shopping malls will become hubs, and then we need to fractually organize. Which means we need optimal walkability, because the grid is designed for cars, but people don’t like walking around grids. We need to re-organize and re-think the entire planning for the environment. It’s gonna be a project.
There’s a book called Capitalism 3.0. It’s written by Peter Barnes, it’s a fabulous book, and he talks about this kind of thing. He talks about the economics that I’m talking about…and he sketches it out with how we can have the type of walkability linked by transit.
Spacing: Is the environment a key issue in this election, or has it fallen behind other issues, such as funding for faith-based schools?
FdJ: The funding for faith-based schools is the flashpoint. You don’t have to say that one thing is important. I think that environment is number two, roughly, in terms of if you have to categorize them. The problem is, environment is a motherhood issue, and everyone says, “oh yes, (we care).” (Minister of Finance) Greg Sorbara was trying to do that today. He says, “everyone cares about the environment. We can’t do anything about it right now, but we really care,” sort-of-thing. They try to take it out of the system, whereas the Green Party shoves it into the front and centre every single time. And we have to realize that our jobs, the economy, our institutions, our food…virtually everything depends on nature. It’s a core value that the Green Party has out there, and I think people are getting it. The voters are not perhaps as stodgy as we may think. I think they’re ahead of us.
One-on-one is a series of environment-related conversations leading up to the provincial election.
photo by Shaun Pierre
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Permalink for One-on-One with Frank de Jong
Posted by Sean Fitzgerald
Categories Leaders, MMP referendum, Environment Issues
September 29th, 2007
In the National Post last weekend, Andrew Coyne provided a compelling argument for MMP that would please anyone bored and unstimulated by the past weeks of campaigning. Considering the worst points of our current system, he states:
Victory or defeat can turn on the swing of one or two percentage points… the consequences of losing a few points makes [the parties] excessively, almost neurotically cautious, unwilling to take the slightest risk or advocate the mildest change, but each hugging as close as it can to the median voter, the status quo and each other. Hence the dominance of the two brokerage parties, indistinguishable in philosophy — alike, that is, in the lack of it.
The ultimate result is McGuintoryism — the mass of focus grouped concerns, manufactured issues, two- or three-percent wedge issues, and insubstantial strategizing that composes the bulk of many campaigns, a search for an extra few percent rather than the proposal of a sincere and substantial political program.
Put the two together, and you have much of Canadian politics — viciously partisan, yet unspeakably trivial; much ado about nothing much. McGuintoryism, in short.
The occasional emergence of a genuinely ideologically unique alternative — the Harris conservatives, the Rae years, even the socially liberal stances of the Martin Liberals — are infrequent blips amidst the strategic playing of the system for slight gains without the risk of large losses. The failure of this election to dramatically engage voters draws root from the fact that minimal differences are being drawn into moral and ideological gulfs — a confrontation between superficially opposed politicians who actually have few differences underneath the rhetorical frameworks provided by their campaign statements.
For Coyne, MMP presents the possibility of fracturing this arrangement — bringing in politically committed parties with a genuine concern for enacting unique policies favoured by their members. Despite many of its supporters being concentrated on the left, MMP provides the most room for growth on the right.
By whatever combination of historical circumstances, the left has a party that will advance its ideas, free of the brokerage parties’ grip: the NDP. Though not often in government, outside of the West, it has succeeded in dragging the entire political spectrum to the left, its policies adopted by Liberal and Conservative governments alike. Nothing like it exists on the right, federally or provincially, nor has since Reform’s demise. Nor is one likely to emerge, so long as “first past the post” remains the rule.
In many ways, Coyne is describing the situation that critics of MMP have focused on — the breakup of Ontario’s centrist parties in favour of smaller, more ideologically dedicated groups, capable of shifting the political spectrum in a direction supported by a small number of voters. Rather than relying on the hope for the occasional appearance of a non-centrist party (like the Rae or Harris governments), such parties could contribute consistently and incrementally, working within a coalition or a more complicated multi-party arrangement to further their agendas.
It’s that kind of process that Coyne believes could dent the vapid force of McGuintoryism, rejuvenating the right and bringing in the Greens and others. For anyone waiting for the current campaign to become relevant and interesting, MMP is probably their best hope.
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Permalink for The End of McGuintoryism — Andrew Coyne on MMP
Posted by David Pal
Categories MMP referendum
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