Disproportion and the Failures of First-Past-the-Post

It seems that Ed Broadbent beat me to the punch on this one with his column in today's Globe and Mail (here). The election held on Tuesday has resulted in a hugely disproportionate result, though in that it isn't all that different from any other election in recent Canadian history.

Tuesday nights results, when you incorporate percentage of the vote and percentage of the seats look like this (vote %/seats/seat %):
CPC - 37.6/143/46.4
LPC - 26.2/76/24.6
NDP - 18.2/37/12.0
BQ - 10.0/50/16.2
GPC - 6.8/0/0.0

As can be seen, only the Liberals share of the seats even remotely reflected their share of the vote. The Conservatives are over-represented by 28 seats (or 19.5% of their seats), the Liberals are under-represented by 4 seats (or 5.2% of their seats) , the NDP is under-represented by 19 seats (51.3% of their seats), the BQ is over-represented by 19 seats (or 38.0% of their seats), and the Green result was distorted most of all, being under-represented by 21 seats when they won none at all.

As Mr. Broadbent points out, and I highly recommend that people read his article, if Canadian's votes had been accurately reflected in the seat distributions in the House of Commons we would be looking at a solid and stable centre-left coalition government between the Liberals, NDP and Green Party, with 157 seats. There would be a strong right-wing opposition from the Conservatives with 115 seats, and a significant presence for a regional party in the Bloc Quebecois with 31 seats. Canadians would get government by a set of parties that, in certain areas, have substantial policy agreement. Canadians would get action on climate change, we would get universal early childhood education, we would get coverage for at least catastrophic drug costs. And we would be spared government by a party that more than 60% of Canadians who voted rejected.

Our system of elections is, frankly, outmoded and archaic. Every modern multiparty democracy (except the United Kingdom) has adopted a system of proportional representation, and with a couple of high profile exceptions that everyone knows about (Italy and Israel), these systems of proportional representation result in stable governing coalitions with elections no more often than in Canada, and substantially higher levels of voter participation at election time. Our electoral system was designed for a time in which there were only two parties attracting any significant number of votes and is inappropriate for a context in which five parties draw more than 5% of the vote. Almost every other system also has a much higher level of representation of women and visible minorities. Many other multiparty democracies have even manged to elect women as head of government (Golda Meir, Angela Merkel, Benezir Bhutto, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Corazon Aquino, Eugenia Charles, Indira Gandhi, Zinaida Greceanîi, Sheikh Hassina Wazed, Anneli Tuulikki Jäätteenmäki, Janet Jagan and many others).

Our electoral system also exaggerates the strength of parties that have managed to pull together concentrated bases of support. The BQ got just over half of the votes the NDP did and yet will seat thirteen more members when the new Parliament is convened. Meanwhile the Green Party, with support dispersed across the country, but only about 3 percentage points less than the BQ, will seat no members at all despite receiving the support of close to 1 million Canadians. Just because a party's support is scattered across the country does not mean that those who vote for that party should be functionally disenfranchized.

This election points up the need for us to switch to a system of proportional representation along the lines of Germany or New Zealand. Their systems give the benefits of proportionality while still maintaining local representation. That would be fully in accord with the Canadian tradition. Hell, at this point I would take any system that would give us proportionality. I very much hope that BC voters will approve electoral reform when they get the chance to vote on it in 2009. If they don't a double defeat in BC and a rather resounding defeat in Ontario will likely scotch the idea for a generation.

Canadians need to wake up and realize that there won't be a change unless and until the people force their democratic representatives to do something about it. The Conservatives won't change it, as they currently benefit from it. The Liberals won't change it because generally speaking they benefit from it. The BQ won't change it, because they would fade dramatically in prominence under a proportional system. The NDP doesn't have the strength to force the change, and the Green Party has no votes in the House to contribute to the cause. Not until one of the two biggest parties can be forced into adopting PR as a policy plank can there be a change. To force that change there must be concerted citizen action. I urge everyone who reads this and agrees to get in touch with Fair Vote Canada, and see how you can help in your community. That goes double for anyone who lives in BC. Don't let anyone tell you it can't be done, just get out there an do it.

I'm looking to continue this series on issues highlighted by the recent election, and my next entry will probably be related to this one and focus on the under-representation of women in the new Parliament.

Oh, and just as an aside, this is my 100th entry. Go me.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 94