Themes from Consultation Meeting in Kenora

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: 10

Thoughts about Principles

Effective parties

  • Parties negate the value of individual representatives. We should elect citizens, not parties.

Fairness of representation

  • The riding system is essential in the North. Smaller regions must have their voices heard.
  • It is difficult for politicians to represent this riding. It’s impossible to get to all the communities.
  • Aboriginals need to have a voice in the legislature. Treaty territories should have their own seats in the house. This could be done without reserved seats if the districts were restructured.
  • The urban agenda is overwhelming the rural. The concerns of the North need to be given more weight in parliament.
  • MPPs should be elected with a majority of the vote, not less.
  • Results should be proportional so that every vote counts.

Legitimacy

  • Legitimacy is the most important principle. The voting system should make sure that electoral results are acceptable to most voters.

Simplicity & practicality

  • A new system must be simple for most people to understand it, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be change.

Stable & effective government

  • People are willing to accept coalitions.
  • Coalitions include more points of view in government.

Stronger voter participation

  • People don’t vote because: they think their vote doesn’t count; they think parties don’t represent their interests.
  • We shouldn’t have mandatory voting. If someone doesn’t want to vote, they shouldn’t contribute to political decision-making.

Voter choice

  • Voters should be able to express preferences, and vote for as many candidates as they want. More women will be elected under a preferential system.
  • Voters should be able to vote for the party they prefer. They should not have to vote strategically.
  • Preferential ballots allow us to choose the best candidates.

Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System

Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the First Past the Post system:

  • The current system encourages strategic voting [link to glossary] and vote splitting.
  • In our system, MPPs can be elected with a minority of the vote. More than half of the voters don’t get their first choice. The winners are not in touch with most of the voters.
  • Our system is combative. It’s a “might-make-right” system.
  • Our system produces wasted votes. This reduces voter choice.
  • Our system doesn’t give small parties a chance. You can’t vote for the Green Party because you know it’s a wasted vote.

Thoughts about Other Systems

Participants made these comments about other systems:

Alternative Vote (AV)

  • AV allows voters to rank their preferences.
  • AV is the simplest preferential system.
  • AV produces a winner with majority support.
  • AV doesn’t eliminate vote splitting and strategic voting.

Majority systems

  • Majority systems (e.g. Alternative Vote) increase proportionality and accountability.
  • They are used extensively in Canada (e.g. in business, by the Wheat Board, in government.)
  • Majority systems are more legitimate than plurality systems. They will increase the confidence of voters in their representatives.

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

  • MMP allows proportional representation and local representation to coexist.
  • In a single-vote MMP system, the proportionality makes people feel like their riding vote counts.
  • MMP produces coalitions, which reflect more points of view.
  • MMP gives small parties more of a voice.
  • If MMP uses First Past the Post to elect riding representatives, the riding representatives would still only have minority support. We should use a majority system to elect riding representatives.
  • MMP forces us to increase the number of MPPs or reduce the number of ridings, neither of which is desirable.
  • In MMP, thresholds can be used to make the system stable.

Proportional Representation (PR) systems

  • PR eliminates wasted votes and makes every vote count.
  • In PR systems with closed party lists, parties decide who is elected. Voters have no control over their representatives.
  • PR may be too big a change. We should make a smaller change first.

Two-Round System (TRS)

  • TRS produces a winner with majority support.
  • TRS doesn’t eliminate vote splitting or strategic voting.

Other Voting Methods

  • The Assembly should consider these additional voting methods: Condorcet, Kemeny-Young, and VoteFair ranking.
  • These methods allow people to express their true preferences. They eliminate vote splitting and strategic voting.

Other Thoughts

  • Whatever is recommend in Ontario will affect the rest of Canada.
  • The Assembly should consider civility as another principle.
  • Electronic voting should be avoided unless there are paper records.

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