Themes from Consultation Meeting in Cornwall

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

Thoughts about Principles

Accountability

  • There should be a way to hold parties accountable for broken electoral promises.
  • MPPs should be accountable to voters, not to their parties.

Effective parliament

  • A parliament should provide for input from all parties.
  • All parties should have access to the same resources. Having an official opposition is unfair.
  • MPPs should represent their constituents or their conscience, not just their parties. There should be more free votes in parliament.
  • Parliament is too adversarial. This tends to polarize issues.
  • MPPs spend only 25% of their time on parliamentary matters, and the rest on public relations and representing their communities. So party politics are not a real problem.

Effective parties

  • Political parties should be banned. They polarize issues, lead to corruption, and give leaders too much power.
  • Parties are useful. They work out ideas and policies before elections and make it easier for people to decide who to vote for. It’s impractical to disallow them.

Fairness of representation

  • More voices should be represented in parliament.
  • Women would be more involved in government if they thought that their votes as MPPs would count. Female MPPs are marginalized.
  • Every vote should count and be represented.
  • Results should be proportional (seat share should equal vote share).
  • First Nations people should by represented by nation.
  • The right to fair representation is as important as the right to vote.

Legitimacy

  • A government chosen by a non-representative portion of citizens, or a minority of them, is illegitimate.
  • When voter turnout is low, election results are illegitimate.

Stable & effective government

  • There is a trade-off between stability and fairness.
  • In other systems, coalitions are stable.

Stronger voter participation

  • A fairer system would increase voter participation.

Voter choice

  • We should be able to choose our local representatives and the political party we prefer separately.
  • We should be able to choose between multiple candidates for the same party.
  • Voter choice and satisfaction directly impact participation in government.

Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System

Participants highlighted this advantage of First Past the Post:

  • Our system is simple.

Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the current system:

  • Our system distorts election results and produces governments with minority support.
  • Our system denies many voters representation. Their wishes are ignored and their votes are wasted.
  • Our system does not produce demographically representative parliaments.
  • In our system, it’s not clear whether MPPs represent their party, their constituents, or themselves.
  • In our system, we do not have accountability. The government is not accountable to all voters.
  • In our system, the Premier’s Office and some Cabinet ministers run the government.
  • Our system encourages strategic voting.
  • Our system makes it hard for small parties to be elected.
  • Our system is too confrontational.
  • In our system, minority governments are unstable. The opposition is always trying to bring down the government.
  • Our system is complex. We have to reconcile our different preferences for our local MPP, political party, and Premier into a single vote.

Thoughts about Other Systems

Participants made these comments about other systems:

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

  • MMP is a practical way to ensure proportionality.
  • MMP would give us a more representative and diverse legislature and a more accountable government.
  • MMP would lead to coalitions which would work together by consensus and represent a true majority of voters.
  • MMP would increase the representation of women and minorities through the use of party lists.
  • Party lists should be open to give voters more choice and avoid giving party leaderships too much power.
  • In MMP, adjustment seats should be filled with local candidates who lost (“best losers”). This would eliminate party lists.
  • MMP could use regional lists to ensure that all parts of the province are fairly represented.
  • In MMP, two types of MPPs give voters additional representation. List members could be assigned to a constituency their party doesn’t represent, or could work on specific issues.
  • MMP should be adopted in its simplest form (a single ballot.) The Law Commission of Canada report should form the basis for the system.
  • MMP with a double ballot allows us to separate our preferences for local MPPs and political parties. This is simpler than our current system and gives us more choice.
  • We should use a preferential ballot for the local tier of MMP.

Proportional Representation (PR) systems

  • PR produces stable governments in most countries where it’s used. Frequent elections are not the norm. If we switch to PR, voters will have to let politicians know that we expect them to make the new system work, and if they don’t we’ll have to vote them out.
  • In most PR countries, parties end up forming coalitions that represent true majority support and consensus on specific issues (e.g. health, the environment).
  • PR encourages party cooperation and consensual decision-making.
  • PR makes every voter equal and all votes count.
  • PR makes the seat distribution reflect the way people voted. More political views are represented.
  • In PR, the government is more accountable. The legislature, not the Cabinet, runs the government.
  • We should have PR with an open list, as in Switzerland. This would give voters more choice and allow independents to participate.
  • If we switch to PR, cities will have more representation than rural areas.
  • PR with regional representation should be considered. Regions like Eastern Ontario are often forgotten at Queen’s Park.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

  • STV allows multiple candidates from the same party to run against each other. This gives voters more choice.

Other Thoughts

If the Assembly recommends a new system

  • There should be more than one referendum. The first should just ask whether the electoral system should change. This would give voters and the Assembly more time to make a detailed recommendation which would be taken seriously.
  • The referendum should have two questions: one on the need for change, and one on adopting the recommended system. If the first question passes but the second doesn’t, another Assembly should propose a different system.
  • The public needs more time to learn about a new system (up to three years.) Educate the public, then have a single referendum.

Size of the legislature

  • We should reduce the number of ridings to 50. Larger ridings are not a problem.

Other comments

  • The party nomination process is where the real election takes place. It should be easer for individuals to represent a party in an election, even if it means multiple candidates per party.
  • Riding candidates should always be from the riding. No one should be parachuted in.

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