If you want to see Part I of this topic, click here.
Summary of part 1: BC had a mail-in referendum on their electoral system. They stuck with the current system, called ‘first-past-the-post’ (or ‘FPTP’ for short). Then I gave a super interesting summary of the different systems. I mentioned that FPTP is old and no one actually chooses it anymore, and that proportional representation (‘pro-rep’ for short) is the norm around the world, but it is strange to us. We don’t love FPTP, but we are afraid a new system would be worse. I assert that better proportionality is better, but that super-proportional is not super. The BC electorate seems to want change according to polls, but didn’t want what was offered. They want change, but safe change, controlled change, understandable change. Many pro-rep folks won’t like a half-way solution because it isn’t pure, but they should, because it may be the only way to get there from here.
Election System Power to the People!
So Parliament starting sitting again this week. One excitement is that they are in the really nice looking ‘temporary’ House of Commons for the first time, where they will be for about the next ten years while the House of Commons is renovated. And I thought I was slow at renovating my house.
The other excitement is that this is likely the last sitting before the next federal election. As you may recall, the Liberals came to power with a promise that 2015 would be the last election with the stodgy old FPTP electoral system. So here we are! On the dawn of a new age! A new and exciting election system this fall!
Well, something happened on the way to the bank, I guess. We didn’t get there. For pro-rep supporters ‘there’ was supposed to be a proportional system. Once again, electoral reform was tried and failed. Well, not so much failed as quietly dropped by a government content with power obtained under the old system. ‘Dance with the one that brought you’, I guess.
For me, ‘there’ doesn’t need to be a bridge so far. Where we should be going is more like an intersection than a bridge. The sort of an intersection where some people carry on the same way they were going, but some people turn off. And just down the road a bit is another intersection where you can change your mind and go the other way. It is a fluid system that is what people want it to be. If everyone wants to turn and the system ends up being all proportional, that’s fine with me. If that is partly proportional, that’s fine with me too. Basically I want to make democracy a little more democratic.
What the heck am I talking about?
But first, just for a few seconds here, I want to talk about another kind of election system I didn’t mention in part I. That’s because it isn’t different, it is just using two of the systems I described in part 1 at the same time. It is called a parallel system. It has a FPTP part running beside a pro-rep side. It is a system actively chosen in quite a few countries, many relatively recently. It aims to be sort-of proportional for the reasons mentioned above. It’s draw back is the same as MMP (the one from Germany) – it is just a little weird to have two different kinds of MPs – some with ridings, some without, or with little and big overlapping ridings.
I don’t mind that system, just like I don’t mind MMP, and both are better (of course) than our current system, but they smell like awkward compromise and I think we can do better. I like the idea of all MPs being equal and similar in kind. Mixed systems are not terrible, but they are a blunt tool. Why impose a compromise system on the whole country when we can have location-specific solutions?
We can do something similar, but not overlapping. It is called a Hybrid system: use a large-riding, multi-MP system in areas that wish it, mostly densely populated areas where ridings are more arbitrary and less important to residents. Use a single-MP system in areas that wish for that, likely rural and remote areas where we don’t want ridings to be any bigger. There was an option a little like this on the BC referendum, but with MMP instead of FPTP, because most pro-rep advocates want every trace of FPTP gone. This sort of system was used in Alberta and Manitoba mid-20th century, though at the time they were more rural overall, and so it was really just a few urban ridings that were different. And it is used in Panama. So there. Oh, and Jean-Pierre Kingsley, long time Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, supports a Hybrid system too.
It seems like a country with a lot of geography and a history of FPTP would be the sort of country where this makes sense. Hey, that’s us!
Benefits: One: some of us live in very big ridings in this country. We have the lowest population density in the world. Many of us don’t want ridings to get bigger – not even the 15% bigger that the ‘rural – urban’ hybrid system offered in the BC referendum would have made rural ridings. Of any country in the world, we need a way of keeping rural and remote ridings small, and that is one thing (maybe the only thing) FPTP does best. Enlarging ridings will only water down rural connections to their MP and to the federal government. That is a big negative. Larger rural ridings could hurt voter engagement of marginal groups, and is detrimental to the inclusion of aboriginal groups, farmers, and other interests that struggle to be heard in a riding of 100 000 or more, and could be lost in a larger riding.
Two: urban ridings are often drawn arbitrarily down streets that are pretty similar on both sides. Here ridings are less meaningful entities and to make them larger and share them with multiple MPs has no down side.
Three: the resulting combination of the two systems gives us the desired improved proportionality but not the fully proportional parliament full of evil splinter parties that huddle in the corner to form some governing Frankenstein party. (That is bit dramatic, but strong advocates for pro-rep love a little alarmism. Right?)
