Thursday, March 13, 2014

Who loves First-Past-the-Post — for all the wrong reasons?

There are three groups of people who love our corrupt and undemocratic voting system, First-Past-the-Post: partisans, businessmen and Conservatives.

Partisans love it because it doles out unfettered power on 39% of the vote. This prospect is so tantalizing for partisan leaders, they’re gladly willing to wait years in the wings for their shot at absolute corrupt power.

Businessmen love it because it’s much easier to lobby and influence minority-party dictatorships than multi-party democratic governments (the norm in the rest of the developed world.) That’s why the corporate-owned media in Canada suppresses and attacks the issue of electoral reform.

Conservatives love it because it makes them Canada’s natural governing party against the wishes of Canadians. What’s not to love about that? Since 1935, right-leaning voters have only been united under Mulroney and Harper. Even if they lose in 2015, they know it won’t be long before they’re back in running things (into the ground.)

Immoral of the story

With all this corruption, it’s up to Canadians to stand up and take responsibility for our democracy (or lack thereof.) No one’s going to do it for us.

If we’re too lazy or cowardly, we probably deserve what we have coming. But surely our children do not.

2 comments:

  1. Only Conservatives voted against second reading of the bill to allow the City of Toronto to use instant runoff for council and mayor.

    It's really only partisans of top parties. Now that the Liberals are third, they seem to be changing their minds.

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    1. Thanks for the info. I was skeptical when I heard the Liberals were introducing this through the back door via a private member's bill. Didn't know it passed second reading last week. I read Cohn in the Star saying the bill should be sent to committee, where they should recommend it be put to a referendum.

      I hope it gets legislated directly. FPP produces distorted election results. Voters end up getting saddled with politicians and governments they don't want and didn't vote for. FPP itself is anti-democratic. Having it legislated by elected representatives is certainly not anti-democratic.

      The next logical step is to legislate ranked ballot voting at a provincial and federal level. Given PR has gone down in flames in provincial referendums, a repeat of the process will kill PR for good.

      Either take the incremental approach: RBV on a party platform; PR on a RBV/PR referendum. Or else hold a 3-way referendum with a runoff vote: FPP, PR & RBV. This way FPP could get eliminated on the first round.

      Any two-way referendum is doomed because if voters don't have their option on the ballot, they opt for the status quo. This happened in ON, BC, PEI and the UK. All referendums were defeated by over 60%.

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