The document argues that Canada should switch to a proportional representation (PR) electoral system from its current plurality system. It provides four reasons for this: 1) PR would make every vote matter, as seats would be distributed proportionally based on the popular vote share, rather than some votes being "wasted". 2) PR would give a more precise reflection of Canadians' political opinions, whereas the plurality system has produced governments that did not align with popular vote percentages. 3) PR could help enhance national unity by increasing representation of minorities and reducing geographical disparities in representation. 4) PR would increase MPs' sense of responsibility to constituents by basing elections more on specific platform issues rather than party leaders

1. Scott Mills
Professor Ross Gibbons
Political Science 020
February 24, 2006
Proportional Representation
Canada’s current political turmoil is evident everywhere: from the Gomery Report
to the second federal election in two years, and from western alienation to Quebec’s
distinct society. Canada is a country teetering dangerously on the brink of disaster. It is a
country that needs something that will unite it and tie it back together and the very glue
for any democratic country is its electoral system. Canada needs an electoral system that
is truly democratic, that truly expresses the voice of its people; Canada needs
Proportional Representation (PR). There are numerous different forms of PR practiced
all over the world, but this essay will strictly deal with the ideology of PR instead of
getting bogged down in the various types. Canada should change from its current
Plurality system to PR because PR makes every vote matter, gives a precise reflection of
the political opinions of the people of Canada, enhances the sense of national unity and
strengthens each MP’s sense of responsibility to his/her constituents. A PR system would
accomplish all of these things and more, if given the chance, on the Federal stage.
In a PR system every vote would matter because every vote directly reflects a
percentage of the popular vote and MPs are accordingly distributed. For example, if the
NDP garner 16% of the vote, as they did in the 2004 Federal election, then they would
hold 16% of the seats in the House of Commons (Gray). Under the current Plurality or
First-past-the-post system, the 16% the NDP gathered actually only turned into 19 seats,

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whereas the Bloc were able to turn 12% of the popular vote into 54 seats because of the
way the Plurality system awards geographical strength (Gray). The Plurality system also
leads to wasted votes. Larry Gordon of Fair Vote Canada, an organization that pursues
electoral reform in Canada, explains that “wasted votes are defined by political scientists
as votes cast that do not produce representation for voters. Anybody who cast a vote in
our current system for a losing candidate has cast a wasted vote” (Thompson). PR should
reduce voter apathy and will not only erase this idea of a wasted vote but it will put an
end to strategic voting so an individual’s vote counts (Bidochka). To demonstrate how
every vote is not equal under the current Plurality system, one only needs to look at how
many votes it took to gain one seat in the House of Commons for every party in the 2004
Federal election: the Bloc gained one seat for about every 31,000 votes; the Liberals
37,000 votes; the Conservatives 40,000 votes; the NDP 111,000 votes; while the Green
Party garnered 500,000 votes but did not have a seat in the House of Commons (Fair
Vote Canada). That is 500,000 people that wasted their votes in a democratic country of
approximately thirty million people. Canada needs to say that in a democracy every vote
matters and is equal, whether a person is voting in Quebec or Nunavut. To make this
happen, Canada should implement Proportional Representation.
Canada also needs a PR electoral system because it would more precisely reflect
the political opinions of Canadians. During the 1990s these opinions were not reflected
while Jean Chretien led the Liberals to three majority governments and never had more
than 41% of the popular vote (Hiemstra 292). It was not reflected when, in the British
Columbia Provincial election in 2001, the Liberals won 97% of the seats with only 58%
of the vote (Hiemstra 293). Even more recently, in the latest Federal election, the NDP
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won about one million more votes than the Bloc, but only took 29 seats compared to the
Bloc’s 51 (Sheppard). A PR system would empower people of different ethnic, religious
or ideological views to vote for the person that best reflects them and have that person
represent their voice in the government (Fair Vote Canada). To show how
misrepresentative the Plurality system has been to Canadians over the years, one only has
to look at the fact that Canada would have only had two majority governments since
World War II if a system of PR were in place (Hiemstra 298). In an effort to incite
electoral reform, famous Canadian author Alistair MacLeod has been championing PR
across the country. Macleod points to the fact that in a “three party election you could
win a majority with as few as 18% of the vote (Seligman). This shows that in Canada,
18% of the country could have the power to speak for all the rest, but that is what the
Plurality system leads to: elections like the 1991 election where 48% of voters were
represented by a party for which they did not vote (Heimstra 293); that is not democracy.
The Law Commission of Canada, which advises Parliament on legal matters, said that
“the Current electoral system no longer responds to 21st
century Canadian democratic
values” (Campion-Smith). Keeping all these numbers in mind, it is hard to say that
Canada’s electoral system is not in disarray. Canada must implement some form of
Proportional Representation to sort out these problems and to make sure that the political
opinions of Canadians are precisely reflected in the House of Commons.
