Themes from Consultation Meeting in Thunder Bay

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: 20

Thoughts about Principles

Accountability

  • There’s no accountability when only a quarter of voters get their say.

Effective parties

  • A 5% threshold would be useful.
  • We should reduce the role of parties. I don’t like party politics.

Fairness of representation

  • Results should be proportional (seat share should equal vote share).
  • All votes should count.
  • Geographic representation is important. We’re concerned that we’re not being heard.
  • Geography is a real issue. It takes too long to travel across ridings (7.5 hours from one end of ours to the other), and citizens are not being served. Ridings should be smaller.
  • Demographic representation is important. Our representatives should reflect our diverse population. Women and minorities need to be better represented.
  • Toronto has too much power; I think 36% of the Cabinet is from Toronto.

Stronger voter participation

  • Stronger voter participation is important.

Voter choice

Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System

Participants highlighted these advantages of First Past the Post:

  • Our system produces majority governments.

Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the current system:

  • Our system is unfair.
  • In our system, our representatives don’t reflect the demographic diversity of the province.
  • In our system, if you don’t vote for the winner, you’re not represented.
  • Our system elects MPPs and governments with a minority of the votes.

Thoughts about Other Systems

Participants made these comments about other systems:

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)

  • I like MMP because it’s proportional and preserves local representation.
  • MMP is successful in Germany and New Zealand.
  • MMP forces parties to compromise.
  • In an MMP system, the representation from different regions should be balanced.
  • Adjustment seats give parties too much control over candidates. Everyone should have to run in a riding.

Proportional Representation (PR) systems

  • PR would reduce strategic voting, eliminate wasted votes, and make very vote count.

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