Themes from Consultation Meeting in Perth

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

  • There should be a direct link between voters and MPPs, not just an imagined one. Being close to the people is a reality check for politicians.
  • Most people have never been helped by their MPP. I’ve contacted my MPP on several occasions and only been satisfied when I said I was from the media.

Effective parliament

  • Parliament is effective if the government is open and transparent.
  • MPPs and parties should work together in parliament, not just attack each other.

Effective parties

  • Small parties should be able to win seats. A 5% threshold seems reasonable.
  • Competition is good everywhere, so it should be good in politics too (e.g. when candidates of the same party have to compete against one another in a system such as Single Transferable Vote or STV).

Fairness of representation

  • Results should be proportional (seat share should equal vote share). Proportionality is the most important principle.
  • Representation of women should be increased using the Law Commission of Canada recommendations.
  • Consider recommending incentives and fines to ensure fair representation of women.
  • Socially important goals, like the representation of women and visible minorities, can be accomplished by other means and shouldn’t affect the choice of electoral system. Demographic differences can be taken care of within the party structure.
  • I don’t like the idea of seat quotas for women. I think that women can be elected on their merits.
  • Diversity of representation is important.
  • Aboriginals should have representation.

Legitimacy

  • Democracy is about majority rule. We need a system that will elect the party preferred by the majority of voters.
  • Legitimacy comes from fair representation and votes counting equally.

Stable & effective government

  • Strong majorities allow governments to carry out their agendas, but the majorities shouldn’t be artificial.
  • We would see fewer pendulum swings in policy if the government was forced to cooperate with other parties rather than push through its own agenda.
  • Government should be able to create laws that serve people in the long-term.

Stronger voter participation

  • Voting is an obligation, not a right. Consider recommending compulsory voting. This would increase the legitimacy of the system.
  • Disenfranchisement is selective. The “underclass” and young people don’t vote. Our system represents only one sector of society.

Voter choice

  • Choice should be meaningful. Choices that don’t lead to representation don’t count.

Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System

Participants highlighted these advantages of First Past the Post:

  • Our system has worked well and developed new policies as needed.
  • It lets us change governments when they become unbearable.
  • In our system, new parties like the Greens have been able to increase their popularity.
  • In our system, we have local representation. Our representatives listen to their constituents because they want to be re-elected. Anyone who wins a riding with less than majority support is likely to listen to voters.
  • In our system, there is a direct link between representatives and voters.
  • Our system lets us directly lobby the government. If we make a good proposal, we can get what we want.

Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the current system:

  • Our system serves political parties, not voters.
  • Our system produces distorted results and manufactured majorities, which have power that they don’t deserve.
  • Our system creates instability in policy from one government to another. Governments try to act quickly to make their mark.
  • Our system produces an oppositional climate.
  • In our system, your vote doesn’t count unless you vote for the winning party in your riding. Our system produces areas all over the province where a single party is dominant and other voters are disenfranchised. Votes don’t count equally.
  • Our system makes it difficult for small parties to gain representation. Choices for small parties don’t count.
  • Our parliament doesn’t represent the variety of viewpoints in Ontario today.
  • Single member ridings tend to exclude women and minorities.

Thoughts about Other Systems

Participants made these comments about other systems:

Alternative Vote (AV)

  • AV allows second preferences to count. This would reduce the chance that a disliked candidate would be elected.

“Condorcet Method”

  • Condorcet produces winning candidates who the majority can agree on, even if they are not the majority’s first choice.
  • Condorcet allows voters to rank candidates according to their preferences. This gives them more choice.
  • It does not eliminate candidates who are potentially consensus candidates just because they are not voters’ first choice.

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

  • In MMP, we should use a preferential method (“Bucklin voting”) to elect local representatives. The adjustment seats should be filled using the Sainte-Laguë formula.
  • Having two classes of MPPs is not a problem. Experience shows that list members tend to associate themselves with a riding. List members would give us more choice of MPPs to contact with our problems.
  • List members may be more policy-oriented and riding members may be more locally active, but that’s a reasonable trade-off to achieve proportionality.
  • I think list members would get Cabinet positions and riding members would be downgraded.
  • Proportionality should be calculated province-wide. Regional lists make things too complicated.
  • Party lists should be regional, but proportionality should still be calculated province-wide.
  • MMP is relatively close to the system we have, so it’s likely to be accepted in a referendum.
  • We could have a single-ballot MMP system where we vote only for a local representative and proportionality is calculated based on those votes. This would be simple and the ballot would not have to be changed.
  • We should have closed lists with incentives for electing women and minority representatives.
  • I’m leaning to MMP because you retain local representation and gain regional candidates.

Proportional Representation (PR) systems

  • PR systems serve political parties, not voters.
  • PR produces stable and effective governments in many countries.
  • I don’t like party lists because they eliminate the link between voters and their representatives. With lists, politicians are less likely to listen to the people.
  • I like party lists because you could come up with a list of really good people.
  • PR increases voter participation because votes are more meaningful.
  • PR makes every vote count.
  • PR increases the number of women elected.
  • PR would give representation to small parties (e.g. the Greens). This would let more voices be heard and give legitimacy to ideas that need to be discussed by government.
  • PR produces coalitions that work collaboratively to reach consensus. We would see fewer pendulum swings in policy.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

  • I like STV because candidates from the same party compete against each other. This would get rid of MPPs who don’t serve their constituents well.
  • STV could work without increasing the number of MPPs. Riding sizes would be increased, but there would be multiple members in each riding. Parties will make sure they run candidates from all over the riding.
  • STV is probably a better system than MMP, but less likely to be accepted.

Other Thoughts

If the Assembly recommends a new system

  • With a good education process before the referendum, there’s a possibility that we could accept change. Otherwise, people won’t know enough to make an informed decision.
  • We should consider small gradual changes rather than a complete change of system, which requires a referendum.

Size of the legislature

  • We should double the number of seats in parliament, but cut MPPs salaries in half.
  • We could have any number of seats we want, maybe using technology to make this easy. We should pay MPPs properly.

Other comments

  • Voters’ lists need to be improved. They are not accurate, and people can vote more than once.
  • There should be more education of students and the public about politics.
  • The electoral system should be monitored and reviewed regularly.

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