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There must be a better way to elect governments in Canada
“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner
Op-Ed Commentary
How do you respond to a federal election where there were clearly no winners? But there’s one thing we can be thankful for – we’ve got a minority government. In a country as deeply divided as Canada we don’t deserve any better.
And that’s a shame.
Given that few Canadians, including this one, wants to go through another painful campaign like that again for the mandatory four years, let’s try to make the best of it. There’s really no other choice.
So, let’s start with how we vote because the system we have now is obviously failing and we need a better voting system that better approximates who we are. Prime Minister re-elect Justin Trudeau promised us electoral reform when he was first elected prime minister. But he broke his promise as politicians do. We’ve also had three electoral reform referendums in B.C. and none of them passed. So, we’re dealing with a Gordian Knot that won’t unravel easily.
Therefore, allow me a modest proposal. A proposal that’s simple and fair and would reflect most of what we want from MPs while recognizing you never get all you want and perfection is impossible anyway, especially in politics. And keep in mind that what I’m proposing will give voters most of what they want from their politicians, but not everything. And that system is the single transferable ballot or ranked ballot and works like this.
Just like the good ol’ days, you get one ballot and you only vote once. No runoff votes or second ballots. The last thing we need now is more politics. Where the difference lies is that instead of putting one ‘X’ beside one name you put numbers beside the candidate’s names ranking them from your most favourite to your least. And that’s it. I told you it was simple. And determining the winner is simple too because that would be done by a computer that would do what computers do best – crunch numbers – and is not subject to the imperfect passions of human voters.
What the computer would do is analyze every ballot and determine which candidate got the highest combination of rankings – first, second, third etc – and when one candidate got 50 per cent plus one of the highest rankings that candidate would be declared elected. Ballots that didn’t rank everyone would be rejected.
Is this system perfect? No way. But neither are people and I’d challenge anyone to come up with a system that would be more fair or would come closer to reflecting what’s in the minds and hearts of voters. We have the powerful technology today to make that determination. Otherwise, we’re stuck with first-past-the-post, which works reasonably well in a two-party system but breaks down in a multi-party system like Canada has become.
What would such a system have done with the election we just had? I have no idea, but I strongly believe that in many close ridings – and there were dozens that were close – it would have come up with different results based on ranking all the candidates and not just picking one and rejecting all the others. In other words, it may have resulted in more Greens elected in B.C., more Conservatives in Ontario and NDP in Quebec. It may also have reduced the clout of the Liberals in the populous 905 belt around Toronto, which seems to determine the winner in almost every Canadian election. And who wants that?
No system is perfect. But any system that would reduce the polarization and rancor of Canadian politics by giving more recognition to the many of us who live outside the major cities would be a vast improvement.
Don’t you agree?
– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist who walked into the polling booth undecided like so many other Canadians this week.
