Sometimes humans argue just for the sake of a good argument. It keeps us alive and alert. A friend in Barrie, for example, loves to argue in favour of proportional voting. He knows that we consider the idea backward and a poor solution for Canadians. His answer to our objections is to refuse to read any of the papers written on the subject and yet he writes letters on the subject to the editors of publications that feed on controversy.
His most recent of these letters started with complimenting the editor for a good choice of editorial cartoon—ensuring a positive attitude towards his letter. This cartoon was based on the unraveling of some of the Harper regime’s actions by the incoming Trudeau regime. His point was that this wastes a lot of time and money every time there is a regime change in our parliament.
Our friend’s solution to this perceived waste of time and money is to have proportional representation in parliament. It is his opinion that proportional representation would eliminate the possibility of anyone having a majority in the House of Commons. This would force government to work with coalitions and prevent the need for unraveling unilateral decisions in the future.
What he fails to consider is that the major parties can then do nothing and blame the ‘other guys’ for the failure of the government to act on the needs of Canadians. Why would we want a system better suited for stagnation instead of a system suitable to run the nation?
When you consider that with proportional representation, there is a separation of the members of parliament and the voters, the voters have nobody to blame but themselves. They only vote for the party and its leader. All the other decisions are made by the party. Parliamentarians are appointed by their party according to the vote counts.
When you consider that proportional voting was originally designed for voting populations that were largely illiterate, it makes sense. It was easy for the voters to remember the party’s pictograph when it was time to vote.
Much of the political time in countries with lots of parties and proportional voting is wasted as smaller parties jockey for pet projects and special deals to pass the ideas of larger parties. In a country such as Israel that uses proportional voting, for example, the religious parties are given power far greater than their actual numbers as they will give their votes to non-religious parties that pander to their oppressive demands.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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