No proportional at next Quebec election
Again, a little off trail, but does it surprise anyone that, after promising changes toward proportional representation to elect the next Quebec government, the CAQ’s Sonia LeBel now says there just isn’t time to tackle it before the next election. So that’s both Trudeau and Legault who have held out proportional representation as a bait to voters, then whisked it away once in office.
thomas 09:30 on 2019-09-13 Permalink
Trudeau never promised proportional representation — it was clear that he favored a ranked ballot system. Trudeau’s specific promise, which he broke, was to end first past the post elections.
Kate 10:25 on 2019-09-13 Permalink
Thanks for the clarification.
ant6n 11:14 on 2019-09-13 Permalink
This was the literal, official promise:
“We will make every vote count.
We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.
We will convene an all-party Parliamentary committee to review a wide variety of reforms, such as ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting, and online voting.
This committee will deliver its recommendations to Parliament. Within 18 months of forming government, we will introduce legislation to enact electoral reform.”
(Arguably ranked ballots does not “make every vote count”, so it would be reasonable to expect the outcome of the above is some sort of proportional Repräsentation)
Ephraim 11:46 on 2019-09-13 Permalink
The system where you rank your choices is called the Hare Method, but the Hare method requires mandatory voting… otherwise it favours the incumbent. Slight variations as well… see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_method but essentially an easy change from first-past-the-post and what is used in Australia. Proportional usually requires a minimum, sometimes 3% or 5%, but once you go proportional, you almost never end up with an elected government and subject to blackmail from small parties to get their votes to pass legislation.
jaddle 20:58 on 2019-09-13 Permalink
Never end up with an elected government? What’s happened in New Zealand for the past 25 years then? And in most of the rest of the world? They don’t have elected governments?
Maybe you mean “almost never end up with a majority government”, which is certainly true in most countries. How often does a majority of any country share enough of the same views that a majority government actually makes sense? Almost never. Minority governments with their negotiations and compromise are usually *better* governments.
So much for the one redeeming policy of this CAQ government…
Chris 22:14 on 2019-09-13 Permalink
jaddle, also, minority government is not the only alternative to majority government, we can also have coalition governments (which too can be minority or majority). Coalitions are neither weird nor undesirable. After all, political parties themselves are also coalitions.
Ephraim 13:19 on 2019-09-14 Permalink
Jaddle, the popular vote last time was: Liberal, 39.47%, Conservative 31.89%, NDP 19.71%, Bloc 4.66% and Green 3.45%. Assuming we used a low 3% minimum, the 338 seats would have been… 12 for the Green, 16 for the Bloc, 67 for the NDP, 109 for the Conservatives and 134 for the Liberals, approximately. You need 170 to elect a government… anything less is a coalition and coalitions are NOT elected governments, they are parties making arrangements…. Almost all proportional representation governments aren’t elected. And to get the NDP to sit with the Liberals, for example, the NDP will make demands… or if you prefer extortion or blackmail… they want something for their principles.
Chris 15:08 on 2019-09-14 Permalink
“coalitions are NOT elected governments”. Does your dictionary define “elected” differently than mine? Also, technically, the government isn’t elected at all, the parliament is. “or if you prefer extortion or blackmail” of if you prefer: compromise or negotiation. Minority parliaments are perfectly normal in many (functional!) countries, they could be here too.
mare 15:55 on 2019-09-14 Permalink
Many more people would show up at elections if they knew their vote wasn’t “wasted” because the incumbent would get first past the post anyway, sometimes with just 25% of the votes of the 60% of the population that shows up at the election booth.
I personally think a government that consists of MPs that won their ridings (which have different amount of constituents, so rural areas have more clout) is not elected. If we had proportional voting a coalition of Tories with Libs is more likely, the Liberals are a neocon party as well. No ransom and blackmail necessary.
Ephraim 16:39 on 2019-09-14 Permalink
Chris: Two terms, elected government and ruling government. For a government to be considered elected, it must have enough parliamentarians to control parliament and win a vote of no confidence. But a coalition isn’t elected because they aren’t chosen ahead of time as a coalition. We didn’t vote for the NDP/Liberals, we voted for the NDP or the Liberals. Hence they aren’t considered an elected government, but instead a ruling government. I didn’t vote for the NDP/Liberals, I voted for only part of them.
Take a look at Germany, if the Christian Democrats were to have 50% of the seats, they would be elected, even though they are a coalition, because they run together as two separate parties. The CDU/CSU is a single slate. In Israel where the Likud is a single slate even though it’s actually the merger (which is the meaning of the party name) of the Herut (Freedom) party and the Liberal party and a few others over the years. And so is Labour-Gesher (though to truthful, Labour itself is a merger, but then this will all get to complicated. Of course the worst fact is that both of Israel’s main parties at one time were synonyms of each other running under the name “merger”, if it wasn’t confusing enough.)
