wilfredday

wilfredday

40p

15 comments posted · 0 followers · following 0

7 years ago @ Kingstonist.com - Weekly Poll: Electoral... · 0 replies · +3 points

No, Justin Trudeau has NOT had a preferred option since the Liberal caucus decided in early 2015 (and the party convention agreed) to include proportional representation as an option.
And wrong description of MMP (although you're only copying the CBC's mistake): it's not "two votes: one for an MP and one for a party," it's "two votes: one for an MP and one for a party or one of its regional candidates." That's what the Law Commission of Canada recommended, and what half the Liberal caucus supported the last time Parliament voted on it.

12 years ago @ Macleans.ca - The case for proportio... · 0 replies · +2 points

As I said, the Law Commission's recommendation has never been rejected. Both of those recommendations were on a closed-province-wide list model. For example, the NDP's strongest region in Ontario is Northern Ontario, yet Northern Ontario rejected the Citizens' Assembly's model more strongly than any other region of Ontario -- because it failed to provide that Northern votes would elect northern MPPs, while reducing the number of local MPPs from the North. Only Toronto voters were favourable to a model with province-wide lists, precisely as one would expect.

12 years ago @ Macleans.ca - The case for proportio... · 2 replies · +3 points

The best way to have PR in Canada has already been exhaustively studied and recommended by the Law Commission of Canada in 2004. Their model has never been rejected. In Saskatchewan, voters in nine larger ridings would elect local MPs as we do today. You would also have a second vote for a party and your favorite of that party's provincial candidates. Voters for a party under-represented by the local results (in this case, the NDP, but in Montreal that would be the Conservatives) elect some of those five provincial MPs. If voters voted as they did on May 2nd (which they wouldn't when they knew every vote would count equally) NDP voters wouold have elected all five of the provincial MPs, namely, the five who got the most votes. All MPs are personally elected and faced the voters.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Seventy-six shoulders ... · 0 replies · +3 points

Despite the Ministry's size, only five of the 38 are from Quebec: 13% is serious under-representation, a bad sign for Canadian unity. Three other Quebec MPs are parliamentary secretaries, omitting only Maxime Bernier, byelection victor Bernard Généreux, and, oddly, the talented Steven Blaney, an environmental engineer who drew my attention last April 20 when he said “I want to remind my colleague that the Bloc Québécois is over-represented here in the House with respect to the percentage of votes in Quebec.” Nice to see a Conservative make the case for proportional representation.

Blaney is right: if we had a democratic voting system, Quebec Conservative voters would have elected seven more MPs in 2008, and the Bloc 19 fewer. Those seven would have represented Conservative voters in the Greater Montreal area, l'Estrie and Mauricie who are all unrepresented today. And we would have had a cabinet which, like the House, would be a true representation of the country.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Even if it's broken, d... · 0 replies · +1 points

That's an ironic comment, since it's the Bloc that benefits most from winner-take-all, and Quebec federalist voters who have the most to complain about. In 2008 it took 86,203 federalist voters to elect one Quebec MP, but only 28,163 Bloc voters. Why Liberals need the Law Commission of Canada’s recommended electoral reform.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Even if it's broken, d... · 2 replies · +7 points

Pepall wasn't watching Elections Ontario during the Ontario referendum campaign. Far from explaining the proposals, they refused to explain them ("we have to stay neutral"), and spent millions on ads saying "make sure you understand the question" while refusing to help understand it, and refusing to send out the leaflets produced by the Citizens Assembly. That wasn't the only reason it failed: the process started a year later than planned, ran out of time before the Citizens Assembly could fine-tune their proposal, and left far too little time for public debate. But Elections Ontario were no help at all.

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Something in Parliamen... · 0 replies · +1 points

Today, a vote in New Brunswick is worth 38% more than a vote in Ontario. But partisan inequities created by the winner-take-all voting system are even more startling. In Quebec, a Bloc vote was worth 2.8 times a Conservative vote and 2.2 times a Liberal vote. In Alberta, the weight of a Conservative vote was 5.3 times that of an NDP vote, while a Liberal vote or a Green vote had no weight at all.
http://www.fairvote.ca/en/press-release/2010-04-0...

13 years ago @ http://www.themarknews... - Let\'s All Hate Toront... · 0 replies · +1 points

One reason some people hate Toronto is because its voters vote 91% Liberal. Don't they?

Well, no, it's 46%. The reason 91% of Toronto MPs are Liberal is the winner-take-all voting system. The same system that gave Bloc voters 65% of Quebec's MPs on 38% of the votes.

So why do people hate Toronto, or hate Quebec, but not hate our voting system? Umm, they do. Polls consistently show more than 60% of respondents want every vote to count equally, and think election results should reflect the proportion of the votes each party gets.

So why doesn't anyone in Ottawa do anything about it? Well, Carolyn Bennett is trying to, with her coast-to-coast "Canadians Make The Rules" tour. Applause where it's due.

13 years ago @ http://www.themarknews... - First Past The Post Is... · 0 replies · +6 points

Good article, but it fails to mention the largest under-represented group. For the past six elections, the majority of Quebec voters have voted for federalist parties, and six times in a row the Bloc voters have been awarded the majority of Quebec MPs. In 2008 it took 86,203 federalist voters to elect one Quebec MP, but only 28,163 Bloc voters. The Bloc voters got 49 MPs when their vote share deserved about 29. Don't blame Quebec for the paralysis in the House of Commons; blame the winner-take-all voting system.

The Law Commission of Canada designed and recommended a proportional model in which no MP would have an automatic list seat. Two thirds would be elected locally as today, while the other one-third would be elected regionally: voters could choose their favourite from the regional candidates, as well as from the local candidates. Every MP would be personally accountable, and all votes would count. Let's do it!

13 years ago @ Macleans.ca - Where ideas are consid... · 0 replies · +1 points

Excellent piece, except "America, we tell ourselves, is the land of ideology. Therefore, on the principle that we must in all cases define ourselves in opposition to them, we can have none." In my experience, more people think America is the land of no ideology, fear that they will be considered anti-American if they have one, and prefer to be pro-Canadian than anti-American.