Dear Editor
I jokingly say I prefer being on a committee of one—me or someone else. Imagine you are the committee responsible for electoral reform in Canada. Your Liberal Party campaign promise was that the 2015 federal election would be the last using our first-past-the-post winner-take-all-losers-get-nothing plurality-majority electoral system. Your committee must report by December 2016 on reforms that include ranked ballots and proportional representation.
The Conservative Party has vowed to block any electoral reform without a referendum. Perhaps a referendum is indicated, though it would be wiser for the Conservatives to support proportional representation rather than counting on a referendum to keep the status quo.
If your committee report recommends proportional representation, the Conservatives would get seats proportional to how voters voted — nine more than FPTP gave in 2015. If your committee report recommends ranked ballots (which is still winner take all), it could give the Liberals a perpetual advantage. What advantage? In experiments, voters on the right rank Conservatives number one and Liberals number two. Voters on the left rank NDP as number one and Liberals number two. All the Liberal number twos plus their own number ones rank them into first place.
Proportional representation is not just fair for the Conservatives, but it is fair for all Canadians. It is the system that more than 80 countries have progressed to because it is consensus based rather than majority oppositional, so parliamentarians can focus on policy rather than politics.
The committee wants to hear from you at http://www.parl.gc.ca/Committees/en/ERRE/StudyActivity or ask your MP about their electoral reform town hall.
Nancy Carswell
Shellbrook
Co-spokesperson
