Quebec election and electoral reform

To follow up on my earlier post about the Quebec election, here's a link to an article in the Montreal Gazette, where I speak a bit about past elections in Quebec and how the first-past-the-post system leads to some particularly wide divergences between the popular vote and the seat count in the legislature.

There's quite a bit more that could be added to that article.  For instance, in my conversation with the reporter, I mentioned how many federal elections in Quebec had produced wildly distorted results, whether in favour of the NDP in the last election, or for the Bloc in several previous ones. Jean Charest, who lost his seat in this election, would have been all too aware of the 1993 federal election when he was one of a mere 2 Progressive Conservatives elected, despite his party having won over 16% of the popular vote.

Also, while most people have pointed out that the CAQ, which only won 19 seats with their 27% of the vote (as opposed to about 33 which a strict percentage of the seats might have produced), Quebec Solidaire also was hurt by the current system.  6% of the vote should probably produce more than a mere 2 seats in the legislature.  Indeed, under a proportional representation system, for example, they might easily have won 5-7 seats.

All of that being said, I am certainly not holding my breath that we're about to see the CAQ and the Quebec Liberals teaming up to push electoral reform in Quebec.  But it would be nice to see, both in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, a continued rise in support among Canadians for a change to a new electoral system whereby we will cease to end up with majority governments elected by increasingly small minorities of the electorate, or minority governments where the relative strength of the parties in the legislature does not reflect their share of the popular vote.

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Partisan dreck: Seat Redistribution Edition

The new seat redistribution bill recently passed the House of Commons, awarding new seats to Ontario, Quebec, BC and Alberta. Rarely have I seen commentary about legislation so thoroughly skewed by short-term partisan and regional interests, and it makes me ill.

I'll get my principles on the table. I favour representation-by-population in the House of Commons. If there are to be regional counterweights in our parliamentary and federalist system, they are supposed to be found in a Senate (which could be revamped) and in the provincial governments (which hold most of the key powers these days anyways). As such, I have no sympathy with the claim that Quebec's share of the House of Commons should remain fixed at a given percentage (a provision of the 1992 Charlottetown Accord that was widely denounced outside that province), and would have no difficulty with reducing the seat tallies of the Maritime and Atlantic Canadian provinces, overturning earlier legislation, if the appropriate legislative and/or constitutional changes were made. As such, there has been a lot for me to take issue with in the craven pandering that both the Liberals and NDP (the two parties I normally vote for) have been engaged in by objecting to this legislation.

And today, Twitter is abuzz with more partisan dreck in response to John Ibbitson's column hypothetically allocating these new seats according to the 2011 election results. This is not a "Conservative windfall". It's a long-overdue correction in an electoral system that has cheated urban Canada, and particularly Ontario, BC and Alberta of their equitable share of seats in the House of Commons. A decade ago the same allegation could have been made that such a change would have favoured the Liberals. Voting allegiances change over time, and seats are allocated based on population, not the party affiliation of the seats being divided and redistributed. It's not like the Conservative party is able to take the riding of Crowfoot (historically the site of some of their biggest single-riding majorities) and split it into 31 new ridings. And frankly, if you look at the Ontario provincial election, there is extremely good reason to think that new seats created in Mississauga-Brampton would be fair game for all three parties.

If our political discourse is devolving to the point where we refuse to engage in what should be routine corrections to the electoral map, then our system is completely broken. Perhaps the most ardent critics of these changes should openly admit that they are inspired by the political strategies of Maurice Duplessis, the Quebec Premier so well known for turning the rurally-skewed electoral map of his province to the advantage of the Union Nationale machine. It turns my stomach to watch one of the key principles of how Canadian democracy is supposed to operate being undermined for short-term political advantage and media soundbites.

Also, a word to the NDP and the Liberals. Do you honestly think that the Conservative Party of Canada is not keeping a detailed dossier for the next election of your quotes of why your party thinks Ontario, BC and Alberta don't deserve equitable representation in the House? How about making winning those new seats your priority, rather than trying to prevent their creation?

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Debates, Debates, Let's Have More Debates!

Most of my current students are too young to remember the now infamous election debate clashes between Brian Mulroney and John Turner. So I like to show them the Free Trade Clash from 1988 or the patronage kerfuffle of 1984. Both debates were widely acknowledged as game-changers for their respective campaigns, with Mulroney the winner of '84 and Turner in '88. Ever since those debates, pundits have longed for a return to this clear-cut era where there were fewer candidates on the podium, and thus a greater chance of a knock-out blow, or certainly longer periods of direct confrontation. (Lest I be accused of the sin of omission, both debates also featured NDP leader Ed Broadbent, a solid debater in his own right).

