The Bulletin, September 27, 2012
by John Bessai
http://www.thebulletin.ca/cbulletin/content.jsp?sid=16211908031849617439127186846&ctid=1000006&cnid=1003140
An active committee of downtown residents has been organizing a town hall meeting to promote possible adjustments to how Canadians vote in their
national governments.
The committee is called Canadian Electoral Alliance (CEA) and includes Cabbagetowner and former MP Lynn McDonald. The CEA’s membership also includes individuals from at least 3 mainstream political parties, plus members from groups interested in compensating for the distortions in the first-past-the-post component of Canadian elections.
The CEA is hosting a presentation by Nathalie Des Rosiers of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association on Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. in the ballroom of the 519 Church St. community centre.
Des Rosiers was formerly with the now defunct Law Commission of Canada (LCC). In 2004 she helped write a report commissioned by the then-Liberal federal government that provided some very straight forward recommendations on how to improve the national electoral system to make it more representative called “Voting Counts: Electoral Reform for Canada.”
The main proposal in her report is that while Canadians would continue to elect MPs from constituencies across the country by voting for the person of their choice (as they do now) in the first past the post system, they would also each get a second vote. This second choice would be for the political party of their preference. Two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons would therefore be elected in constituency races using the first-past-the-post method, and the remaining one-third would be elected from provincial or territorial party lists.
If the second vote proposal in the LCC report were enacted by parliament today, in the next election the Greens, Liberals, NDP and Conservatives would all gain members of parliament based on their percentage of the vote their respective parties received on this new second ballot.
This adapted electoral system is called mixed member proportional representation (MMP) and is currently used in Scotland. A version is also practiced in Germany.
CEA is interested in the idea that Canadians start debating the merits of the LCC proposal to make the Canadian system more democratic.
The event is free. The event co-sponsors include the Toronto chapter of Fair Vote Canada, Leadnow, Cooperate for Canada—Kitchener-Waterloo, Greenspiration, Just Earth, Colour of Poverty—Colour of Change, Council of Canadians—Toronto Chapter, Toronto Bolivia Solidarity, and Canadians for Justice.
