Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Winston Churchill (Remembrance Day, 1947)
Uh, woah there – them’s a lot of words!
Oops! Sorry! How about this:
Democracy is the worst political system, except for all the others.
This is the sort of a nice, simplified quote that is used by lovers of democracy and those quick to recount it’s flaws, depending on which half of the quote you focus on. The same can be said of Churchill himself, who’s leadership and ability to inspire may have done as much to put down Hitler as any other individual, but who carried some racist views and supported at one time sterilizing the ‘unfit’. As I like to do, I will point out that the truth often lies somewhere in the middle.
Okay, that statement too is misused – the truth isn’t always in the middle. What I really mean is that there is often some truth underlying what is said on either side of an issue, and that right and wrong is more like focusing a camera – there is a point where the things that matter most are most in focus, but that does not mean that there are not things that are better if you turn the knob a little left or a little right. It depends what you want to focus on.
Of course, the real quote is not quite so fuzzy, but one of the great perils of our time is our impatience. I like a little context and synthesis of different pieces into a whole, and that will likely relegate me to the gutters of influence, but here I go anyway.
The BC Referendum
Right around the time Churchill was giving that speech in the British House of Commons, Germany was busy inventing the Mixed Member Proportional (‘MMP’) form of government. This is were a bunch of seats are divvied up between political parties to make up for the unproportionalness of the results of the elections in all the ridings. It is one form of proportional representation.
Starting this week, everyone in BC is getting package in the mail to vote in a referendum on switching to a system of proportional representation. One of the proportional systems on the ballot is ‘MMP’ another option is about 1/4 MMP. I made that fraction up – that is not a fact, but it is an honest guess and I don’t think the fact is known yet. Yes, things get complicated when debating electoral systems (I am not saying the proposed electoral systems are too complicated – it is like shopping for a car – there are so many, with different options, that choosing one is complicated – that doesn’t mean driving any one car is complicated).
It hasn’t rocked the media world outside BC, but it is part of a big week for democracy in Canada. We have used the same electoral system at all level of government for many decades – since some experimentation in the 1920s that petered out over the following decades. There has certainly been talk of change and there have been referendums before (BC, Ontario, PEI). What makes this different is that this one has a good chance of winning and actually being implemented. If the same percentage vote for change this time as they did after the BC referendum in 2005 it will pass (they had a 60% threshold then and a 50% threshold now). Of course, BC had a second referendum in 2009 and support went down to 39%. The difference this time is the first question is simply do you want to change to a proportional system, and then the second question offers three types to choose from, so that makes it more likely that change will come.
Ranked Ballots in London
Meanwhile this week, London Ontario held their municipal election using a ranked ballot and ‘instant run-off’, meaning that people offer second and third choices and when the votes are counted, the lowest vote-getter is dropped and people that voted for them have their second choice votes given to others. This carries on until you have a majority voting for a winner. (It is essentially a proportional system, but with no parties to say they didn’t get their fair number of seats). Why now? Well in 2016 the former Ontario government changed the law to allow it in any municipal election in Ontario.
Only London took up the offer this time, and I can see why London went there first. Have you seen London mayors in the news? If you have, it probably wasn’t good news. In 1995 mayor Dianne Haskett refused quite adamantly to proclaim Pride and fly the rainbow flag. Two years later the Ontario Human Rights Commission said she and council discriminated and fined them, and then instead of backing down she verbally blasted the Human Rights Commission. From 2000 to 2010 Anne Marie Decicco-Best was mayor, installing $480 000 worth of metal trees in London. Next came Joe Fontana who was found guilty of breach of trust, fraud and forgery. One good source of impetus for change is “what have we got to lose?”, and that is probably what Londoners are thinking.