And so here we are in the same position as we were in 2008, debating whether Green Party leader Elizabeth May should be allowed in the Consortium-managed leadership debates. (Is it just me, or does Consortium sound vaguely ominous and evil.) And even if she isn't allowed in, should we perhaps also have an Ignatieff vs. Harper one-on-one debate, since most experts think these are the two most likely candidates to form the next government? Herewith, my two cents.

As a supporter of some variant of proportional representation, I support May's inclusion in an all-leader debate. Given that the Greens won over 900,000 votes in the last election, about 6% of the total vote, under pretty much any system of proportional representation or mixed-member proportional system they would currently have seats in the House of Commons. The fact that they do not hold an elected seat is the excuse being advanced by the Consortium for their exclusion. To my mind, the fact that our first-past-the-post system is an antiquated electoral model that ill-reflects actual voting patterns is not a valid excuse to exclude the Greens. This position, incidentally, is supported by Jean-Pierre Kingsley, former chief electoral officer for the country. It is a decision which only benefits those who are the current victors under the status quo. Moreover, if the Bloc, which doesn't even run candidates in three-quarters of the country's riding, is permitted in the national leaders' debates, then the Greens, which run in all ridings, definitely should be included.

That's my ethical, principled position. Now for the other side, which is how I feel as a television viewer. I found the five-leader debates of 2008 to be tedious and long-winded. Too much time was taken up with the initial series of statements about each issue, and then a number of, to my mind, tedious and dreary question exchanges between pairs of candidates who agreed with each other. The Dion-May and Layton-Duceppe interchanges, in particular, tended to drag on. With five candidates, and a limited time frame, there is not much opportunity for the front-runners to confront each other, but the time allocated to each exchange is not reflective of the relative standing of the parties in the polls (and, presumably, viewer interest). With this in mind, I'd love to see a series of one-on-one exchanges, such as the one that Michael Ignatieff was proposing to Stephen Harper. I think many voters might find these more compelling to watch, as they would allow for more sustained and direct interaction between the leaders. So by all means, I'd support having these types of exchanges in addition to the all-leaders forum.

Finally, with respect to the events of the past couple of days, I think Michael Ignatieff was smart both to propose the one-on-one debate with Stephen Harper, and to avoid the snare of accepting this encounter in lieu of the all-party debate. Ignatieff is going to be counting on soft NDP and Green support in this election, and will need to avoid looking like he is disdainful of those parties. But nor will I be surprised if Harper does not cave on this issue. It's to his benefit to limit the number of chances that the opposition leaders have to take him on directly. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't back the inclusion of the Greens in the debate. Every minute that Elizabeth May gets on stage is one less that Layton and Ignatieff have, which only hurts them. The front-runner could have afforded to appear to be magnanimous, and it probably would have helped him in the long run (although perhaps not Gary Lunn).

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Senate Reform Proposal - Just for Fun...

Here's a Senate reform proposal - doubtless an unworkable one for many reasons. But I'm feeling perky today. I'll make a proposal, and you, my small cohort of readers, can pick it apart and improve it, because what else are you going to do on a Friday.

The EEEP! Senate (a variant on the Reform Party's Triple-E Senate)

110 Senators total
"E"qual representation - 10 from each province, 1 per territory, 7 "floaters"
"E"lected to serve 8 year terms
"E"ffective, and can alter/send back to the House all non-financial legislation
"P"roportional representation by province. 10% of the vote in a province gets you a Senator. The 7 floating seats are allocated to make the national total of Senators more closely reflect to the national PR vote.

Tear it apart, kids!

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BC Math: 46=58, 8=0, 42=42

What's up with the funny mathematics? It's the mathematics that British Columbia's first-past-the-post system used to deliver a third majority government to Gordon Campbell's Liberals, who took 46% of the popular vote, but over 57% of the seats in the legislature. The 8% of BC voters who opted for the Green party will have no MLAs to represent them. The NDP, oddly enough, actually won the number of seats proportional to their share of the vote.

But apparently BC voters are ok with this. Less than 39% of voters were willing to vote in favour of the single transferable vote system. This is really quite depressing, after 57% of BC voters had opted for electoral reform in the last provincial election. I understand why established parties like FPTP - it allows them to create single-party majority governments without having to win a majority of the popular vote. And for enough people, the risk is worth the inequity it creates.

