Themes from Consultation Meeting in Chatham
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: 25
Effective parties
- All parties should be able to win seats in parliament.
- More parties would represent more values.
Fairness of representation
- Geographic representation doesn’t make sense anymore. Regions no longer have distinct values.
- Our electoral system should reflect all our values (e.g. the economy, the environment, gender equality).
Simplicity & practicality
- Simplicity should not prevent change. Efficiency isn’t the most important part of democracy.
- Simplicity is very important. We should not have to use computers to count ballots, but counts should be fast.
- We should find a compromise between simplicity and the complexities that come with democracy.
Stable & effective government
- Coalition governments may lead to more participatory democracy.
- Coalitions bring together the best ideas from all parties. Coalitions would make parties work together.
- Coalitions have been stable in many places.
- Governments need to make timely decisions. For minority or coalition governments, this may require innovations like direct democracy.
- Coalitions would produce fairer, broader-based policies, and reduce instability due to frequent changes in ideologically-based policies.
Stronger voter participation
- The biggest problem in Canada right now is voter turnout.
- People don’t vote because: they think their vote doesn’t count; because they think their views won’t be represented.
- More people would vote if they had more confidence in the electoral system, and in the political system in general.
- Electoral systems affect voter participation.
- We should not have mandatory voting. It would compromise democracy.
Voter choice
- We should be able to vote for both parties and candidates.
Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System
Participants highlighted these advantages of First Past the Post:
- In our system, we have geographic representation.
- Our system gives us access to our MPPs.
Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the current system:
- In our system, some voters think perceive their votes to be expendable.
- In our system, seats are assessed for how winnable they are. This reduces parties’ and voters’ commitment to each other.
- Our system gives large parties advantages and penalizes small parties.
- Our system does not offer us adequate accountability or legitimacy.
- Our system elects winners preferred by a minority of voters. It is not legitimate and does not reflect the will of the voters.
- Our system elects false majorities, which then have the power to do whatever they want but represent a minority of voters.
- In our system, party leaders have too much power over individual MPPs. This reduces the effectiveness of our representation.
- In our system, people often vote strategically to prevent another candidate from winning.
Thoughts about Other Systems
Participants made these comments about other systems:
- MMP reflects both local preferences and the overall will of voters.
- MMP keeps some of what we already have and adds proportionality. It is sellable.
- Adjustment seats should be filled with “best losers” (runners up).
- We could have a changing number of adjustment seats and use only as many as needed for proportionality.
- We should have thresholds of 2%-2.5%.
- PR may require innovation. Parties may need to find new ways to engage citizens and each other.
- In PR, there may be delays forming a government.
- I support PR with open lists because they distribute the power of party members and let voters choose the best combination of parties and candidates.
- I really wouldn’t like to see a PR system with closed lists. I have deep concerns about how parties behave in these systems.
- PR gives all the power to minorities. They make it difficult for government to function.
- In a PR system with party lists, candidates are more indebted to their parties than to voters. They will listen to the party, not voters.
- In STV, elections can take days.
- STV may be too complicated.
- STV is too hard a sell.
- I don’t understand multi-member districts. If you have five people representing a riding, who really speaks for that riding?
- TRS would reduce strategic voting. We could vote genuinely in the first round, knowing that we’d have the opportunity to vote again.
- The gap between the two rounds would be very exciting. It would increase voter participation.
- TRS is similar to our current system.
- I like TRS because you’re only voting for one person.
- Two elections would not be a problem. Efficiency isn’t the primary concern of democracy, and neither is cost.
Other Thoughts
If the Assembly recommends a new system
- The high referendum threshold will make change difficult.
- If the referendum passes, the high threshold will give the result significant authority.
- The education campaign will have to be really good. People can get very confused. There’s not much time.
Other comments
- I would like to add the principle of “democracy within democracy”: parties and riding associations should be run democratically.
- MPPs should not be allowed to cross the floor and change parties between elections.
- Candidates should not be parachuted into a riding. All candidates should live in their ridings.
- We should consider tax credits for voters to encourage voting.
- We should eliminate parties and have MPPs elect a Premier.
- We should have referendums on major issues (like in Switzerland).
- The Assembly should ask all MPPs what system they support.
- The whole point of this process is that it’s about what the people think, not the politicians.
» Return to Summaries of Public Meetings