Towards Electoral Reform
by Giuseppe Gori

The “One Ballot, Two Votes” report on Electoral reform by the Ontario Citizen Assembly released as planned on May 15, is overall an outstanding piece of work, especially in its timeliness, transparency, clarity and simplicity. It unlikely could have been the product of a government ministry or a government commission.

In fact we have an example of the product of such a commission. The (now defunct) Law Commission of Canada (LCC), established by the former federal Liberal government, tackled the same problem of a new voting system for Canada just a few years back. Their work was very diligent in analyzing the various voting systems around the world. The cost in airline trips around the world was also very high.

However, when coming to the 34 recommendations in their 2004 report, the work of the LCC was typical of a design by committee. It tried to accommodate the whims of the politically appointed members of the commission by attaching political “strings” to the supposedly a-political process of elections.

The LCC report recommended  “enlightened” ideas, such as regional equalization, quotas according to sex, age, race or “minority” group, the creation of a Parliamentary committee to enforce these quotas, and read almost as a novel by George Orwell.

The Ontario Citizen Assembly was able to profit from the LCC work, by using the data they collected and analyzed, but apparently was also able to profit from our criticism of the LCC report. An electoral system should be free from political ideas and social reform objectives.

George Thomson, Chair of the Citizen’s Assembly (CA) notes at the end of their report: “I was privileged to witness the extraordinary capacity of citizens when given the chance to contribute so directly to the democratic process.” and, he continues: “The Assembly members constantly amazed me with their enthusiasm and deep commitment to the task they were given.”

I am also pleased to note that citizens from every walk of life can be very effective and wise, when given a precise mandate.

Within the time give to them, and with the obvious difficulties of discussing among 103 people, the CA could not have produced a better document.

In fact, even if their document could have been more detailed and more complete, further complication could have actually compromised the likelihood of the new system being accepted.

The most common reason for people to reject new ideas is laziness. The unwillingness to think (that is to understand the purported complexity of the new system) could have been a major reason for its demise.

A yes/no Referendum will be held later this year, on October 10^th , on whether to adopt the Mixed Member Proportional system proposed by the CA.

The Referendum will have to receive support from 60% of the voters and the majority in 60% of the ridings to be approved. Such a high majority is not often achieved, but in my opinion, after reading the CA report, the Referendum has a high probability of success.

As expected, the CA chose the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system of election for Ontario. Ontario will be divided into 90 electoral districts. Yes, this means that more boundary changes will have to be effected after the Referendum.

Voters will continue to vote for one of the candidates running in their electoral district, on the right side of the ballot. However, they also will be able to vote for a party of their choice, on the left side of the ballot.

These votes will add up to elect a number of additional MPPs for each party, for a total of 39 seats. The total number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario will thus be 129.

In essence the system is that simple.

The report from the CA points out the reasons for the change and the advantages of the new system. For people that have followed the process, these reasons and advantages are fairly obvious. The only opposing views generally come form “the establishment” (i.e. people in power who fear change for fear of losing power). These people are normally not interested in the long-term benefit of a more democratic system for Ontario.

A word is due to thank the McGuinty government for it willingness to risk power for the sake of improving democracy.  However opposed I am to most Liberal policies, I can only praise their willingness to maintain their promise to enact Electoral Reform in Ontario.

The new system will finally give a fair chance to smaller parties, as it does not require parties to run candidates in every riding to collect votes. The imposed threshold of 3%, for a party to be able to elect candidates from its party list is attainable for any party with support across the province.

Hopefully the new system will create more choices for Ontarians who have shown signs of dissatisfaction with all established political parties.

The CA did not specify whether the Leader of a Political party should or should not run as a local candidate. I hope that other party leaders will agree not to run in a specific riding, but to appear only in the party list. We have experienced, especially at the federal level, the effects generated by the conflict of interest when a party leader also represents a particular geographical area. This should be avoided. A party Leader, especially when he/she becomes Premier of Ontario, should be above any regional interests.

As I mentioned above, the CA wisely has not introduced “quotas” in the electoral system, but leaves the ultimate judgment to the voters: “Voters will also be able to see whether a party’s list has a good balance of men and women, includes candidates from all of Ontario’s regions, and reflects the diversity of Ontario’s population. In order to attract support from voters across the province, parties have an incentive to ensure that their lists are representative of the people of Ontario”. Well said!

The proposed system can still be improved in some details, such as preferences on the ballot and the formula for calculating “party” seats. However, these changes are possible in the future without much disruption.

Finally the CA points out that with the new system coalition governments will become very common and that “Coalition majority governments may actually enhance stability by discouraging abrupt shifts in policy that can occur in the current system.”

In the current system wild swings between one government and the next create instability. These “majority” governments were seldom elected with a real majority of support from voters. For example, in Ontario, we had a succession of Liberal, NDP, PC, and again Liberal majority governments, creating complete changes of direction almost at every election.

A longer-term stability in the government of Ontario and the resulting economic prosperity may ultimately be the greatest legacy of the new electoral system.

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