Ken MacKay- (Fin's Grandfather) writing about Proportional Representation
" Here's a description of the system in Germany where PR first appeared after World War II. In their system, half the seats in the legislature are filled with a First Past The Post (FPTP) system as we do now. The other half of the seats are filled from published lists of candidates and designed so that the final tally of seats approximates the proportion of the votes for the "parties" in the popular vote. If it had been used in our last federal election, the Green Party would have been given something like 10% of the seats ... instead of the zero that they got!!
The big stumbling block in Canada is that the federal ridings would have to be re-constructed so that there would be about 160 separate ridings. And the perception in the minds of many is that, at the local level, we would have much less "direct representation". My rebuttal is that we have precious little "direct representation" now with the FPTP system because of the vicious party politics which forces all members to vote as the party leader decides. Thus, there is only a thin suggestion that individual back-benchers have clout in the legislature.
The German MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) would solve the problem that Fin described as insane because the make-up of the legislature would bear a close relationship with the popular vote. It is possible to take any election results and construct a picture of what would happen if MMP were being used. I do this with almost every election!! If the Conservatives get 48% of the votes, then we give them 48% of the seats. The rest of the seats are distributed based on the percentage that each party achieves. This is not strictly MMP system but it approximates the outcome of such a system.
MMP leads to coalition governments ... and the fear-mongers wail about the governing process being stalled by minor parties. But first, we have to choose the threshold for achieving "party status"; in Germany, the threshold is 5% of the popular vote (or wininng a certain number of districts).
And I like the idea of coalitions; this forces the various parties to figure out how to collaborate and co-operate. I find the vicious partisan politics of our current system at both federal and provincial levels to be antiquated and counter-productive. In the case of the current election in N.B., the Conservatives would not have a majority and would be forced to collaborate with NDP or Greens or Liberals (perish the thought!!!). Alternatively, the Greens and NDP and Liberals could form a government and send the Conservatives into the role of opposition.
There are several other versions of PR, all with various pros and cons. B.C. had referendum a few years ago but they were considering a system where each voter picked three candidates and ranked them somehow. I like MMP; I think that it is the easiest one to explain!!"
Cazart!
snow day
7 years ago
