Saturday Night
Saturday Night
by Kent Edward Baxter
Originally Written: Saturday, 21 April 2001
GOOD PR
Sir,
Paul Jay's "Popularity Contest" (March 31) offered excellent insight into how much our current parliamentary system needs to be changed. Aside from the anachronism of an undemocratic, ineffective senate, the most glaring flaw with the House of Commons is that most majority governments in the past decade have been won by vote-splitting in constituencies, with a minority overall total vote.
In addition to an upper house being elected with PR (proportional representation), the House of Commons should be reformed with the introduction of preferential voting, a system used in Australia since 1949. With preferential voting, each constituency elects a member of Parliament by means of a run-off - the candidate with the lowest number of votes on each round of ballot counting is dropped until one candidate amasses an absolute majority.
Many noble proposals for parliamentary reform have come and gone, but this should not discourage advocates. Contempt for democracy is a dangerous thing, and the more times that Canadians allow elites and power-ensconced governments to thwart change out of fear or for personal advantage, the longer it will take us to become a fully democratic nation.