So basically prearranged marriage, run as one list and win, elected government. Coalition by fire, ruling government. Almost all countries that use percentages have ruling governments. And they tend to move towards smaller, more ideological choices. So, parties like the NDP and Greens win… but the downside is that you have to find a way to govern. In Israel, under Begin, they had to get the votes of the ultra-religious to be able to govern…. so you got a whole bunch of religious laws enacted, like ElAl not flying on the sabbath.
Oh and let’s not even talk about the “lists”. Because the fights over them in some countries and parties are cutthroat. Essentially the person at the top gets elected, but then everyone is fighting daggers to make sure they are high enough on the list to get elected.
Chris 19:25 on 2019-09-14 Permalink
Ephraim, all we vote for is our local MP, nothing more. We elect a Parliament, Parliament forms a government. There may be better ways, but that’s our system.
Dhomas 05:53 on 2019-09-15 Permalink
I know I would probably vote differently if we weren’t using a first-past-the-post system and I’m sure I’m not alone. I will often times vote not for who I most agree with, but for who I think has the best chance of defeating who I most disagree with. It would be refreshing to be able to vote for who I like, without feeling like I’m wasting my vote.
Raymond Lutz 08:05 on 2019-09-15 Permalink
“There may be better ways, but that’s our system.” AND IT DOES NOT WORK, sapristi! In Quebec or Canada, election after election, it’s the same pattern: there’s more people that don’t vote than people who vote for the elected party. Pure proportional doesn’t cut it, neither… Single Transferable Vote for everyone! https://www.fairvote.ca/stvbc
Chris 12:29 on 2019-09-15 Permalink
Dhomas, yes, voting strategy would change, but it wouldn’t go away. A different system will result in different voting strategy, that’s all. Which is fine.
Raymond, favourite system aside, all those people that don’t vote can’t blame the system, they can only blame themselves. Even with our current flawed system, there are so many non-voters (as you said), that their votes would make a big difference. It’s on them if they don’t like the results.
Raymond Lutz 14:17 on 2019-09-15 Permalink
Yeah, let’s blame people rather than dysfunctional economical, electoral, political, educational, pharmaceutical systems. Blame the poor! The ignorant mass! The fat people who don’t exercise. Opioid crisis? Meh, good for them, junkies. Have you ever heard about the 2005 french european constitution referendum? Democracy? We’re living in a system best called inverted totalitarianism… Here’s a french interview of a Montreal writer and political scientists intitled “Démocratie : Marketing politique pour les pauvres?” for those interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wF5FMUtHDM
Ephraim 15:34 on 2019-09-15 Permalink
Chris – When you change the electoral system, you change how and who you vote for. For example, in pure proportional representation, you don’t have a local MP anyway. In modified, you do, but then only about half and the rest are from the list, so the ridings get bigger and the national list is used to “correct” what the local ridings did. You may not have a local MP at all…. or you may have an MP for ridings that are triple the size.
The Hare method requires voting. The fine in Australia for not voting is a measly AUD$20. They allow “sick” as a reason, with no real proof, so my guess is that few people ever pay the fine… but you do have to answer their email with a reason.
The strategies for voting will change. In Japan, one of the parties even suggests where it’s members should move to, to maximize it’s seats in the Diet.
Michael Black 16:01 on 2019-09-15 Permalink
The star independent candidates this election, Puglaas and Jane Philpott, are making the point that the party system means people may nit get goid representation. If members have to vote the party line, that may not be best for their constituents.
When I was about sixteen, before I could vote, it struck me that voting seemed like abdicating power. Vote every few years, and let someone else take care of things. You’ve done your bit. What’s really needed is for voters to get involved more than every few years, and make the politician responsible to them. Maybe some things should be directly voted. But definitely a mechanism where an MP is more responsible to their constituents.
“If yiu don’t vote you can’t complain” is a mantra people who vote repeat, I suspect many stop after voting. Lots of people have issue even when they can’t vote. Kids speak up at local city council meetings, they are iften listened to even before they can vote. Someone heading towards citizenship can’t yet vote but there may be issues they have because they live here. You can contact an MP and nobody will ask for proof of citizenship. You shouldn’t get absolute say, but the way democracy often works makes you only one of many with influence. But it shouldn’t just be about numbers. Politicians are there to represent people, not lead.
Michael