Themes from Consultation Meeting in Sarnia

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: 32

Thoughts about Principles

Accountability

  • We need politicians to be able to listen better than they do right now.
  • MPPs should not be allowed to cross the floor. They were elected on the basis of their party.

Effective parliament

  • I would like to see less party control and more free votes.

Effective parties

  • Smaller parties should be able to put forward issues and obtain representation.
  • We have many parties now because on social issues, we are not as much of like mind as we were perhaps 100 years ago.
  • Parties should campaign for every vote, and not campaign strategically.
  • We could have a threshold to avoid having too many parties.

Fairness of representation

  • A true democracy is bottom-up: everyone should have a say on issues. We should have more direct democracy (e.g. referendums, recall, citizens’ initiatives). One day I hope we won’t even have MPPs.
  • Results should be proportional (seat share should equal vote share.)
  • Proportional results are not necessarily a true reflection of the will of the province.
  • The public is fragmented now. The only way I can see for better representation is to have more people represented. The majority isn’t usually interested in minority rights.
  • Some of the districts in the North are very large. If we want better representation, we might have to change this.

Simplicity & practicality

  • Any new system should be reasonably understandable. When the results come in it shouldn’t be complicated to understand who got what.
  • A new system has to be simple enough for people to have confidence in the integrity of the results.
  • A new system should be as simple and straightforward as possible.

Stable & effective government

  • Young people generally prefer proportional government.
  • Coalition governments are something we could get used to. Politicians should be able to work together and make compromises.
  • In the past, coalitions and minorities in Canada have produced good results (e.g. the CCF and Medicare).
  • Coalition governments work very well in Europe.
  • Minority governments are contentious because of power sharing between parties and the compromises they have to make.
  • Government’s role is to protect our rights and freedoms. Only majorities can do this.
  • Coalitions are nothing more than minorities with more compromise, and result in added cost due to different demands of each party. The tail wagging the dog is very expensive.

Stronger voter participation

  • Voting is not a right; it is an obligation. Participation between elections is also desirable.
  • People don’t vote because: there is no one to vote for; their vote won’t count; politicians just do what they want anyway.
  • There is a growing number of people who are uninterested in politics. We should get them interested by: referendums, recall, citizens’ initiatives, and proportional representation.
  • Participation is declining because of the way parties function.
  • More people would vote if they felt their votes mattered.
  • Voter participation is influenced by factors (individual and social) outside the electoral system.

Voter choice

  • Voters should be able to vote for the party they believe in, and not be forced to vote strategically.
  • In my experience, people vote for parties, not candidates. The system should reflect this.

Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System

Participants highlighted these advantages of First Past the Post:

  • Our system tends to produce majority governments that can act based on reason rather than the necessity for consensus.
  • It has produced majority governments which have provided for a prosperous province and maintained progressive development.
  • In our system, we have local representatives who listen to their constituents and represent all members of their riding.
  • Our system is simple.

Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the current system:

  • People vote strategically because they know their first choice won’t win.
  • Smaller parties are penalized. They only receive a fraction of the votes they would if people voted according to their true preferences.
  • Our system limits the scope of debate. Issues that are important to all of society, for example, global warming, are ignored longer than they should be. Technical and ethical issues are not dealt with until there is a crisis.
  • Our system produces wasted votes.  For example, in 1993, I believe a million people in Ontario voted PC and not one was elected.
  • Our system produces false winners.

Thoughts about Other Systems

Participants made these comments about other systems:

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

  • In MMP, party lists could include qualified people who do not have the media appeal it takes to get elected directly.
  • Party lists may give parties too much power, but the party leaders have to approve riding candidates even now.
  • In MMP, ridings should be twice the size they are now and we should have a 50:50 tier (even split of local and party seats).
  • The Law Commission recommended a 2/3:1/3 ratio (local:party). We could give seats only to the winners in the 2/3 of ridings where victories were decisive.
  • In a MMP system with list members, people might not know who their representatives would be.
  • We could have regional lists rather than a province-wide list.
  • We could randomly assign list members to share riding duties with local members. This would help deal with large ridings.

Proportional Representation (PR) systems

  • In PR, small parties might have too much power in coalitions.
  • In PR, parties would be free to choose who they form coalitions with. Small parties would not have too much influence, but could still have a positive impact.
  • List-PR with an open list would give voters more choice.
  • We should have a proportional system where people vote for a party.

Other Thoughts

If the Assembly recommends a new system

  • The Assembly must make sure that people understand the new system. That didn’t happen in BC.
  • The Assembly should explain why it is proposing a new system.

Size of the legislature

  • You should keep the size of the legislature the same. There are lots of issues that have nothing to do with the size of electoral districts.
  • There is a populist notion that smaller is better, but an increase may be needed to make the system work.

Other comments

  • Right now we have a top-heavy bureaucracy that has alienated people.
  • Polls swing voters. People want to vote for a winner.

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