Proportional Representation in Ontario

If you read people’s opinions about proportional representation in Ontario then you will very quickly find people arguing about whether it is democratic to vote blindly for a list of people, not knowing who or how many will get into power. They say that the list people will be beholden only to the party, and will not be accountable.

People in this debate are ignoring that we have a party system in Parliament in Ontario, and all the nitpicking about details is missing the big point. The party system will NOT change here, and once any MPP gets to Queen’s Park they will vote with their party almost always.

In our current “First Past the Post” (FPTP) system, the truth is that the “list” concept is here already. It’s called “who the parties are running in each riding”. Once people are elected they have to do what the party tells them to. The vast majority of people are casting a vote for the party, not the candidate. And even those who cast a vote for the candidate are truly casting a vote for the party in terms of where government decision making comes from once if they get to Queen’s Park. Once elected, all MPs VOTE WITH THEIR PARTY.

The proposed “Mixed Member Proportional” (MMP) system doesn’t stop you from considering a local person, you still do that, but it puts control of the party system into the people’s hands, whereas before the party was this murky thing that hijacked power in Parliament. It does this by putting in more MPs from a pre-defined, pre-ordered list, who then VOTE WITH THEIR PARTY.

Anyone who believes they are being disenfranchised by losing local candidates to list candidates is ignoring the fact that individual MPPs do not make decisions in parliament based on their local constituency. They ignore the fact that FPTP is the artificial reason that 40% of the public can elect a premier who makes all the decisions, and if that is not disenfranchisement then I don’t know what is.

A large number of ordinary people studied this to death and found MMP is better. I think it is too, so MMP has my vote.

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› political     2007-09-15 10:42   ...1