An independent legal commission will recommend to the House of Commons that Canada abolish the first-past-the-post method of electing members of Parliament, moving instead to a form of proportional representation.The recommendation will be to have 207 members of Pariament elected directly while the remaining 101 will be selected proportionally based on the proportion of votes received in the election.
"We're going to recommend that an element of proportionality be added to the system," Nathalie Des Rosiers, president of the Law Commission of Canada, confirmed yesterday in an interview.
I don't think I'm particularly for or against such a proposal but there can be no doubt that this will have a significant effect on Canadian politics. As in other countries that have implemented some degree of proportional representation it certainly leads to a broadening of the political spectrum. I guess each of us would have to determine whether this would be a good or a bad developement for Canada.
The question I would like answered is: Why now? The commission says:
Change is needed, Ms. Des Rosiers said. It is necessary because the country's existing electoral system "no longer responds well to a society that wants more consultation, that wants to participate more in decisions, that is not as interested in an authoritarian form of government as much as seeing Parliament express the diversity of ideas in Canada."Well isn't that sweet. Anyone who isn't in control of government is going to complain about it but none of that comment amounts to a reason to change the way Canada governs itself.
And all of this is all fair and good but why not allow binding referendums? Referendums would allow Canadians to raise issues of concern to them and bind the federal government to implementing the result. I'ld be curious to know if the panel considered referendums as an alternative to proportional representation and if so why they reached the conclusions they did.
Now I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist on this but the idea of proportional representation is being promoted by people of what I'ld call left of center. Check out Fairvote Canada for a list of people supporting the proposal. Does it seem like a coincidence that referendums are mocked and laughed at by the left and media while proportional representation is not?
As well you might want to check out John Ibbitson's latest column on proportional representation. I happen to agree with John that implementing proportional representation presents us with to many risks with no clear, or at best marginal, benefits. As it is now, Canada has 4 (two months ago we had 5) large political parties represented in Parliament. Why would increasing that number to 6 or 8 make Canada any better?