A third reason to implement the PR electoral system would be to help the healing
process across the country by enhancing a sense of nation unity. The detractors of PR try
to say that PR will hurt national unity because PR tends to turn out more minority
governments and they say that this makes the government ineffective and unstable, but
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this is simply not true. Just because one political party cannot simply push their policies
through does not make that government ineffective. To see the effectiveness of a
minority government, all Canadians have to do is look back to Lester B. Pearson’s years
as Prime Minister. Although he never had a majority government, Pearson was able to
bring in the Canada Pension Plan, national Medicare, official bilingualism, the national
anthem and the flag, all things that most Canadians look upon with pride today (“Lester
B. Pearson”). Whereas, in 1988, Brain Mulroney had a majority government, in spite of
only having 43% of the vote, and he was able to push through the GST and Free Trade,
two things that most Canadians look at today with distain (Hiemstra 298). The stability
argument is also out because the Plurality system that is supposed to produce strong
stable majority governments has not done that; in the last 40 years there have been 14
federal elections and six of them have resulted in minorities (Gray). What this Plurality
does do, is create a geographical rift in the country: the Bloc receive a much higher
proportion of seats than they deserve, according to the popular vote in Quebec; as the
Conservatives do out west and the Liberals do in Atlantic Canada (Fair Vote Canada).
This situation creates a geographical rift in the country that is insurmountable unless
Canada changes its electoral system to PR, thereby making everyone in the country equal,
which would help unify the country. The Law Commission of Canada, after two years of
study, concluded that PR was a “necessary and vital” (Campion-Smith) step in improving
democracy in Canada; afterall, the current system of Plurality was inherited from the
British more than 200 years ago when women, aboriginals and minorities were all being
disenfranchised and therefore not even able to vote (Campion-Smith). What Canada
needs to do is implement PR, which has been proven to increase the representation of
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women, ethnic groups and cultural minorities (Fair Vote Canada). This would help tie
Canada’s cultural mosaic together. PR is something that has already worked in unifying
countries like New Zealand, Israel and Germany (Sheppard). National Post columnist
Andrew Coyne has said that “if people get the government they deserve, they should at
least get the government they vote for” (Bidochka). It is this lack of harmony across the
country that speaks to the nature of the Law Commission of Canada’s Report that cited
declining voter turnout, increased cynicism towards politicians and declining
participation of young people in Canadian politics that has left Canada in the “grip of a
democratic malaise” (Campion-Smith), a malaise that can only be turned around by
Proportional Representation. In doing so, it would give Canada a greater sense of
national unity.
Finally, PR would also act to increase an MP’s responsibility to his/her
constituents because each MP would have to have specific platform issues that speak to
his constituents specifically. Since everyone’s vote would be on equal footing, MPs
would have to worry about the satisfaction of their constituents first and not the wishes of
their political parties. PR would allow the voters to give MPs mandates, which would
enlarge the MP’s responsibility because each MP would be aware of exactly what their
constituents expected from them (Hiemstra 299). Gone would be the days of the image
politician and the focus on the party leaders; instead, the focus would change to the party
platforms because, afterall, each leader would still just represent his constituents and be
responsible to them first (Hiemstra 299). Each party would have to start to develop its
own voice and emphasize its beliefs and differences from the other parties instead of all
the parties trying to fit into the political middle (Hiemstra 300). One of the critiques of
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PR is that it is said that it empowers too many small fringe parties, and it does lead to a
wider range of political representation, but Canada is already a country that has spawned
five publicly funded parties, something that is not supposed to happen under the plurality
electoral system (Thompson). Having people responsibly represented by MPs that reflect
their political views is more important then worrying about how many political parties
there are in the country. In Ed Broadbent’s Seven Point Ethics Package, which
influenced the NDP’s suggestion for making politicians more accountable for their
actions, Broadbent suggested that Canada switch to some form of PR (Broadbent). PR
has been so successful around the world, increasing politicians’ responsibility to their
voters, that some form of it is used in 70 different countries (Bidochka), representing
about a half a million people in the world (Moore). NDP leader, Jack Layton, said that
“it produces the kind of Parliaments that actually have to work to achieve results, as
opposed to the kind that can become arrogant and casual” (Campion-Smith). If
politicians are so eager to represent their constituents, they should want the system that
represents the people the most effectively and that system is Proportional Representation.
Canada is a country at a crossroads; never before in its history has it seemed that
so many Canadians have been so divided on so many important issues. If the country is
to survive in this time of turmoil, Canada’s electoral system must change from something
that was developed 200 years ago that no longer takes into account the vast number of
different minorities that Canada has. Canada needs an electoral system that is truly
democratic and that truly expresses the voice of its entire demographic. Canada needs
Proportional Representation. Canada should change from its current Plurality system to
Proportional Representation because PR makes every vote matter, gives a precise
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reflection of the political opinions of the people, enhances national unity and strengthens
each MP’s sense of responsibility to his/her constituents. A PR system would accomplish
all these things and more, given the chance, on the Federal stage. Canada is said to be a
cultural mosaic: is it not time that our government reflected that?
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