Why would anyone want to change our current voting system, called first past the post (FPTP) or winner take all?
Oh, right, I almost forgot: we would get fair results, a truly representative legislature, greater voter engagement and turnout, more collaboration, more accountability, more civility, better representation of diversity and voter choice, stability and an end to the whip-saw of ideological policy reversals when governments change.
Perhaps some have forgotten BC examples such as as when Bill Bennett Junior of the Socreds implemented a scorched-earth program, sweeping away or slashing dozens of programs it took ordinary residents decades to accomplish or when Gordon Campbell did the same thing (remember when hospital food actually was food).
Now we have a fresh example to watch as it unfolds in Ontario, where Doug Ford, a politician who boasts about not knowing anything about running a province, is about to start governing.
His first act? Cancelling the cap and trade system of dealing with CO2 emissions and killing an agreement with Quebec and California.
Does it matter that the cancellation will cost Ontario taxpayers billions in revenue? Apparently not, although it is not clear Ford even knows this. And what about this defender of the little guy freezing the minimum wage at $14 an hour, killing the rise to $15 scheduled by the Liberals? It doesn’t matter to millionaire Ford because he has never been close to poverty.
But mostly what doesn’t matter to Mr. Ford is that he won a majority of seats with just 40 per cent of the vote. In other words, 60 per cent of those who voted wanted to keep all the things Ford loves to hate.
But it’s not just Ford. People were fed up with premier Kathleen Wynne and 15 years of Liberal arrogance, even with their relatively progressive policies; 15 years of any party’s government is too long.
But if Ontario had been using a system of proportional representation for 15 years, voters’ discontent would never have reached such a level of anger that electing a human wrecking ball seemed like a good idea.
People voted for change but what they will get is chaos, uncertainty and nasty, hyper-partisan politics. I’m sorry, but there is simply no way you can call this a democracy functioning in the interests of society. It’s a system that locks in often infantile party politics and shuts out people who just want to see government work for them.
Yes, FPTP is easy to understand because we are used to it. And we will have to do some real work as citizens to get a handle on the options we have been given in the fall referendum. But we are all (especially the young) facing an extremely scary future of climate change, environmental collapse and increasing economic inequality.
These threats to the planet have to be fought everywhere, even at the level of a small place such as Powell River. To actually deal with these crises we have to collaborate more, not less. We simply don’t have the luxury of indulging in partisan politics where ideology and cult-like loyalty to a party are more important than serving community.
Besides providing a voting system that actually reflects how people voted, proportional representation curbs hyper-partisanship and forces political parties to pay more attention to the public good. This will be our last chance to seize the opportunity to make the system work for us and not political parties.
Otherwise we will keep doing the same thing over and over again, somehow expecting better results.
Murray Dobbin is a Powell River freelance writer and social commentator.
