If the New Democratic Party (NDP) is expecting democratic renewal to be its saviour, it might have a very long wait. The party’s first problem is that democratic renewal is a cafeteria style lunch and you need to take some leafy green salad along with the starchy entrée. Balance is important. The second problem is how to convince the party in power to help move the ideas along. And finally there are the communications problems with Canadian voters. The NDP needs a large drawing board and lots of design help.
Let us say for example that the primary democratic renewal objective of the party is a mixed proportional voting scheme. It was one of those schemes that was offered to Ontario voters in the 2007 province-wide referendum. The plan was rejected by a vote of about two to one.
Proponents of this mixed approach say that Ontario voters never got a chance to understand it. Not that there is much to understand: you have larger electoral districts where you elect individuals and then you use the popular vote to appoint additional members of the parties. It seems likely that people voted ‘No’ because they did not want appointed members of the Ontario legislature.
Convincing the Liberal Party, now that is in power, that the NDP has its best interests at heart might also seem like a challenge. The thing is that if you want to convince a person or a party that they should support your cause, you need to use tactics designed to win friends. The simplest way to think of it is you have to give to get. There are books on that subject that party members can read. It would create a very different attitude in the Canadian parliament.
And then there are the communications problems with the Canadian public. There are probably too many books on this subject and many are in conflict with others. The basic principle is that you have to keep the message short and simple and easy to understand. And then you have to drive the message home.
Or you might consider the “Single Leaf” ploy. This was a simple parliamentary trick learned by the minority Liberals back in the great flag debate of 1964. The House committee appointed to choose a design for a new flag had come down to two designs: the flag with the three leaves was believed to be favoured by the Liberals and so the Conservatives voted for the single leaf. The Conservatives were somewhat surprised when the Liberals agreed. Canada had a new flag.
But before all the New Democratic members plan on conning the Liberals into their ideas of democratic reform there is just one other problem. Maybe Canadians prefer first-past-the-post voting. Maybe they do not want a change in how they vote. We will probably revisit this subject in the months ahead.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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