It's still depressing though.

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Mid-April Blogging Bits

I've been on the road and busy with end-of-term exams, which is my latest excuse for the light blogging this month. Rather than a comprehensive new post, a few quick observations.

1) After the horrendous setback in California with Prop 8, I'm thrilled to see gay rights on the march in the US. Vermont legislators overturned their governor's short-sighted veto of legislation to permit gay marriage. Washington state has just passed legislation giving gay couples pretty much everything shy of actual marriage. Iowa's Supreme Court has ruled in favour of gay marriage. New York's governor has announced that he will sponsor gay marriage legislation. I guess that feeling of optimism that I tasted in the air when I landed in Newark last week was well-founded! Now if only Obama thought that repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell was as important as striking a task force on pirates...

2) BC is giving electoral reform a second shot. Regardless of what happens with the election, I hope that BC voters - who cast a majority (but just short of the 60% threshold) of their votes in favour of reform last time - will resoundingly endorse Single-Transferable-Vote this time around.

3) Richard Florida, rider of the "Creative Class" hobby horse, is revising his list of best Canadian cities to live in. Details of this list are here if you want to know the top ranked cities in each category, but I'm posting because my new hometown of Guelph is faring quite respectably on the list, placing 6th or 7th for a number of younger and mid-career demographics.

Exams wrap up next week - and regular blogging might resume then. I'm looking for recommendations of new "Canadiana" books to read and review, if anyone has suggestions.

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Post-Election Blues - Electoral Reform needed now more than ever

Last night I attended an election gathering at a friend's house. Of the seven of us gathered there, we had people who had voted for the Liberals, NDP and Greens. None of us wanted a Conservative government. And yet each of us, on our way to the polling booth, wrestled with the question of whether or not to vote for the Liberal candidate to ensure that the Conservative did not win.

Ultimately, Liberal Frank Valeriote won the riding with 32.2% of the vote, and about an 1800 vote margin over the Conservative. Ultimately, Green candidate Mike Nagy placed third with over 12,000 votes and 21% of the vote, and NDP candidate Tom King took 9700 votes, or 16.5% of the vote. For much of the night, it was a mere 200 votes separating the two leading candidates. On the one hand, it made those of us who had voted strategically feel a bit better about voting for a candidate other than their favorite. Conversely, when the race was at its tightest, I had a feeling of dread in my stomach that my decision to vote for my preferred candidate might lead to a Conservative victory in my riding. I imagine that this scenario played out in countless households across the country.

It seems to me that something is terribly wrong with an electoral system in which millions of voters feel that they should not vote for their preferred party because that vote will be wasted in terms of returning actual seats in Parliament (the financial subsidy that the party receives is hardly adequate solace). In my riding, it wasn't even a case of the other parties being fringe parties - the 3rd and 4th place candidates took more votes combined than the winner. It is deeply disturbing to me that 940,000 or more voters could vote for the Green party, and not elect a single MP. Or that down the road from me, a switch of 412 votes could have elected two Liberal MPs rather than two Conservative MPs in Kitchener- and that the victor in both cases would still only have attracted barely more than a third of the votes. If we're going to be consigned to an era of minority governments, it would be preferable if the distribution of MPs that make up those governments at least came closer to reflecting the intentions of the voters. I don't have strong opinions about whether proportional representation, MMP or single transferable vote is the way to go, but any of them seem better than the current system.

Of course, none of that would change the fact that the Conservative party clearly won the support of more Canadian voters than any other party. That speaks to an entirely different set of issues, and when I'm feeling less disheartened about last night's results (and my loss in my election pool), I'll address those in a separate post.

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Election Eve post from Guelph

It seems like the campaigning has been going on for months, and I'm fed up with it. The fact that here in Guelph we went from a seven-week by-election campaign straight into the main campaign hasn't helped. Nor has the fact that it has been such an uninspiring campaign season. None of the four major contenders in Ontario has lit a fire under me with their vision for the country. I'm tired of watching the nonstop barrage of polls. And there is something daunting about the prospect of another two or three years of minority government, with an imminent election call continuing to hang over us like a sword of Damocles. All of this is a rather feeble explanation for my poor blogging performance over the past few months.

All that whining aside, I regularly participate in an election pool with friends who are respectively Liberal, NDP and Green supporters. The pot goes to whoever predicts the most individual riding results correctly. I just filled out my answers today, and was rather relieved to come up with a result that doesn't produce a Conservative majority - and I tend to be pessimistic about whether the better angels or worst demons will win out with voters on election day. For what it's worth, I currently have the Liberals losing about 8-10 seats, with the Conservatives and NDP splitting the spoils.

