Themes from Consultation Meeting in Oshawa

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: 35

Thoughts about Principles

Accountability

  • We don’t have accountability.
  • Once they have our votes, politicians can do whatever they want.
  • We can hold parties accountable by voting them out.
  • If parties form a coalition and implement unpopular policies, voters still have the chance to vote them out.

Effective parties

  • There should be more parties to represent people better.
  • Parties should be required to win a minimum number of votes in order to win seats—this will ensure there aren’t too many parties.

Fairness of representation

  • The current system is unfair.
  • Results should be proportional (seat share should equal vote share).
  • We need proportionality but we should ease into it; we shouldn’t have too many proportional seats to start with.
  • Women and other under-represented groups should have more representation.
  • We should not engineer systems to have demographic representation because it forces us vote for certain candidates.

Legitimacy

  • Legitimacy comes from representing the will of the people; from representing a majority of the people.
  • We have had false winners in Canada; this is an issue for legitimacy and fairness.
  • Under our current system, I accept the decisions of the government, even if I didn’t elect it.

Simplicity & practicality

  • Simplicity is not a concern for me.

Stable & effective government

  • Stability and effectiveness are reduced when policy agendas change with each election.
  • Coalitions are forced to work together and reach consensus; this takes longer but the decisions that are made are the right ones.

Stronger voter participation

  • Stronger voter participation is the most important consideration.
  • Voter participation is low for a number of reasons, including:
    • a lack of accountability
    • a lack of voter choice
    • unfair representation
    • apathy and cynicism (e.g. due to reversal of campaign promises)
    • a feeling that votes don’t count.
  • Voter participation is a personal choice; you can’t do anything to increase it.

Voter choice

  • I would like a system where I could split my vote between a party and a candidate.
  • I would like to rank my candidates because it would allow me to put forward the most information.

Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System

Participants highlighted these advantages of First Past the Post:

  • Our system is the perfect system.
  • It may have flaws, but it’s the best system in the world.
  • I know who is responsible for what happens now.
  • I know whom I vote for and why.
  • Representatives have a close association with individual ridings.
  • There is no such thing as a wasted vote; all votes are valuable.
  • Education is more important; the system itself is fine as it is.

Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the current system:

  • Votes do not translate equally into seats.
  • Large parties are over-represented and small parties (e.g. Green Party) with significant popular vote lack representation.
  • Our system tends to produce manufactured majorities.
  • Our system is designed for two parties, but there are more parties than that.
  • Those who don’t vote for the winner in their ridings feel like their votes don’t count.
  • Our system encourages strategic voting.
  • It exaggerates small changes in popular support to produce large shifts in seat standings.
  • Women and minorities are under-represented.

Thoughts about Other Systems

Participants made these comments about other systems:

Proportional Representation (PR) systems

  • PR ensures that every vote counts to get someone elected.
  • PR gives representation to small parties with geographically distributed support.
  • PR results in more parties. Some of our current parties could fracture.
  • PR produces coalitions which are more representative.
  • Any party lists should be open to give voters more choice.
  • Party lists should be demographically representative.
  • Party lists should not be forced to be demographically representative.
  • We should consider giving party leaders more votes to make up for any disproportionality in the legislature

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

  • The MMP system used in New Zealand is very good.
  • MMP is the best choice because it is the simplest; the local candidate part of the ballot would be the same as now—this would make it easy to understand.
  • Allowing voters to choose both a candidate and a party would ensure voters could make choices that best represent their values.
  • MMP helps minorities and others gain representation.
  • Under an MMP system, there should be a threshold for parties to win seats (e.g. 5% of the vote), in order to discourage fractious or small parties.
  • MMP would eliminate strategic voting.
  • Proportional seats should be based on regions.
  • Proportional seats should be filled by candidates who failed to win local seats (“best losers”); this would avoid party lists.
  • MMP creates two classes of members: local members who represent constituents and list members who represent the party.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

  • I don’t find STV too complicated, but I understand why MMP might be preferable.

Weighted Vote System

  • We should consider giving party leaders more votes to make up for any disproportionality in the legislature

Other Thoughts

If the Assembly recommends a new system

  • We should not make change for the sake of change.
  • If we make change thinking that it will be the “magic bullet,” we will be fooling ourselves.
  • A process to reform the electoral system must have the confidence of the public.
  • Any recommendation should be reviewed after 10 years.
  • Change should be gradual to earn the public’s acceptance.
  • The Assembly should include a recommendation for funding an education campaign.

Size of the legislature

  • Keep the existing 107 seats and add an additional tier of proportional seats (e.g. six regions with 10 proportional seats in each).
  • Increasing the size of the legislature may be a hard sell but it is the right thing to do.
  • We had more seats before they were cut; a larger legislature would be nothing new.
  • The legislature should be as big as possible because the amount of money it costs is relatively small.
  • If seats are added, they should be added incrementally.

Other comments

  • Our leaders lack vision.
  • Campaign donations from corporations and unions should be eliminated.
  • Internet voting and phone-in voting should be considered.
  • The voting age should be lowered.
  • There should be more education about voting in schools.
  • The media should do a better job of discussing our electoral system.
  • You are not going to get good people into government unless you are willing to pay for quality people.
  • It is important to change the federal system.
  • There should be some way to hold politicians accountable between elections (e.g. recall of MPPs). 

» Return to Summaries of Public Meetings