<p class="headline">Supporters and opponents of electoral reform stake out their ground</p> <p class="byline">By Gord Thain</p> <p class="filedfrom">Filed October 1, 2007, from the Centre for Creative Communications</p> <span class="dropcap">C</span>an New Zealand’s experience give Ontarians better representation in the Legislature? Steve Withers thinks so.</p> On Oct. 10 Ontarians will vote in a provincial election but along with picking their favourite candidate, they will also be asked to decide on the way that candidates are elected to provincial Legislature in the future.</p> Currently, elections are won by the candidate who receives more votes than any other in the riding. It’s called first-past-the-post. The party that wins the most ridings is asked to form a government. In this system, each voter will get one vote for one candidate in their local riding.</p> A new proposed system called mixed-member proportional (MMP) representation was recommended by the Ontario Citizens Assembly on Electoral reform.</p> One vote for one local candidate in each riding will remain, but a second portion of the ballot will contain a list of parties from which the voter is asked to choose.</p> That ballot will ensure each party receives an equal number of seats at Queen’s Park as reflected by its proportion of votes.</p> Steve Withers currently works as a spokesperson for Vote for MMP. He returned to Canada from New Zealand where the electorate adopted a similar system.</p> “In the current system you get one vote for one candidate in one riding. Meaning there are 106 other ridings where you have absolutely no say,” Withers said.</p> <p class="sidetextbold">'You have no input over who is on the ballot'</p> “The people you vote for are candidates chosen by party and if you’re not a member of that party, you have no input over who is on the ballot. Often the person who wins the riding will get less than 50 per cent of the vote.”</p> He points to a party that gets 40 per cent of the overall vote, yet wins 60 per cent of the ridings thus getting 100 per cent of the power.</p> David Fleet is a director of No MMP, the group opposed to the possible changes. He counters that argument by saying that democracy isn’t about ensuring the person you vote for is the person who gets elected.</p> “No democracy in the world guarantees that the person you vote for will get in,” Fleet said. He feels that the need to change is unnecessary.</p> “The Vote for MMP group gives the impression that because something has been around a long time inherently has to be suspect,” Fleet said.</p> “Like tried and true is a bad thing? A lot of people like things that are tried and true because they work. They may not be perfect but they’ve done the job.”</p> Michael Ufford is a retired city planner and works with Fleet on the No MMP campaign. His concerns centre on accountability in the proposed MMP system. “It’s centralized power,” Ufford said.</p> “It takes away from local ridings by reducing the number of them, thus reducing the number of people who are accountable to constituents. Candidates on the party list side of the ballot do not have to campaign to a riding. They only must please their party to get on the list,” Ufford said.</p> Diversity is a key issue in politics. Canada has struggled to match the number of women or visible minorities elected to the total population voting and living in the country.</p> The pro-MMP campaign says that the new system would fix that by placing women and minority candidates high on the party list, making it easier for them to get a seat at Queen’s Park. The No MMP side says that just isn’t true.</p> “There is no guarantee that politics would be more diverse in this system,” Fleet said.“New Zealand has a guarantee for aboriginals for example.”</p> <p class="sidetextbold">Who will be on party lists?</p> Fleet also takes issue with who will be chosen to represent Ontario on the list side of the ballot by the parties. He cites Scotland and Germany where party lists are divided by region, which ensures that list members come from all over.</p> “I thought that in Ontario, where Cornwall isn’t often confused for Toronto, would have regional lists but no, there’s no guarantee that we’ll see that on the ballot,” said Fleet.</p> MMP has a threshold where any party that gets more than three per cent of the popular vote will gain a seat in the Legislature. This means that smaller fringe parties will play an important role in the future.</p> “New Zealand went from two parties in the legislature and after (MMP) eight,” said Fleet. “It encourages extremism of views and lessens the consensus view in the political parties.”</p> Ufford says that under MMP, majority governments would be rare and this new system would make it more difficult to pass meaningful legislation because the small parties could hold the balance of power when it comes time for crucial votes.</p> This idea has Rick Anderson, campaign committee chair for Vote for MPP shaking his head.</p> “In regards to one small party or MPP holding the balance of power, it sometimes does happen,” Anderson said. “We’ve seen a similar situation play out in Ottawa recently. However, it only happens when the so-called larger parties refuse to get along with each other.</p> “It’s not the electoral system … or the constitution or the elections act of the province that decides how many parties there are in provincial legislature,” Anderson said.“It’s the voters. There will be eight parties in the legislature if the voters want there to be eight parties.”</p> In order for this new MMP system to be adopted it will need to pass with a super majority. It will have to receive more ‘yes’ than ‘no’ votes in two thirds of the ridings across the province and receive at least 60 per cent of the popular vote.</p> www.tobserver.com/CCC/CYCLE%201/7-01-10-ThainMPP.html</p>
