Advocacy groups are renewing calls for electoral reform in Ontario after Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives were re-elected with another majority last week despite historically low voter turnout with most voters voting for other parties, though experts say that’s probably not a start.
In the June 2 election, 40 percent voted for the Progressive Conservatives, giving the party 83 seats. Some 53 per cent in total voted for the NDP, the Liberals and the Greens, but those parties will have a combined 40 seats. The Liberals won nearly a quarter of the popular vote but will hold only eight of the 124 seats available. Turnout was an all-time low of 43 percent.
“The Ontario election results were a gross misrepresentation of what voters said on their ballots,” read a Twitter post from Fair Vote Canada, an organization that supports the transition to a proportional system. “Majority governments should have the consent of the majority of voters.”
Proponents of electoral reform say the Ontario results prove the province should scrap the simple majority system, in which voters choose a candidate and the person with the most votes wins. The successful candidate does not need to win a majority of votes to participate.
Many would like to see proportional representation, whereby the percentage of seats a party holds would reflect its share of the popular vote.
The result should ‘set off alarm bells’, group says’
The nonprofit advocacy group Democracy Watch has also proposed a new voting system to better reflect the popular vote, along with mandatory Elections Ontario voter education announcements and messages informing people of their right to reject a ballot. The group also called the historically low voter turnout a “clear crisis” that should “sound alarm bells” about the legitimacy of the provincial government.
“More and more voters know from their experience over the past decades of elections that they will not get what they voted for,” Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher said in a written statement.
Voters are likely to get dishonest, secretive, unethical, unrepresentative and wasteful government no matter who they vote for, and no one should be surprised to see such low voter turnout as a result,” he wrote.
Cameron Anderson, a political science professor at Western University, said people are understandably frustrated with the result, though he noted the results could have been murkier if, for example, the party with the most votes hadn’t won enough seats to form. government. .
“It was a pretty decisive victory among those who voted, but the consequences are what they are, and it’s unpleasant for many, for sure,” he said in an interview.
Amid calls for change, Anderson noted that supporters of the current system can argue that majority governments offer stability without disruption or fear of snap elections. He also pointed to referendums on electoral reform that took place in several Canadian provinces, including Ontario, which ended up maintaining the status quo.
In 2007, Ontarians voted against a mixed member proportional voting system. That model, which the NDP campaigned on this time, attempts to bring some of the stability of the simple majority system to a fully proportional government, by having some legislators elected from local districts and others from party lists. .
“Changing the system is not easy and it is not a panacea,” Anderson said, adding that finding a compromise or agreement on a new system is a challenge when balancing the interests of citizens and political parties.
3 parties promised to change the electoral system
Three of the four major parties promised to change the province’s electoral system during the 2022 campaign. But Ford, saying his party received a clear mandate, ruled out the possibility the day after the election.
“I think this system has worked for more than 100 years and some years. It will continue to work that way,” he told reporters.
The federal Liberal government also promised, and failed to deliver, electoral reform.
While campaigning in 2015, Justin Trudeau said that the federal election held that year would be the last to use the first-mover method, a promise he would ultimately renege on.
Emmanuelle Richez, an associate professor of political science at the University of Windsor, said sitting governments and elected representatives generally lack the political will to introduce difficult reforms to the voting system that could threaten their power.
He also highlighted a “lack of popular appetite for electoral reform,” despite the current discussion in Ontario, pointing to previous referendums across the country.
“It’s a niche topic that’s just not a priority for most Ontarians,” he said of the concept.
“My prediction is that you will never see it in Canada.”
Reference-www.cbc.ca