Themes from Consultation Meeting in Toronto Central

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 participants: 20

Thoughts about Principles

Accountability

  • Representatives with disabilities need accommodation to communicate with their constituents. Representatives without disabilities may also need accommodation to communicate with disabled constituents (e.g. sign-language interpreters).
  • MPPs should be accountable to their constituents, not their parties.
  • MPPs should not be allowed to change parties.

Effective parliament

  • Representatives with disabilities need accommodation to participate in parliament.

Fairness of representation

  • Candidates and representatives with disabilities should have a level playing field with their opponents. There should be centralized funding for accommodation for people with disabilities who want to run for office.
  • The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other human rights legislation, and Supreme Court rulings state that people with disabilities should be able to participate in political life on an equal basis, including running for election, holding office, and voting.
  • The Government of Ontario has committed to accessibility with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.
  • The deaf and other people with disabilities should have an equal voice in the political process. If they are not represented, their concerns will be ignored. If they are not able to vote, where is their voice?
  • We could reserve seats in parliament for people with disabilities, as well as for other groups. This would ensure demographic representation and make sure that they are represented in all political parties.
  • I would prefer not to have reserved seats. We should make other changes to the system which will encourage better demographic representation.
  • Political parties should commit to running disabled candidates. Stéphane Dion has committed to bringing in women candidates. Why not disabled candidates?
  • Tokenism is not enough. We should have more people with disabilities running for office. Barriers should be removed.

Stronger voter participation

  • People with disabilities should have the opportunity to vote with dignity.

Thoughts about Ontario’s Current Electoral System

Participants highlighted these disadvantages of the current system:

  • In our system, if we support a party we have to vote for their local candidate, who we may not like.
  • In our system, MPPs have to follow their party’s rules. They may ignore what their constituents want.

Thoughts about Other Systems

Participants made these comments about other systems:

Mixed systems

  • A mixed system would allow people with disabilities and other minorities to be elected. Being able to choose both an individual and a party would help increase representation of more diverse groups without reserving seats in parliament.

Proportional Representation (PR) systems

  • PR would encourage smaller parties, which would represent more people in Ontario (e.g. women, minorities, people with disabilities).

Other Thoughts

If the Assembly recommends a new system

  • Accessibility should be an objective in implementing any new system.
  • The public education campaign should represent people with disabilities.

Size of the legislature

  • The legislature should be expanded. MPPs have too high a workload.
  • The legislature should only be expanded if the electoral system changes to a proportional or mixed system.

Other comments

  • Accessibility, the duty to accommodate disability, should be another principle. Accommodation is part of an inclusive society.
  • The Citizens’ Assembly should organize public consultations on access to democracy and electoral reform.
  • Accessibility is not just for the sake of people for whom there are barriers. We all have something to contribute.
  • There should be real-time captioning and sign-language interpreters for all nomination meetings and candidates debates.
  • Electronic media should be used to make voting and government accessible.
  • Public education is important. Civics courses should be accessible.
  • Party leaders should be chosen in a democratic way.
  • There should be ongoing participation of citizens in setting the political agenda and making decisions.

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