this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024

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106

Trudeau and Singh's teams quietly planning electoral reform legislation (www.ctvnews.ca)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

As progress on some measures in the Liberal-NDP confidence-and-supply agreement continue to play out publicly, the two parties have quietly been in talks to table electoral reform legislation before the next federal vote.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

While not a full-scale overhaul of the federal voting system as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once promised, within the two-party confidence-and-supply agreement are a series of electoral reform proposals aimed at expanding "the ability for people to vote."

Specifically, the Liberals and New Democrats agreed to explore:

Allowing an "expanded" three-day voting period during general elections;

Allowing voters to cast their ballots at any polling place within their riding; and

Improving the mail-in ballot process with both accessibility and maintaining integrity in mind.

...

Expanding the amount of days Canadians have to cast their ballot may be the most significant proposal currently under negotiation.

Overall not super interesting. These are good proposals of course, but not exactly the kind of electoral reform that I think most of us are looking for. Maybe that will change but I'm not feeling particularly hopeful.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Okay, so their approach to disenfranchised voters:

No actual voting change.
No voting reform.
No enforcement of existing laws forcing companies to give people 8 hours to vote.
We'll give them more days they can vote on! Sure that's the problem.

Eat the rich.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago

No enforcement of existing laws forcing companies to give people 8 hours to vote.

It’s 3 hours not 8 and includes time after your shift so if polls close at 7 and you work until 5 then you are entitled to 1 hour off

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Eat the rich.

Too fatty. Just guillotine them and leave them for the birds.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Show me where it's written in the law that people are supposed to get 8 hours off to vote.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I got excited for a moment.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

So did I, but I guess at this point we should know better.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is not reform:

Specifically, the Liberals and New Democrats agreed to explore:

Allowing an "expanded" three-day voting period during general elections;

Allowing voters to cast their ballots at any polling place within their riding; and

Improving the mail-in ballot process with both accessibility and maintaining integrity in mind.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Yea not reform in the least. It's already really fucking easy to vote here.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago

They're not actually doing much reforming. It's steps in the right direction but nobody is touching fptp

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ill believe it when it actually passes.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, still shame in you.

I'm tired of this fucking lie, but what am I going to do, vote against it?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Oh, so Trudeau's interested in electoral reform again is he? Funny how just after he first got elected all those promises and commitees to look at alternatives to FPTP just faded... but now that he might lose it's suddenly back on the table?

Never forget, the promise was broken.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I wish he was even considering changing FPTP though. According to the article, the changes they're exploring are pretty lackluster.

I wish they'd see the writing on the wall and just throw together a ranked ballot system before we end up with Premier PP. The last thing we need is that fucking capital-fascist in charge. I'd still be pissed that it took being directly in Trudeau's interest before he finally followed through, but I'd still rather it done than not.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

That was the problem the first go-around, the Liberals favoured ranked ballot but would consider STV, the NDP wouldn't support anything other than MMP, the CPC wouldn't support any change, and the Bloc just wanted to play spoiler. The Liberals were in a minority on the committee. The only system they could get agreement on was MMP, which is what was recommended.

MMP is good for proportionality, but it can have issues with party lists, members not tied to geographic areas can be difficult to remove, and responsibility for geographic areas is shared, making it easier to dodge. The biggest drawback is explaining the system to a general public who only have known a one vote, one member, one riding system. Ranked or STV are much easier to explain and the current riding system doesn't need to change.

Anyway, the Bloc and CPC were going to campaign hard on calling any change a Liberal power grab. Internal polling (not the dog and pony show web poll) showed that most voters didn't care about the issue, but the "Liberal Power Grab" would gain traction. With the CPC promising to roll back any changes, the whole thing looked more and more like an effort in futility.

In the end, they decided to take their lumps and move on. After all the heat they took for trying, as far as the Liberals are concerned, the issue is dead.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Go read the article and you'll realize it's the journalist calling it a reform, it isn't, it's improvement to the current system.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Various failures in proportional representation systems elsewhere in the world indicated those systems are fundamentally flawed.

Proportional representation is the system Israel has. A guy like Benjamin Netanyahu can just cut some deals with far right whack jobs and form a coalition to be PM of Israel.

