In the long run, the only viable solution is proportional representation: A Simple Guide to Electoral Systems.

List of American owned media pretending to be Canadian, infiltrating Canadian culture and politics.

  • 2 Posts
  • 7 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: December 18th, 2021
  • AlolanVulpix@lemmy.catoCanada@lemmy.ca•All for this.English
    12·
    11 hours ago

    It’s not about being a “gotcha” - it’s about demonstrating a pathway to better democratic representation.

    You’re right that EU membership would only require PR for European Parliament representatives initially. However, this would create several significant opportunities:

    1. Practical demonstration: Canadians would experience firsthand how an electoral system that ensures every vote counts actually works, rather than just hearing theoretical arguments.

    2. Institutional precedent: Once PR is successfully implemented for one electoral body, the argument that it’s “too complex” or “un-Canadian” becomes much harder to maintain.

    3. Democratic legitimacy gap: Having representatives to the EU Parliament elected through PR while our own MPs are chosen through FPTP would create an obvious legitimacy contrast that would be difficult to justify.

    The Liberal leadership vote using preferential voting actually supports this point. Internal party processes already recognize the limitations of FPTP - they just don’t extend those same democratic principles to the general electorate. In fact, all parties, even the Conservatives, use superior electoral systems to FPTP.

    The reality is that 76% of Canadians support electoral reform according to recent polling, but our major parties benefit from maintaining a system that systematically discards votes. Exposure to functioning PR would make the democratic deficit in our current system increasingly apparent.