Fair Vote Canada position on a confirmation referendum on proportional representation

• Fair Vote Canada does not support a confirmation referendum after the adoption of proportional representation. 
• Research and practical experience show that referendums are a poor tool for informed decision-making on electoral reform.
• Partisan self-interest and misinformation campaigns are powerful factors that heavily influence referendum campaigns.
• If parties, politicians, and other influencers with a strong self-interest in first-past-the-post know that a confirmation referendum is planned, they will have no incentive to make politics work under a proportional system. They will be motivated to convince voters the proportional system does not work so they can get first-past-the-post back.
• After several elections using a proportional system, a review by an independent, non-partisan body, such as a Citizens’ Assembly, would be helpful to gain feedback on how the system is working and how it can be improved.

Statement passed by the Fair Vote Canada Board of Directors January 4, 2026

Background: position on referendums

Fair Vote Canada’s position is that referendums are a poor tool for decision-making about electoral systems.

Referendums are increasingly easy to manipulate by misinformation and fear-mongering.

As expert Arthur Lupia explained to the ERRE, on complex issues, most voters will have little information. Voters have busy lives. On issues like proportional representation, they will rely on cues and information from opinion leaders about how to vote.

In the case of proportional representation referendums, the influential and involved opinion leaders are from major political parties and others with a vested self-interest in a winner-take-all system.

Those calling for referendums on proportional representation are most often those who oppose electoral reform – or whose parties are divided and are satisfied to see it fail.

Fair Vote Canada supports convening an independent non-partisan Canadian Citizens Assembly to lead to adoption of a proportional representation system.

Across the OECD, referendums on proportional representation are a very unusual way to bring in PR.

Proportional representation is almost always adopted by multi-party agreement.

Confirmation referendum

Some parties or PR advocates have floated a proposal to have a “confirmation referendum” after one or two election cycles using proportional representation.

Fair Vote Canada’s position is that a referendum after one or two elections would likely suffer from the same dynamics that almost all referendums on proportional representation suffer from: the influence of overwhelming partisan interests, misinformation, fear-mongering and confusion.

The idea of a confirmation referendum is often based on misconception of how New Zealand adopted PR thirty years ago. Those advocating for a confirmation referendum often cite the New Zealand experience as if their 2011 vote to keep proportional representation was part of a master plan to be emulated.

In fact, there was no planned confirmatory referendum at the time of the move to PR in 1993.

As far as the politicians knew, when PR came in, it was a permanent change.

Culture change takes time. It took practice for the parties to figure out how to work together. The first government under proportional representation struggled immensely and the first coalition collapsed, dampening public support for PR.

The parties learned how to make proportional representation work and adapted to it because they thought they had to.

Helen Clark, a former Prime Minister who initially opposed PR, now strongly supports it.

If there had been a planned confirmatory referendum soon after New Zealand switched to proportional representation, things may have turned out very differently.

In Canada, if parties who have benefitted immensely from first-past-the-post (and politicians who thrive on winner-take-all politics) know that after only one or two elections with PR there will be a referendum where they can get first-past-the-post back, they will have little incentive to make cooperative government work, and a very strong incentive to sabotage it.

Politicians and media who favour winner-take-all voting could blame every failure and fumble (real and imagined) of politicians on the new and (supposedly) dysfunctional voting system, such that voters would be happy to move back to first-past-the-post.

In New Zealand, there was an unplanned referendum in 2011, initiated by one of the traditional two big parties to try to get rid of PR (this is the so-called “confirmation referendum” people are referring to).

By then, proportional representation had become entrenched after 15 years and five elections with PR (New Zealand has elections every three years). 

An entire generation had never voted with first-past-the-post. Many of the politicians who thrived under FPTP had retired, and politics had adapted to PR. This referendum was also in the days before media ownership was so concentrated, and before social media (which can amplify fear and anger based messages and misinformation at rapid speed) played such a big role in campaigns.

When we achieve proportional representation in Canada, after over 100 years of struggle, we want our politicians to expect that it may be permanent.

Fair Vote Canada will work to keep a system that is fundamentally fair to every voter. We do not support tossing proportional representation to a referendum, where a majority can decide to remove the rights of political minorities to fair representation. 

Fair Vote Canada recognizes that electoral systems, like many other facets of our democracy, need review and improvement. We support a non-partisan, independent citizen review process such a citizens’ assembly after several elections to make recommendations for improving the voting system.