What matters in the big picture is that they are now trying out a new system, and others are surely watching to see:
- if people in Canada are smart enough to handle the ballot with more bubbles on it (yes);
- to see how much the election costs (more);
- to see if the voting system works (yes, but there were, ironically, problems with election machines in other Ontario elections on Monday);
- to see how long it takes to get results (just under 18 hours); and
- to see if it made a difference.
The last one is hard to say. All the people leading on the first ballot are those that would have won the old way. They all went on to win the new way. So did it change anything? Maybe it did. Maybe it made candidates less negative, since negative campaigning may turn off those that might have voted for that candidate as second or third choices. Maybe over time more voters will use second or third choices that only voted the traditional way this time. Maybe over time it will lead to more diversity. Maybe it won’t.
Kingston and Cambridge Ontario both passed referendums to switch to ranked ballots in their next municipal elections, too. Others will likely follow.
Even in the US, which is not exactly the home of sensible electoral systems, many cities use ranked ballots like London now uses. You know we are way behind the times on the world stage when the US does something before us.
Here is Nunavut, we are in a time of change, too, albeit not to ranked ballots. There were no school authority elections in Iqaluit and no municipal elections elsewhere in Nunavut (there used to be staggered elections every year) this month. They were cancelled when a new bill passed that brings in a new system for all municipal elections in Nunavut. This is a transition year so existing terms were extended until next year’s election which will be run by Elections Nunavut for the first time and will see four year terms. So our news this week is that there is no election news. Okay, it’s a point that is tangentially connected at best to my main point, but I’m not missing a chance to bring Nunavut into the story.
Shmozzle in New Brunswick
Also this week we have the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick actually doing something! She ordered the Liberals to put forward one of their own members to sit as speaker and then try and keep governing and see what happens. That is not a shot at the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – it is simply that, like the Governor General of Canada, LGs rarely have to do anything of real importance to keep democracy running. But this week, they did in New Brunswick. Why?
Well, after the NB election the Conservatives won 22 seats, the Liberals 21, and the Greens and the People’s Alliance won 3 each (not Maxime Bernier’s new People’s Party and not North Korea’s People’s Democratic Republic, and obviously not the Rhinoceros Party or any other non-people’s parties… Really? Do we need to specify species in party names?)
This was not an election using a new proportional system, it was done our traditional way, but the results are a bit like a proportional system. In a legislature with only 49 seats there are four parties each with at least 5% of the seats, all of them involved in negotiations to participate in power governing the province. Note the election was held September 24th, and we are only this week getting up and running with a throne speech.
It is an unusual situation and is forcing people to look at the electoral system with a new eye. It may open some people up to change to a new system, though it will likely scare some off as well.
Don’t worry PEI, I’m not ignoring you, but you don’t get your own heading because you didn’t do anything this week. Remember what I said about impatience? But yes, PEI is having a referendum on a change to a new electoral system with their provincial election next year after having had a plebiscite in 2016 that favoured a proportional system, though with only 37% turn out.
Feel That Wind?
It is an exciting time all around. We do need electoral change and electoral change seems to be finally coming. The New Brunswick election is a taste of what change can look like, and it shows the potential for choice and dialogue in politics. It also shows the uncertainty and delays and backroom deal-making that sometimes arise in proportional systems. None of the systems we are looking at are all good, and none are all bad. Much like the quote about democracy, the different forms of democracy all have strengths and weaknesses. Like most political debates it gets polarized and by saying something in the middle I know I will get those pushing for change to a proportional system to see me as an enemy, even though I favour change. To make matters worse (for me), I think there is a better way than either BC or PEI are looking at, and I will come back to that in the future.
For now, let’s put all these regional stories together and see this as the beginning of a time of change, and whether you are for it or against it, it is an opportunity to make our democracy come into focus just a little bit better.
References:
- See aceproject.org for what I consider the best web resource out there for impartial international information on electoral systems and all matters related to elections. It is amazing!
- See policynote.ca for an interesting analysis of the proportional representation options in BC.
- See the LondonFree Press for various articles about the London election.
