I have to admit, the level of debate on this particular issue has been miserably low - and this is despite over 3,000,000,000 million papers written by second year political science students who know what is best for democracy. Rest assured, I was once a big proponent. I wrote about how PR would cripple Quebec Sovereignty. I wrote about how PR would end regionalism in Canada. I wrote how PR would end the linguistic divide. I wrote about how PR would put a woman on the moon - and I was right each and every time. It would/could solve those problems - if they were in some way actually problems.
When it comes to public policy, I have a really simple matrix that I like to follow. I learned it in grade school - it is called, "Needs, Plan."
If there is an established need, you come up with a plan to fix the "problem."
When it comes to electoral reform in Ontario, I don't think we have an established need, nor do we have a good plan to alleviate the so-called problem. At least we can blame that on "the citizenship."
ON NEED - Depending what MMPadvocate I am talking to, the problem with the current system is that it either a) doesn't accurately reflect the will of the people in the legislature b) it over rewards the winner or the party that forms government or c) doesn't ensure that smaller movements that have broad support are able to achieve representation. As far as I can tell, these are three identical criticisms - criticisms of the underpinning philosophy of the Westminster Model, and not on the electoral system itself.
There are many inspirations for our system of government, the least of which is best articulated by C.B. Macpherson in "The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy." In this work, the most important aspect of our system is plainly articulated to hold that (from memory) "as a people, we do not have a national government, but a chorus of representatives from the regions to form a national government."
I will concede that most individual voters don't give a hoot who their MP/MPP is, and I will concede that it is rare that a vote will not be most directly influenced by the leadership (or lack thereof) of a party. Regardless, we don't vote for Prime Minister or Premier. We vote for an MP/MPP. Until I hear something more than "Convention says that..." I will not be convinced that we need to change anything. I know that conventions matter, but I get to vote, and I can vote for anyone I want. How am I disenfranchised? How are my views not known to my MPP? Poppycock I say. They look at polls not the poll - and it is working out just fine.
Frankly, anyone who thinks that an individual MPP has any say on policy formulation is a pretty dumb anyway. Unless of course, they are a one issue MP who got CRTC reform the week after he sat down in exchange for supporting the government budget that funded his CRTC reform. Well played, Mr. Bernier. Well Played.
ON PLAN - There are multiple presuppositions to the MMPadvocates position that I resoundingly reject out of hand. Among them is the idea that rewarding a broad cross-section of disparate support across provincial boundaries will in some way empower this support into a seat or two under a list. Ultimately, in a brokerage model, an idea or direction will eventually have to be changed or adapted for political potability (deliberate word choice). What makes 0.01% more or less palatable than 0.02%, or 1% vs. 2%? The arbitrariness is annoying- and yet - a plurality provides people with a tangible model which they can turn to when they need help with their health card application.
Which begs the question - who will these "proportional" MPPs represent? Will they have the same duties as other MPPs? I am sure the answers would come in time- but the vast majority of people don't actually know what their MPP does - rest assured I do - and unless the Queen's Park Rules are also changed, we will have 30 people (most of whom will represent small pockets of otherwise un-electable fringe interests) with a lot of time on their hands - and now a small staff.
MMPadvocadoes lament that now, nobody gets a majority of votes, so why let anyone govern like they do? If we had run-off elections between the top two candidates in every riding, would the smallest parties get a voice? Not likely. Again, this is an issue I just don't care about - political legitimacy and the rule of law demand that the official who holds the office be granted the authority that it comes with - period. Wait until the first MMP election and I start drawing arbitrary lines on what constitutes relative legitimacy - like, how you get your name on the top of the list to be Conservative MMP(b) from Toronto. Once you are at the top of that list, do you honestly believe anyone would ever be able to get you off of it? Is there going to be a term limit on who can be on the party lists? MPP for life by MMP. It has a nice ring, doesn't it?
I was recently asked to comment on a challenge to the current ballot initiative as to its constitutionality. The question, advanced by a fairly clever lawyer who doesn't understand party politics, was that John Q. Public would not be able to "vote in an election of members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein," with the key point being that You nor I would be eligible for the seats dedicated to smaller parties seeking proportionality, or the larger ones being squeezed out of particular areas. My trite response was that there was nothing, presumably, preventing You or I from joining one of these political parties and lobbying for a position on those lists. While a joke at first, the relative constitutional permissibility of any proposal can't be taken seriously when $10 and dream can so easily outstrip the validity of the missing constitutional foundation.
Suggesting otherwise unwittingly defeats the purpose, and the foundation, of the system- that as a rule of law - elected officials are still just people in whom are vested responsibilities. Suggesting the party apparatus is impenetrable to You and I is akin to saying that the system in impenetrable to those of us not in the major parties - so why even bother with elections?
More seriously, in my view, is that the parties become institutional, more so, in the proposed system - all but removing the ability for independents to participate meaningfully in the second caste (deliberate word choice, btw) of MPPs. I suppose all independents could come together and have a circus meeting about what sword swallower should get to be at the top of the list of independent circus candidates, but I digress. Such a meeting would be bedlam, and highly entertaining to watch.
The plan is not the problem - it is as arbitrary as the lines drawn on a map that define the various electoral districts. The proposed new system draws additional arbitrary lines in even more arbitrary places.
At a base level, the electoral system is designed to create a government and opposition in which the electorate can maintain confidence. I am one of the resoundingly apathetic Ontarians who don't feel maligned by the system. My relative confidence level with the governments the system creates has nothing to do with the fact that I didn't vote for Mike Harris or Bob Rae - and yet they formed a government. Both ideologies were thrown out, resoundingly, in subsequent elections. I honestly believe that the current proposal will not make that so easy. If it is your position that we need to change the foundation of the system - fine - let's do that. We could separate the legislature from the executive, cancel question period, and have fixed election dates that divide responsibility towards a checks/balance system that leans towards the congressional model. That would be a far cry stronger than tinkering with the system without a true vision of what the results would be.
In fact, perhaps ironically, up until this point - the points for and against have been bolstered by evidence of what elections would/not have looked like with various systems. Isn't that irrelevant to the system while smacking of tinkered fixing to engineer specific results and preclude others?
And, sometimes, minority governments can be a good idea. Except when they aren't. For every MMPadvocado who cites a European example, I can find another one (usually Ireland, Italy or Germany) where the results were fracturing, disproportionate in a different way and led to another election almost immediately, and subsequently say "Ontario isn't Europe."
On the process - In a miracle of cowardice - the Government of Ontario wouldn't even create, propose and defend a new system themselves. They have pawned it off on a citizenship panel, who proposed the mess we have on the ballot. Now, the citizens have to ratify it. Basically, we will remove all forms of leadership from the equation. And, let me assure you, few people will understand the ballot initiative. It is inspiring.
How deliciously ironic that in a desperate attempt to appease a supposedly restless electorate and to tinker with representative democracy, the very representatives it creates are unwilling or unable to lead those who they claim to stand for in the legislature. It almost makes me want to vote for the new system. Almost.
