Sep 02, 2007 - 12:00 AM

By Geoff Daw

The Ontario Citizens Assembly was a randomly chosen group of 103 Ontarians from across the province that met for eight months starting September 2006 to study our current electoral system and electoral systems used by other democracies. It reviewed our current system and others used around the world. Its members spoke with, and listened to other Ontarians at public meetings and via written submissions. After carefully reviewing all the information, it has recommended a new electoral system for Ontario called Mixed Member Proportional or MMP. This will be voted on in a referendum on Oct. 10.

So what is wrong with our current system, commonly called First Past the Post (FPTP), and why did the Citizens Assembly reject it?

Our current electoral system has a number of short-comings. Every election in our voting system produces distorted results. Since a candidate only needs the most votes in a riding, many candidates are elected with less than 50 per cent of the vote. In some cases it can be less than 40 per cent. A party can gain a majority government with only 40 per cent of the popular vote or even less. Parties have actually won a majority government despite not having the highest popular vote. We have not had a true majority government in Ontario since 1937.

Votes that are not cast for the winner, do not count toward electing a representative. In a typical election in Ontario, just over 50 per cent of votes are cast for candidates who are not elected.
    Our current system does a poor job electing women and candidates from other under-represented groups. Only 25 per cent of Ontario MPPs are women, far less than in many other countries that use a proportional representation system.

Voters often feel they must chose the lesser of two evils or vote strategically. This type of voting is often encouraged by the parties.

Voter turnout is also declining and our electoral system may be at least partially responsible. Many people feel why bother to vote if their vote will not count.

So what is this mixed member proportional system (MMP) that the Ontario Citizens Assembly has recommended?

MMP is a hybrid system that is used by several countries including New Zealand, Scotland, Germany and Wales. The system will have 90 local member seats and the members for these seats will be elected as they are today.

In addition to these seats, there will be 39 list seats. These seats will be filled by candidates chosen by each party and will be used to adjust the number of seats that a party receives based on the percentage of the party vote.

Voters will cast two votes: a party vote and a vote for a local member. The party vote determines the total share of the seats a party wins in the legislature. If a party does not have enough local members elected with respect to their party vote, then they receive additional seats from the list members so that their total reflects the share of seats based on the party vote. The share of seats a party receives will be the same as the proportion of the vote they receive in the party vote.

It is important to note that the candidates selected as list members and how they were selected by the parties, must be published well before the election. The electorate will know well in advance who are on the lists and how they were chosen. We can decide if the candidates were selected fairly and represent Ontario’s diversity and regions. 

Democracy is about fairness, majority rule, representative governments and votes that count equally. By these measures our current system falls short. The mixed member proportional system recommended by the Ontario Citizens Assembly will improve our democracy and the governments that govern our province. It is now up to us to educate ourselves about the recommended system (see www.citizensassembly.gov.on.ca) and vote in the referendum on October 10th. I plan to vote for MMP.

Durham resident Geoff Daw is president of the local chapter of Fair Vote Canada. He has contributed to this space in the past. For more information link to www.fairvote.ca and to check out MMP, visit www.voteformmp.ca. The Durham Region Chapter can be contacted at durham.chapter@fairvote.ca.