Do you think Canada’s electoral system is broken? Before the Liberal Party swept to power in the October 2015 election, they ran on a campaign platform promising that, if elected, 2015 would be the last election under Canada’s current electoral system.
In June 2016, the House of Commons appointed a special committee to “identify and conduct a study of viable alternate voting systems to replace the first-past-the-post system, as well as to examine mandatory voting and online voting,” according to the Parliament of Canada website.
The committee, which has been tasked with making a recommendation on a replacement system by December 1, 2016, invited all of Canada’s 338 ridings to hold Town Hall meetings on the issue and provide feedback. To date, Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement has held none in this riding.
The Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW), a non-partisan group, is urging residents in Muskoka to get involved in the debate. They are in favour of electoral reform using a proportional representation system. “The Canadian electoral system is broken. Canadians are not being represented by the current electoral process, which favours false majorities, strategic voting and wasted votes,” states their brief on the issue, which can be found here.
“With no local Town Halls, the overall response rate is likely to be low leaving gaps by postal code in the data collected and the impression that Muskoka doesn’t care about the issue,” CFUW said in a media release sent to Doppler.
This is how Fair Vote Canada, a multi-partisan citizens’ campaign for voting system reform that supports proportional representation, says the last election would have looked with a different electoral model. (Image: fairvote.ca)
We contacted Clement to ask why he hasn’t held Town Hall meetings on the issue. Clement said his preference has been to send out a “householder” to every single household in the riding “with the view to get the views of my constituents including on whether there should be a referendum before any significant change on how we elect our MPs is enacted,” he said. Clement was re-elected to office in 2015 by a margin of 2,269 votes with 22,206 votes or 43.3 per cent. The next-closest candidate was Trisha Cowie of the Liberal Party of Canada with 19,937 votes or 38.9 per cent.
Clement held back no punches. He accused the Liberals of pushing “their preferred solution through the House of Commons” and called on a referendum to be held on the issue before any changes are made.
In terms of his mail-out he said, “so far there have been hundreds of respondents, which is far in excess of what typically you get out of a Town Hall meeting in any particular location. I’m monitoring it. If response rate is low, then I’ll revisit the issue.”
Clement said he would publish the responses on his website but said his sense so far is that “people are interested in having a much fuller debate on the issue rather than just a couple of Town Halls. That they want to see a referendum before any significant change is done on how we elect MPs.”
Clement said his constituents have also expressed fear that with electoral reform, smaller communities will have their representation diluted under a mixed proportional representation system by having their ridings merge with larger areas.
Asked about his thoughts on electoral reform, Clement said it’s Parliament that needs improvement.
I’m not sure electoral reform is necessarily the thing to do. I think we have to make sure the Parliament functions better and that Parliamentary representatives have more day-to-day say. Unfortunately some of the trends with the new Liberal government are going the opposite direction. At the end of the day this commission [the committee established to analyze electoral reform] which has MPs from all parties, absolutely, will make a report and the report will go to Cabinet and Cabinet is full of 100 per cent Liberal MPs.
Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement
Clement called the move undemocratic. “I think it’s a constitutional convention in today’s day and age, because it’s 2016, that if you’re going to change the way you elect your MP, if you’re going to change the way the House of Commons is elected, people should have a say.”
Every referendum on the issue thus far has failed. Yet the issue keeps rearing its head, especially at the provincial level with proponents arguing that the way Canadians vote is not properly reflected in electoral outcomes. See some of that history compiled by the political science department of Simon Fraser University here.
Canadians have until October 7 to add their voice to the issue by filling out an online questionnaire here.
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Transform the whole process and let’s dare to have a real progressive system that recognizes everyone’s participation & interactivity.
More voters chose others over Tony Clement In this riding, so let’s have the tools to allow the many more to rid the riding of the likes of Tony brought about by vote splitting. The same can go for Norm Miller.
Reminder to Tony Clement, last elections MORE people voted against Tony, but due to vote splitting he got elected. We are wise Tony and we want change so we can get rid of you and your party, same should go for the likes of Norm Miller. Give us the tools to have the many choose NOT to have you as a representative, when clearly we did not voter for you or Norm !
Thank you for the link to the online questionnaire. Given the biased nature of Mr. Clement’s mailing (clearly pro-referendum), I wasn’t confident that filling it out and sending it back to him would accomplish anything. In my mind, the previous election WAS the referendum. The Liberal Party’s platform clearly stated that they would pursue electoral reform, and I think that’s one of the reasons for their resounding win.
From this article I would say that the MP Tony Clement has decided that his mail outs are better (I have an address in the riding and I have not received his mail out but always receive his letters) than a public meeting.
The article suggests a town hall be held in each riding, shouldn’t it be done or at least considered?
If voters are being asked for input how is electoral reform being rammed through?
If you don’t consult your constituents then your vote in the House is your position.