Themes from Consultation Meeting in Hamilton

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: 39

Thoughts about Principles

Accountability

  • We can hold our representatives accountable by voting them out.
  • Representatives should be accountable to voters, not to their parties.

Effective parliament

  • The role of the opposition is to express different points of view, not to be obstructive.

Effective parties

  • Parties in Canada don’t engage the public or structure the policy debate. They only organize for elections when they want something from the voters.
  • Parties have too much power. Party members are beholden to their parties, not to ordinary people. Parties prevent ordinary people from being elected.
  • More small parties should have representation.
  • There should be a threshold to prevent too many small parties from gaining representation.

Fairness of representation

  • Our legislature is dominated by “white men of property.” Workers and women need more representation.
  • We should consider having two votes on each ballot: one for a man and one for a woman. This would give us gender parity in the legislature.
  • We should choose the person who is the most capable to represent us. Forced demographic representation undermines our representatives’ ability to represent all of us.
  • Every vote should count. Results should be proportional (seat share should equal vote share).
  • Special provisions are needed to represent rural or northern voters fairly.

Legitimacy

  • Coalitions have no authority.
  • Legitimacy comes from voters seeing the system as fair.

Simplicity & practicality

  • Simplicity is important in order to sell a new system to the public in a referendum.
  • I don’t care how much it costs to run a democracy, or how long it takes to calculate the results of an election. It’s more important for the results to be fair.

Stable & effective government

  • Stable and effective government is more a reflection of national culture than a result of an electoral system.
  • Coalition governments work well, produce moderate results, and include different points of view, though they may work slower than single-party governments.

Stronger voter participation

  • We need informed voters who show up at the polls in greater numbers.
  • People don’t vote because they don’t see how anything is going to change.
  • People don’t vote because they don’t have relevant choices.

Voter choice

  • There is not enough choice. All you get to choose from is a slate of candidates pre-selected by the parties.
  • In our system, people vote mostly for a party or party leader. People don’t base their decision on their local candidate.

Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System

Participants highlighted these advantages of First Past the Post:

  • Our system gives us geographic representation.
  • It is simple, practical, easy to understand, and cheap.
  • It is fair—the person with the most votes in a riding wins the seat.
  • It has produced essentially good government, and usually produces stable and effective government.
  • In our system, we have clear accountability. If our representatives let us down, we vote them out.

Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the current system:

  • It does not represent the views of many voters. If you vote for someone who isn’t elected, your vote doesn’t count. The Green Party gets lots of votes but no seats.
  • Our system produces false winners. Parties can get the most votes and not form the government.
  • In our system, a slight change in voter preferences can have a dramatic effect on seat results.
  • It gives us bad geographic representation. It tends to pit region against region. It results in unfair differences in size and representation between rural and urban ridings. Ridings are artificial and create many artificial minorities.
  • It makes it difficult for parties to promote diversity. Our system does not reflect the demographics of Ontario.

Thoughts about Other Systems

Participants made these comments about other systems:

“Mixed Association Electoral Model”

  • Voters would self-organize into constituencies based on their own membership rules instead of geography. Constituencies would be roughly the same size. Each voter would belong to one constituency and each constituency would elect one representative.
  • This system would give voters more choice by allowing them to select their constituency as well as their representative within that constituency.
  • This system would increase voter participation by giving voters confidence that they have something in common with their representative.

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

  • MMP preserves local representation. Most people like to know who their representative is.
  • I would suggest MMP with a majority local vote (a runoff system).
  • MMP could make the legislature more reflective of Ontario’s population and allow underrepresented groups to gain seats through the use of party lists.
  • Adjustment seats should be filled by local candidates who lost (“best losers”). This makes sure all MPPs are chosen by voters, not by parties. It also gives voters more choice. They can vote for someone who may lose a local race but still get elected.
  • Using “best losers” instead of party lists to fill adjustment seats means that party lists can’t be used to improve demographic representation.
  • In MMP, every vote counts and results are more proportional. A slight change in voter preferences results in only a slight change in power.
  • The system gives voters more choice by allowing them to split their vote between a candidate and a party. Having two votes or ballots would not be too complicated for most voters.
  • MMP will likely produce coalitions. Some find this frightening, but in Europe it works fine.
  • In MMP, minority governments are likely to be more stable than in our system because there is more experience with them.
  • MMP should use a threshold for parties to win seats (e.g. either 3 local seats or 5% of the vote).
  • MMP would require either larger ridings or a larger legislature.

Parallel Systems

  • Parallel systems allow for a useful difference in the status of MPPs. Local members could represent constituencies, while a proportional tier could represent larger areas and focus on province-wide issues.
  • Parallel systems allow voters to split their vote between parties and candidates.

Proportional Representation (PR) systems

  • PR gives too much power to parties. Voting should be about the people.
  • Voter turnout is higher in PR systems.
  • Voter turnout may not be higher in PR systems.
  • PR systems tend to produce coalitions, which voters learn to live with.
  • All of the PR systems are fair and result in a legislature that reflects how voters voted.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

  • STV uses a long list of unfamiliar names that may be difficult to rank.
  • STV is too complicated. That’s why it wasn’t accepted in B.C.
  • STV is not too hard for the average person to understand.
  • With STV and other systems (such as Alternative Vote) that use a transfer of preferences, it is not clear whether the results are legitimate, or are manufactured by the counting process.

Other system

  • The presenter proposed a system that would use single-member rural ridings and multi-member urban ridings. (Rural ridings should be small, and people in cities don’t necessarily care about having a single member or small riding.)
  • Elections in the multi-member ridings would be proportional, either open list or STV.
  • This system would also use provincial lists for adjustment seats to ensure proportionality.
  • By combining proportional multi-member districts with adjustment seats, election results could be made proportional with only 20 extra seats.
  • Multiple-member ridings would make sure that almost everyone was represented by someone they voted for.

Other Thoughts

  • This process shouldn’t be about the voting system; it should be about the outcome. Every system has its problems. No system will fix all the problems.
  • Every MPP should live in their district for at least a year before they run. This makes sure that they share the concerns of their constituents and that they experience the same consequences of government actions.
  • We should elect the Premier directly. No MPP should have to give a seat up for the Premier.
  • Electronic voting or voting online would encourage young people to vote. E-voting worries me because of the lack of accountability.
  • We should consider coordinating municipal and provincial voters’ lists. Voters’ lists should be more accurate.
  • We should consider randomly selecting our representatives (“selecting by lot”). That way everyone would have a chance to participate in government.
  • We should consider lowering the voting age.

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