getting rid of First-Past-The-Post alleviates the drive toward a 2-party system. The author mentions this (they have written extensively on it).
I remember when 2015 was going to be the last election under FPTP 🤦
I not only still remember, I will never forget. I am an NDP supporter for life now, until and unless they betray us too.
Some of that blame belongs to Harper, for consolidating conservative parties, and sidelining progressive conservatives who are and have shifted to Liberals. But he has also long had a goal of single party state, like Alberta has essentially been. That is not going well
We need a strong and vibrant NDP party at the very least. It would definitely be nicer to have a bigger spread.
There’s a good chance the NDP will be back with a vengeance.
Gee, if only a major prime minister candidate were to promise to end first-past-the-post voting as a major campaign issue, and I was to vote for said candidate’s party on that basis, and they were to not flagrantly renege on that promise right after being elected.
There are times when I find myself in grudging sympathy for those “fuck Trudeau” bumper stickers. There weren’t better options at the time and he did accomplish a few other things that were good, but that one was really important IMO. Fundamental to the long-term health of Canadian democracy.
I think the promise was “the last unfair election”
The problem is JT (or, probably, more accurately, Gerald Butts) thought that Ranked Ballot was a fairer system.
But pure RB is still a majoritarian system, and is even less proportional (thus less fair IMHO) than FPTP. Once the ERRE made that assessment, it was the end of any “reform”.
On a per capita basis we had a lost decade as the cost of living exploded for non-asset holders. We did manage to beat Luxembourg however, in the entire 38 countries of the OECD, so we have that going for us which is nice.
In so many ways, he was the second worst Prime Minister in CDN history.
This and how hard it would be to ever amend the constitution (y’know, to move away from FPTP, for example) are the biggest problems for Canadian democracy going forwards.
It won’t sink us in the next 10 years, but past that who knows. History has a way of turning heroes into villains, and vice-verse.
Except the Constitution doesn’t stipulate FPTP. It defines how seats are allocated based on population and provinces and all but doesn’t say how to decide what MPs go in what seats. It doesn’t mention parties either.
What? Really? I guess it’s in the Elections Act, then.
Yup, checks out. There’s certain ridings and they all have to produce one member, but it doesn’t say how. Wonders of living in a country that wasn’t really a democracy originally, I guess. One member representing each riding limits options quite a bit, but there are proportional systems that could be made to work that way.
It doesn’t mention parties either.
Which isn’t necessarily unusual. It wasn’t a designed part of the US system, for example - if anything it undercuts the original intention of it. Proportional systems have to recognise them at least a bit, though.
We should absolutely get rid of FPTP in favour of proportional representation, however, I don’t know that the current polling situation is actually a result of FPTP. I’m a pretty consistent NDP voter, but I’ve voted Liberal twice - Trudeau once (to bring in proportional rep… lol), and Carney this last time. I know this is unpopular but I didn’t “lend” my vote to Carney to beat the CPC, I genuinely think he’s doing great and will happily vote for Liberals again so long as he’s at the helm.
Proportional Representation is what you need for multi-seat bodies like parliament. It’s absolutely the best method for such bodies, imo. For single seat elections, proportional doesn’t work as their are no proportions for a single seat and generally you don’t want to just vote for party for such roles, but individuals themselves. You’ll need something like Ranked Choice or (my preference) Approval voting for those seats to avoid the two party inevitability.
Ranked Choice is a misuse of ranked ballots. Say an election goes like this:
40% vote A > B > C.
35% vote C > B > A.
25% vote B > C > A.Plurality says A wins, because Plurality sucks. You don’t even need a bare majority. You just need everyone else to split.
RCV says C wins: B has the fewest top votes, so they’re eliminated. The race becomes 40% A > C versus 60% C > A. Better… but still wrong, because 65% of people would prefer B > C.
Condorcet methods like Ranked Pairs get that right. They model every runoff: A vs B is 40-60, A vs C is 40-60, B vs C is 65-35. B wins every 1v1 and is obviously the best candidate according to these voters. The supermajority prefers B.
It’s already a 1.5 party system. Our liberal party is just conservatives who aren’t openly racist or bigoted.
