The government and opposition remain silent
on real democratic reform

While the government and opposition trade barbs on the latest round of crony appointments to the undemocratic upper chamber, all federal parties remain silent on the core democratic reform issue: the unrepresentative House of Commons.

“Canadians may be heading for the fourth federal election in five years because our political leaders refuse to adopt a modern democratic voting system for House of Commons elections,” said Larry Gordon, Executive Director, Fair Vote Canada.

“The first-past-the-post voting system guarantees undeserved seat bonuses for some parties – seats in Parliament far in excess of what is warranted by their popular vote. If a party increases its vote share from the low thirty percent range to the upper thirties, that modest shift of votes may be enough to give them a majority of seats and undeserved control of the country’s political agenda.”

Before a single vote is cast we know that half of all Canadian voters and taxpayers will have no representation of their own choosing in the next Parliament. Winner-take-all voting is the enemy of democratic representative government, Gordon said. It promotes instability in Parliament, ineffective lawmaking and exaggerated partisan bickering. Societies where voters have equal effective representation - i.e., most Western nations – have majority coalitions or working partnerships representing a majority of voters.

These parliaments tend to be stable and their governments effective because the various political parties have no hope of fluking into massive and undeserved seat bonuses from small shifts in voter sentiment.

Parties in democratic societies have learned to work together in constructive alliances rather than trying to sabotage one another to seize exclusive control of parliament.

Canada, as the Senate appointments remind us, has not yet achieved democracy. The shamocracy marches on.

Fair Vote Canada (FVC) is a national multi-partisan citizens’ campaign to promote voting system reform. FVC was founded in 2001 and has a National Advisory Board of distinguished Canadians from all points on the political spectrum.

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Contact: Larry Gordon 647-519-7585