It solves some problems, you might be saying, but makes a big one: deciding who gets which system. That is probably what has made this a tough sell historically. We could have an Electoral Boundries Commission. Spend a few million, consult heavily, and decide. Could work. Or we could leave it in the hands of the people.
The people increasing want things left in their hands. Now we have technology we didn’t have until even a few elections ago. People’s comfort with technology grows yearly, though a little foreign election meddling may set that back for a bit.
Riding’s Choice
What is new in what I’m proposing is that ridings would choose which system they want. I described the Hybrid system above as being FPTP in rural and remote areas and pro-rep in cities because that seems to make sense, but it may not be that straight forward. I can see some distinct urban areas wanting to stay as single ridings, and I can see rural areas that decide they think being more proportional is worth the bigger ridings. Most beautiful of all, I see some ridings changing over time as comfort with pro-rep grows through experience. On the flip side, some areas might decide that they want to go back to FPTP – perhaps for local reasons, perhaps to manipulate the way the system works at a national level – the electorate has shown itself to be savvy that way.
In most cases the choice would be simple. For most cities, they could form, if they chose, one urban multi-seat riding. It could be a riding of two urban seats, like in Saskatoon or St. John’s. It could be three seats in Victoria or Gatineau. It could be four in Kitchener, five in Ottawa and six in Winnipeg. You get the idea. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton are the cities that are probably too big to be all one multi-seat riding. So it would have to be Calgary South and North or some such arbitrary decision initially. Perhaps split along a river. Toronto and Montreal are the only places that it gets a little complicated to figure out what groupings might look like, but I bet there are enough natural divisions (rivers, boroughs from the old days, etc.) that it would work out pretty well.
Here’s how it would work. At some election when we want to start this system, we have the regular election, just like now. In addition, there is a second ballot where voters choose to either stay as a FPTP riding for the following election, or join their neighbours in a multi-seat riding.
That’s it.
At intervals ridings would vote again in case they want to switch back – perhaps every second election, or perhaps it depends on how close the vote was. A detail to be worked out.
Ridings choose FPTP or pro-rep multi-seat ridings. And they can change their minds. It is the sort of safe, empowered, incremental and reversible democratic change that most voters would like.
And is it complicated? I don’t think so. Will it sweep through into the party platforms for this fall’s election. I don’t think so. The Conservatives are against any change, the NDP and Green Party want nothing short of full pro-rep, which is another example of letting perfect be the enemy of good. Instead we’re stuck with FPTP. As for the Liberals, they obviously thought they wanted change in 2015, but definitely didn’t want change by 2017 and probably still don’t, since they are governing now.
If my proposed electoral system is too complicated, then the electorate really is hopeless and democracy is probably a bad idea. Let’s give ourselves a little credit.
Is there a down side to this system? It will look funny on a map. You could have a riding that votes to stay FPTP in the middle of Montreal surrounded by a multi-seat riding if all the other ridings around it voted to join together. Oh well. I don’t see anything wrong with that if that’s what the people want. Also, it creates a fluid electoral landscape that makes it hard to predict elections based on past elections. Frankly I like that – it means party strategists will have a harder time dissecting the electorate in an attempt to buy strategic pockets of votes with disingenuous election promises.
There are other details. The FPTP ridings could be ranked ballots or not. The prop-rep ridings could be STV or a list system, and each of those involve other details. I don’t really care. Let’s not get stuck on those details which just complicate matters at this point. Save those details for once the broad decisions are made. Also, what if a riding wants to join a different group than the one it was initially grouped into based on simple geography? There could easily be an online petition system for the citizenry to decide (in future elections, once the system is up and running) what multi-seat riding they would like to put on the ballot to vote on joining. Details, details.
Results Matter
The only way to balance proportionality and localness is by having a hybrid system like I propose. Ridings can choose what they value more. It is as proportional as people want it to be, and it’s as local as people want it to be.
This system should produce a moderate and stable result that makes 39% majorities that act like 59% majorities much less likely while also avoiding strange coalitions with a Prime Minister from a party with 29% of the vote propped up by several smaller parties. Pro-rep people will say in the FPTP ridings not every vote counts. I say that even if the votes don’t count the way the pro-rep people want, ridings get the system they want and because they can change it, they ultimately get the outcome they want, and I think that’s what people really want.
Is 2019 the dawn of a new electoral era? No (except maybe in PEI). But 2019 can be the beginning of a new, more rational, measured, democratic approach to electoral reform. Sounds very like a very Canadian way to do things. Sounds good.
If that was on a referendum it could win. Actual, real change. For starters, put that in a poll. It might take some time for people to digest it, since it is a new twist, but it is incremental, empowering, understandable, controlled, and reversible change.
That is the best kind of change. That is what voters in BC seem to be saying they want. It’s a good bet they aren’t alone.
Resources
The brief I submitted to the Special Committee on Electoral Reform.
