By Emerson Howitt
The Ontario provincial election was recently shaken by the announcement that the NDP candidate for Eglinton-Lawrence, Natasha Doyle-Merrick, was withdrawing from the race and endorsing the Liberal candidate. Her reason? To prevent vote-splitting and stop the PCs from winning the seat.
This is not just a political calculation—it’s a failure of democracy itself. In a truly democratic system, voters should be free to support the party they believe in without fear that their vote will inadvertently help elect someone they oppose. But under first-past-the-post, democracy is distorted. Candidates are pressured to drop out, voters are forced to choose the “lesser evil,” and election results rarely reflect the will of the people.
Instead of a fair and representative system, we have a democracy where power is determined by fear and calculation, not by the voices of voters. No one should have to strategize around a broken system just to make their vote matter. A system that discourages competition, suppresses voter choice, and distorts outcomes is not a real democracy.
This does not happen under proportional representation. In a truly democratic system, every vote counts and contributes to representation. No candidate would need to step aside to “avoid splitting the vote”—because votes would be reflected in the final outcome fairly and accurately. Democracy should empower voters, not force them into compromises they don’t believe in.
Under our current system, voters in Eglinton-Lawrence who wanted to support the NDP are now left with two bad options: stay home or vote for a party they don’t fully support. The immediate result may help the Liberals, but in the long run, this kind of electioneering erodes democratic legitimacy and fuels voter disengagement.
And what happens if the Liberals win? The party that just benefited from vote-splitting has never committed to proportional representation. The core democratic failure remains. Will we keep asking candidates to withdraw in every election? Will voters always be forced to “hold their noses” instead of voting for what they believe in? That is not how a healthy democracy should function.
If the Ontario Liberals truly believe in democracy, they should commit to implementing a proportional system where every vote counts. Otherwise, we’ll be stuck in the same cycle—where elections are decided by backroom calculations instead of genuine voter choice.
Ontario deserves better. Sign our petition to demand that proportional representation be a priority in the next provincial election! Let’s send a clear message to party leaders that voters deserve a real democracy—where 40% of the vote equals 40% of the seats, and every Ontarian has a voice in shaping their government.
Let’s fix our democracy—so that no candidate ever has to drop out just to make it work.
Originally from New Zealand, Emerson never thought much about electoral systems. It wasn’t until he moved to Toronto that he noticed the stark differences in Canadian politics compared to his home country. He has a background in journalism and communications with a strong interest in urban issues such as transit, housing, and more pedestrian and cycle-friendly cities. Emerson believes the best way to achieve proportional representation is getting more Canadians to connect the dots between first past the post and the problems impacting our country today.