Green Party candidate Elaine Hughes appreciated all the votes for her in this last election.
But to her, she sympathizes with these wasted voter.
“You can’t get away from it unless you’re voting for the top two parties.” Says Hughes.
According to Elections Canada, 14173 votes in the Carlton Trail-Eagle Creek riding were not for Kelly Block in a riding with a 72 per cent voter turnout rate.
In this last election, half the votes were for candidates who did not win their seat.
In the current voting system, which we inherited from the British system, constituents vote for Members of Parliaments within a riding so they have a seat in the House of Commons.
These votes used to mean money for parties with a per-vote subsidy, until early 2015.
The Harper government eliminated this per-vote subsidy before this last election, so parties do not receive anything for votes cast except of course actually win the riding.
One of Trudeau’s promises is a change of the current First Past the Post system for a system that would decide representation based on percentage of votes won by the party as a whole.
For Hughes and the rest of the Green Party, this would mean more representation since they received 3.4 per cent of the popular vote.
Hughes says this a big part of a discouraged voting pool.
“Canada is diverse, we have several parties. Time after time, people get very discouraged...It has to change.”
NDP candidate Glenn Wright received 18.7 per cent of the popular vote in Carlton Trail-Eagle Creek. He says that proportional representation would not have changed much in the riding itself but nationally, it would have made a big difference.
“There are so many different variations on proportional representation that it does take some explaining and a lot of people tend to gloss over and I guess they’re not patient
First Past the Post works for some countries, says Hughes but not for such a wide range of part representation.
Holding Trudeau to account will be the first step in getting a new system in place, says Hughes.
“He’s driving this bus so let’s get on it because the support for proportional representation is overwhelming.”
Liberal candidate Alex Slusar not only ran in the federal election but also has a background in political science. What he knows of proportional representation is from the classroom.
“It’s going to be taking a lot of review. Reforming an electoral system is not going to happen overnight, it’s going to take a lot of consultation, a lot of dialogue with many experts in political science and electoral systems.”
Implementing the system is not going to solve all the problems, says Slusar, there still has to be the question of making sure the system represents all voters.
When it comes to taking on those challenges of overhauling an entire electoral system, Hughes says it can be done and it is worth it.
“With proper leadership, that will make all the difference. There is a process that can be done with this. We can work with the provinces, the territories, First Nations, political groups, everybody that’s interested should be at the table to come up with some acceptable process to explain what this is to the people, educate them on why we need this and stick to it.
“single-member plurality” system (also commonly called a “first-past-the-post” system): In every electoral district, the candidate with the highest number of votes wins a seat in the House of Commons and represents that electoral district as its member of Parliament. An absolute majority (more than 50 percent of the votes in the electoral district) is not required for a candidate to be elected. (Elections.ca)
Seat count under First Past the Post:
Lib 184, Con 99, NDP 44, GPC 1, Bloc 10
Seat count under a Proportional system:
Lib 135, Con 109, NDP 68, GPC, 11, Bloc 15
