Distorting the Vote.

In almost every single election in Canada, federal and provincial, over the Last three decades, the winning party has been one that the majority of voters voted against. Not surprisingly then, following every election there are always people calling for reform of the system

Canada runs its elections by what's called the "first-past-the-post" system. This means that the candidate with the most votes wins. If there are only two candidates, obviously, the winner will have a majority of the votes. But, elections in Canada almost always feature more than two candidates. Usually, the ballots will be split up among three or four major candidates and often half a dozen other hopefuls. This means that even the most convincing winners rarely capture more than half the total votes; between 1921 and 1974, only two out of 17 federal elections resulted in one party obtaining an absolute majority of the vote. So, with a few exceptions, Canada's MPs and MLAs take their seats knowing that a majority of people don't want them there.

Another complaint is that the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system is unfair to smaller parties and regional groups. The Green Party, for example, favours much tougher environmental laws. Many Canadians support the Green Party's platform, but it has almost no chance of winning a seat under the current system. That's largely because voters believe that voting Green means wasting their vote.

In a different way, regions may be shut out of the seats of power. Western Canada elected only 15 Liberals from 75 seats in the 1997 federal election. Meanwhile, Ontario sent 101 Liberals to Ottawa. When members of the Liberal government sit down to decide policy the 15 Westerners are going to have a hard time getting heard above the demands from all those Ontarians.

An even worse distortion of the will of the people occurred in the Quebec provincial election of November 1998. The Parti Quebecois got 26 more seats than the Liberals and formed the government, although the Liberals captured more votes. But, winners can also be losers; in 1973, the Parti Quebecois got 30% of the popular vote but only 5.5% of the seats in the National Assembly.

Almost nobody likes the current system except the people that win elections. And, why wouldn't they like it? It's what gave them the victory. But, if change is to come, these are the people who will have to make it happen.

The most popular alternative is some form of proportional representation (PR). This is used in most countries that operate under a parliamentary democracy, as Canada does. In its purest form, the PR system divides parliamentary seats among parties according to their share of the popular vote. Parties publish a list of candidates. If the party wins 30% of the vote, then the top 30% on the list are elected. With this method members are not elected to represent a particular riding.

This type of system almost guarantees a minority government, meaning no one party will capture a majority of seats. That means two or more parties will have to cooperate to form a government; what the political scientists call a coalition. Such coalitions can be very unstable as they have been in Italy. There, voters have gone to the polls on average about once every year over the last half century. But, Germany has also had coalition governments since the Second World War, and they have proved to be stable.

More countries in the Western world now use proportional representation systems than the first-past-the-post method. They find it more closely matches the popular vote figures with the number of candidates elected from each party. It also gives small parties and regions a good chance of getting candidates into positions of influence.

The Lortie Royal Commission of 1992 looked closely at proportional representation. But, the commission decided it would not work in Canada. The country is too large and diverse it said. Medium-sized cities such as Calgary would have one riding Mr. Lortie said, but so would entire provinces such as Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. But, such problems don't dampen the enthusiasm of those who want to see change.

The government of Tony Blair in Britain set up an inquiry into proportional representation shortly after taking power in 1997. The inquiry, chaired by Lord Jenkins, clearly established that electoral tidal waves can get in the way the proper functioning of Parliament. That's because the party in power can, and sometimes does, legitimately govern in the same way as a dictatorship. Lord Jenkins came down firmly in favour of changing the current first-past-the-post system and the British government is now making moves to do just that.

Many experts now favour a system similar to Germany's, which is a mixture of first-past-the-post and proportional representation. Germans elect 50% of their members by our current method and the other half are elected on the proportional representation principle. Advocates claim this combines the best of both methods. Voters get the chance to cast their ballots twice: once for their member, and a second time for an additional representative who would be elected as a way of remedying the imbalances left when the other members were elected. Jean-Francois Caron pointed out in the fall 1999 issue of the Canadian Parliamentary Review that: "In this way, voters would have an opportunity to express their real opinion in terms of both their choice of their own member and their choice of the party they wanted to see in power."

There are other advantages to proportional representation (PR). More people tend to turn out to vote in countries that use PR when compared with first-past-the-post. And, as is pointed out in the 1999 book Make Every Vote Count parliaments that are elected under PR generally have a higher share of women, First Nations, and other minority MPs.

Another system that is popular in many countries uses two rounds: if no candidate gets more than 50% of the ballots cast in the first vote, a second one is held. In the second round, only the top two vote-getters in the first round are on the ballot. This ensures that, except in the unlikely event of a tie, the winner can at least claim to be the choice of the majority.

To some extent, people unhappy with the current system have tried to end-run it. The creation of the Canadian Alliance is an attempt to unite the vote of right-wing Canadians. As long as they split their votes between Conservatives and Alliance candidates, the Liberals will scoot up the middle and win.

