The last serious attempt in Ontario at changing how people vote was brought forward by the McGuinty Liberal government in 2007. It was a foolish and ill-conceived attempt to put a foot in the door for a form of proportional voting. Ontario voters gave the idea the brush-off in the referendum that year. It lost by close to two to one.
Yet, to their credit, there are still people who keep pushing for change. It would certainly help their cause if they had more cogent arguments for their ideas. What we all agree on is that democracy is not perfect. It is just better than the alternatives. The same can be said for our method of electing people to office.
To blame the system of voting for lower electoral turnout is ignoring other problems. Take a hard look at our lazy news media and you might have another answer. The news media will probably blame the disinterested voter while the politicians will blame the leadership cult that puts the weight of the election on the parties’ leadership. The last person we should blame is the voter who throws up his or her hands because nobody really addresses the issues of concern.
If you really want change you have to temporarily forget your great idea and start with the process. The process of change in this country is horrendous. More capable and intelligent politicians have thrown up their hands and given up attempts at change than you would have thought. We have to really get back to basics. We need the equivalent of a constitutional conference. It would be like revisiting the Charlottetown Conference, the Quebec and London Conferences—only democratic. Those conferences that created this country were never democratic. They were elitist.
And if we created this constitutional conference or congress or parliament, we would then have to take a long time to ensure that Canadians understood what was going on. There can be no closed doors. No caucuses allowed. Canadians need to know the how and the why of every recommendation. They need time to digest, argue, learn and understand the ideas being put forward. Then they can vote in a referendum on the whole package or at least the parts they like.
AN ADDED NOTE
It was more than seven years ago that Babel-on-the-Bay researched voting methods. The objective was to have a better understanding of the various methods. The result of this research is the Democracy Papers. They are available in the Babel-on-the-Bay archives (listed on the right hand column) and seem to be a standard for researchers around the world. Day after day, year after year, there is a steady stream of readers accessing these archives. They are there for anyone who wants to read them.
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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