My local riding is actually the hardest one for me to predict. It has been a very long, very tightly fought race here in Guelph. Although I think it will ultimately come down to a couple of thousand (or even a few hundred) votes separating the Liberals and the Conservatives (although I'm not certain which one comes out on top), I will not be surprised if all four major parties snag 20% of the vote each. The Greens have probably run the most active of the four campaigns - I can't move without tripping over one of their signs, or running into Mike Nagy's volunteers around town. I think that their support is probably going to hold through election day, particularly since the students are back. The big question is how many NDP supporters will stick with Tom King, with the party polling well across the country, and how many will bolt to the Liberal candidate Frank Valeriote once in the polling booth to block Conservative Gloria Kovach. It's quite clear that as a whole, Guelph is leaning to the left. But this will be a nasty split of the vote. It all speaks to the need for some form of electoral reform in the direction of proportional representation, a single transferable vote, or a mixed member system, as Fair Vote Canada has been advocating.

While it makes me ill to think that Stephen Harper's Conservatives could sneak out a majority win with 34-35% of the total national vote, I don't think that the solution is for everyone to blindly attempt strategic voting (although if you're thinking of this, please consult Democratic Space's Guide), or simply to throw their votes to the Liberals. As long as Canadians keep doing this, it will simply reinforce the argument that our electoral system is functional. It clearly isn't, and unfortunately it might take a few more elections where a party like the Greens win 8-10% of the vote, but fail to win a single seat in the House of Commons, before voters wake up and realize that change is necessary, and actually support a referendum vote on a new system.

Whatever your political leanings are, please vote tomorrow! Apathy only reinforces the existing problems with our political system.

Update: Democratic Space seems to be having trouble this afternoon and evening - a DoS attack, perhaps? For the left-leaning and strategic voting-minded, try Vote for Environment, which has similar advice.

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Tidbits of interest for Canadian gays

Just over three years ago, my husband and I signed the necessary paperwork to make our marriage legal in Canada. We had held a ceremony with friends and family a year earlier, just before the Canadian court rulings started to come down, but had been waiting until Parliament had passed legislation before we took the steps to make it legal. During the 2004 election campaign, we decided it might be best to go ahead anyways, just in case the Conservatives won.

According to Statistics Canada's report on the census that was released today, our decision has put us in an elite group (or at least so I'd like to think - grin!) of 0.6% of the country's population that declared that they were in a same-sex married couple. We like to think that we're doing our little part to reinvigorate and perhaps rework the institution of marriage. Mind you, with less than 50% of the Canadian adult population listing their status as married, the first time this has been the case since the census was first held, I'm sure that someone will soon be arguing that it's "us gays" who have undermined the institution.

There has also been much hubbub about the decision of Stephen Harper to prorogue Parliament, and speculation about whether this will lead to a new election. Frankly, I'm more interested in the pieces of legislation that were effectively killed (click the link for "Government says it won't reintroduce Clean Air Act"), left to die on the order paper. If an election is called, Alberta, BC and Ontario won't get those extra seats they were hoping for with Bill C-56 (Expanding House Seats Bill) dead. But on a brighter note, Vic Toews' regressive Bill C-22, the Age of Sexual Protection Bill, is also dead. I found this bill particularly objectionable as it did nothing to eliminate the blatant discrimination against gay sex from Canada's Criminal Code, leaving the age of consent for anal sex at age 18 (despite court rulings in Ontario that this is unconstitutional), while raising the age of consent for other sexual acts to 16.

Now that my courses are back in swing, and an Ontario election is in the offing, I'll try to post a bit more often. I've been a bad blogger this summer, but I like to think that it's been in a good cause.

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It's about the policies, people!

Allow me a moment to draw your attention to this post by my former hallmate and colleague Andrew Nurse, a Canadian Studies prof at Mount Allison University. Andrew, a good socialist if ever I met one, speaks to a lot of the frustration that I'm feeling right now as a left-leaning swing voter, frustrated by the lack of policy options being presented on the Canadian left.

As I note in the comments on his blog, I share his frustrations at the new "politics of honesty and accountability" which appear to have been substituted for policy discussions. Moreover, while I think parliamentary reform is necessary, I'm not willing to vote for a party or candidate on the sole basis that they support this initiative. I'd like something more concrete in terms of policy debate to win my next vote.

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