Themes from Consultation Meeting in Belleville


This is a summary of thoughts expressed by members of the public who attended this consultation meeting. If a point was made by more than one participant, it is included only once in the summary. The comments below sometimes contradict one another because they reflect the diversity of the viewpoints of participants.

Number of public participants: 58

Thoughts about Principles

Accountability

  • It’s important to have locally accessible MPPs for accountability.
  • Accountability could be increased by having elections more frequently.

Effective parliament

  • The opposition should have real power. Parties should make cooperative decisions in parliament.

Effective parties

  • Political parties should have public support (e.g. subsidies, access to the media) to encourage their development, but there should be a threshold (3-5%). We shouldn’t just increase the number of parties.
  • There should be no thresholds. If we’re going to give everyone a voice, we can’t have a minimum vote requirement.

Fairness of representation

  • Proportionality is paramount. Seat share should equal vote share. That’s all that matters.
  • Local representation is important because of Ontario’s size. It’s important to have a direct connection to our MPPs.
  • There’s nothing local about representatives in large rural ridings. Representation by population has made them too big.
  • We should give more power to under-represented geographic areas (e.g. rural areas.) Toronto has too much power.
  • A “weighted vote” could improve rural representation without increasing the number of MPPs.
  • We need better representation of women and minorities.
  • We could have a seat for a First Nations leader who would have equal standing with the Premier.

Legitimacy

  • Democratic institutions can only be given legitimacy by people who feel part of the process.

Simplicity & practicality

  • The electoral system should be as simple as possible, but not more simple. A system close to the current one but which deals with its flaws will have a chance of winning support.

Stable & effective government

  • The electoral system should encourage coalitions, in order to maximize the viewpoints that go into decision-making.
  • In the past, coalitions and minorities have produced good results in Canada (e.g. healthcare from the CCF).
  • Coalitions are responsive to the needs of the electorate because individual parties have less power.
  • Coalitions are more stable because Cabinets represent multiple parties, so there is less change in their make-up at elections. They can better pursue long-term policies.
  • Governments should be more concerned about long-term policy, not about winning the next election.

Stronger voter participation

  • Young people are disenchanted and disenfranchised; they refuse to participate and remove themselves from the process.
  • More people would vote if: the system was fairer; they thought their voice would be represented in parliament; they thought their vote meant something.
  • There should be compulsory voting.
  • Unless voter turnout increases no electoral system will be effective.

Voter choice

  • We should vote for who we want, not to punish the last party in power or to prevent someone else from winning.

Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System

Participants highlighted these advantages of First Past the Post:

  • Our system is simple, well understood, and cheap.
  • Generally, our system works well.

Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the current system:

  • In our system, a riding can be won with a small minority of votes (33% or less). Our system works best when there are only two parties.
  • Our system produces manufactured majorities.
  • In our system many or most votes are wasted. If you vote for a losing party, you throw your vote away and get no representation. This breeds cynicism and apathy.
  • The views of most voters are not represented. Many groups in our society are excluded from government.
  • Our system forces strategic voting: we have to vote against what we dislike, not for what we believe in.
  • Our system produces minimal cooperation among parties. Under majority governments, oppositions are powerless. Under minority governments, there is game-playing for power.
  • In our system, parties only care about strategy and winning the next election, not about long-term policy.
  • Our system produces swings in policy when new governments are elected.
  • In our system, women and minorities are under-represented.
  • Our system encourages inequity between regions and groups (e.g. rich/poor, urban/rural, English/French). It’s divisive.

Thoughts about Other Systems

Participants made these comments about other systems:

Alternative Vote (AV)

  • AV would make MPPs more independent from their parties.
  • AV would ensure that representatives were elected with majority support.
  • AV would better represent the will of the majority.

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

  • MMP is close enough to the current system to be accepted, and provides fairer representation.
  • MMP would give representation to more small parties.
  • MMP leads to coalitions. They are stable because parties don’t expect to win majorities.
  • MMP could work with only a small number of new seats (e.g. 150—only slightly more than a few years ago).
  • In MMP, proportionality should be calculated province-wide to maximize proportionality.
  • In MMP, party lists should be closed lists for simplicity.
  • MMP can lead to delays in forming a government. Germany had difficulty choosing a president after their last election.
  • Having party list members, even regional ones, makes no sense to me. Who would they represent?

Proportional Representation (PR) systems

  • PR gives every vote equal weight. This encourages new parties, young people, and minority groups.
  • PR makes every vote count. This would increase the legitimacy of the electoral process.
  • PR would give representation to more parties.
  • PR could give small parties disproportional influence over policy.
  • PR does not give undue power to fringe parties. They may get small numbers of seats, but only very rarely hold the balance of power.
  • PR does not prevent governments from being effective.
  • PR eliminates strategic voting.
  • I sympathize with PR, but nobody has explained to me exactly how it would work.
  • I don’t think PR would increase representation or participation of young people and women.
  • PR would result in more minority governments.
  • Closed lists give party elites too much power. Voters have no choice over who represents them.
  • In PR, parties do not have too much control over lists.
  • Party lists eliminate a direct vote for our local representatives.
  • In PR, I believe it is possible to have local representation and direct voting for representatives.
  • I’d like to see PR based on regions.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

  • STV failed in BC because it was too complicated for people to understand. It would not be accepted in Ontario.

Other Thoughts

If the Assembly recommends a new system

  • A public education campaign is critical. The Assembly must educate the public about why the system should be changed and why the new system is better than what we have now.
  • The 60% referendum threshold is too high.
  • The fact that the Assembly is independent gives it a lot of credibility. I believe any recommendation will get over 70% approval.
  • The new system should be studied by experts before it goes to a referendum. It scares me that we could have a referendum on an idea that is not vetted. Major change should not be taken lightly.

Size of the legislature

  • I don’t like the idea of more seats, but it makes sense to improve geographic representation.
  • I could see adding a few more seats, but that’s it.

Other comments

  • We should be able to vote for the Premier, heads of crown corporations, ministers, and crown prosecutors.
  • MPPs should have a two-term limit.
  • Big city mayors should have seats in parliament.
  • We should consider having a combination of six-year-term MPPs (to ensure continuity) and two-year-term MPPs (to make the system more responsive.)
  • There should be limits on contributions to political parties.
  • There should be more education in schools and of adults on the responsibilities of citizenship.
  • We should consider the role of lobby groups. There is a trend for them to dictate policy against the voters’ wishes.
  • We should be cautious about change. Those who are happy with our current system may not be coming out to the consultation meetings.
  • We have the option to decline to vote on our ballots (this is different from spoiling the ballot). A high number of these votes could send a signal to politicians.
  • There should be a national electoral reform project.
  • Consider weighting each MPP’s vote by the proportion of vote they received.

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