Others have resorted to strategic voting. During the 1999 provincial election in Ontario, many union members withdrew their traditional support from the New Democratic Party. Buzz Hargrove, the President of the Canadian Auto Workers Union urged his members to vote for the candidate in their riding with the best chance of defeating the Progressive Conservative candidate. It practice, that meant voting for Liberals in most ridings.

Some form of proportional representation would certainly even out the imbalances seen in many Canadian elections. But, the only way that major reforms will take place is if there is a huge groundswell of public opinion in favour of it.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. The 1993 federal election produced some very strange distortions of public opinion. More than 2.1 million voters (16% of the total) chose the Progressive Conservatives, but the party elected only two MPs. The Bloc Quebecois, which only ran candidates in Quebec, pulled 14% of the total national ballot (1.8 million votes), yet elected 54 MPs and became the Official Opposition. The Reform Party (2.5 million votes) was the pick of 19% of Canadians and won 52 seats. The victorious Liberals won 177 seats with 41% of the popular vote. On a national average basis, each Liberal was elected by 31,321 people, while each Conservative was elected by more than a million ballots. Use these numbers and others in this article to create posters showing graphically the problems associated with the first-past-the-post system.

2. Among the 29 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (all Western industrial democracies) Canada ranks 20th in voter turnout at elections. Canada's average turnout between 1945 and 1997 was 74% compared with an OECD average in 392 in the same period of 78%. Discuss ways of increasing the participation of Canadians in elections, such as compulsory voting as in Australia and Belgium, or holding elections on Sunday as in France.

3. Invite a member of the federal Liberal Party to your class to discuss the question: "Why should a party with 38% of the popular vote (which is what the Liberals won in 1997) enjoy 100% of national political power which is what the Liberals have by virtue of winning a majority in the House of Commons?

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION - THE CHOICES

There are several different twists to the proportional representation system.

* Single transferable vote. This is the pure form where parties get the same percentage of seats as their percentage of the popular vote. Israel, Italy, and Poland use this method, which is also called the list-based system.

* Mixed member system. Some members are elected by first-past-the-post, but some members (perhaps as many as half) are elected by proportional representation. This method is used in Germany.

* Alternative vote. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. Once the leading vote-getter in a district achieves a winning number, his or her first-place votes are passed on to their supporters' second choice. When the second-choice candidate reaches the pre-set number of votes needed for election, ballots are passed on down the line until the district's quota of representatives is filled. Australia and Ireland have chosen the alternative vote.

FROM FIRST TO WORST

The Progressive Conservative Party did not complain about the first-past-the-post system in 1984. That year, the party won 74.8% of the seats in the general election while winning 50.03% of all the votes cast. Nine years later, in the 1993 election, the same party won 16% of the popular vote, but came away with less than one percent of the seats.

VOTERS LOSE OUT

In the 1997 federal election, the Liberal Party won 49% of the popular vote in Ontario but won 98% of the province's seats. In the same election, the Reform Party won the support of 36% of voters in Saskatchewan yet took 57% of the province's seats in Parliament, while the Liberals took 25% of the popular vote, but received only one Saskatchewan seat (7%).

PR IN NZ

In 1993, New Zealanders turned their backs on the first-past-the-post system. In a national referendum, the people approved a system of proportional representation (PR). Three years later, New Zealanders had their first general election using PR.

The 1996 vote was a mess. It produced a large number of small parties and denied either of the two major parties a mandate. After weeks of negotiations a coalition government was formed between the National Party and the New Zealand First Party. This highlights one of the problems with PR as described by Osgoode Hall law professor Patrick J. Monahan: "Who will form the government is determined not at the ballot box but after the election, through horse-trading behind closed doors between party bosses."

Two years after their first PR election, public opinion polls showed most New Zealanders wanted to go back to the old system.

What voters didn't like is the fact that the junior partner in the coalition, the New Zealand First Party, wielded power that was way out of line with its popularity. Prime Minister Jenny Shipley had to secure New Zealand First's approval for every policy. If she didn't, the party (which won only 13% of the popular vote) could have turned against her and forced an election. Eventually, the New Zealand First Party did quit the coalition and the National Party wobbled along as a minority government for a while.

In November 1999, New Zealanders went to the polls again. And, as The Economist commented, the Kiwis seemed "to have mastered the intricacies of their German-style system of proportional representation." This time, voters gave Helen Clark's Labour Party 52 seats out of 120. Labour quickly formed a coalition with the 11-seat Alliance Party to govern with a workable majority. New Zealanders are now feeling more comfortable with electing MPs by proportional representation.

FACT FILE

The first-past-the-post electoral system is currently used in only four countries - Canada, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Websites

Canadians for Proportional Representation - http://www. ualberta.ca/~dbailie/C4PR/

Electoral Reform Society (U.K.) - http://www.electoralreform.org.uk/

Electoral Reform Coalition (N.Z.) - http://www.mmp.org. nz/index.html