Are you saying you like how that worked out?

Also the EU has a proportional representation system and people in Britain didn't feel the EU parliament represented them. Do we like how that worked out?

The biggest problem with FPTP is the name. Let's rebrand it as Community Representation (because that's what it is) and move on from spreadsheet warriors being triggered by some numbers in one column not matching the other column.

Bottom line is community representation systems represents minority interest better than proportional representation systems. Just because you can't put power dynamics on a spreadsheet doesn't mean they don't exist. In fact power dynamics is the most important thing in politics and the power dynamics in a proportional representation system is completely terrible.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Right now we have a system where a party can have a majority of the seats with as little as 35% of the vote (and technically even less) and you're saying it's worse when the parties have to form alliancess so they represent a majority of the vote in order to hold the reigns?

It's funny because at the moment we are moving towards elections that will put our own right wing/social conservative party in power with a majority while about 60% of the population votes center left to center right, with a proportional system the NDP and Liberals would just form an alliance and represent the majority of the population.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Fuck off Trudeau, deliver on proportional representation or get the fuck out of the way.

[+] [email protected] -14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Israel has a proportional representation system.

Minorities are often shut out from any decision making in a prop rep system.

See in a prop rep system the parties have all the power. Given the likelihood that no one party will get a majority, then a negotiation between parties are necessary. The deals made behind closed doors between parties is all that matters. If a minority group represents 2% of the vote, they likely wont matter in that negotiation. In fact a party representing minority interests can result in the need for the larger party to bring in for radical parties from the opposite end of the spectrum to form a coalition representing 50%+1 of the seats. Which results in the bizarre situation where increase support for a party representing minority interests ultimately results in worse conditions for that minority group.

This is how Israel's proportional representation system played out.

Proportional representation systems only look good from the perspective of a spreadsheet. And maybe from an optics point of view, because the party controls the seats they can have people sitting in those seats that conform to how people want a parliament to look like from a diversity metric or whatever. But make no mistake, whoever sits on those seats is kind of irrelevant, the seats are owned by the party. Whoever sits in those seats have to vote for whatever polices were decided in the backroom deal to form the coalition.

From the perspective of power dynamics a prop rep system is actually super bad. Politics isn't really as mathematical as putting numbers on a spreadsheet might indicate. Prop rep is a top-down party first dynamic.

A Community Representation system, which has a voter first bottom-up power dynamic is far better in my opinion.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

And how is that minority represented in a first past the post system? There's a party in Quebec that got 13% of the vote and not a single seat.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Minority rights should be protected by a strong constitution, which is what is lacking in Israel.

The Netherlands also has proportional representation but with a strong constitution, and minority rights are perfectly protected.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago

Yeah good thing we have a strong constitution in Canada!

cough notwithstanding cough

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Better late than never, even if this is almost guaranteed to be an NDP effort.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

A minority government has been in power for all of Canada's best achievements. This isn't a surprise. The NDP would seem short-sighted in the office and bludgeoned in the press, but as the conscience of the Liberals they have the power to push them for our good.

It's an interesting one-two punch to the cruelty and PR of the Cons. The Libs can defend in the press and play victim to the Dems' horrible machinations - insert dramatic swoon here - and the Cons have to fight both fronts. Accidentally, while no one's looking, Canadians' long-term happiness improves in every way that isn't American Rat-race cool.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Only about looks at watch multiple years late

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The best time would have been on the first day of the administration, after finishing the broken and lame TPP and NAFTA2, equalizing pay in the fed, and then ... aw shit, pandemic. Sure there was a lot of noodling around fixing Harper's multi-year fustercluck, but the timeline before the pandemic was kinda tossed at that point. You remember how hard it was to get ignorant hillbillies to actually vaccinate, right?

The second-best time for non-mortal concerns may be today. Glad to see it's finally getting a look.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

They're not changing the voting system, if the article content is correct. They are just looking at making it easier to vote.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

The Liberals have been net beneficiaries of FPTP in more election than all other parties put together since the 60s. They aren't going to endanger that, ever.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I was so jealous when I found out they have SVT in Australia. We need something like that here. I hope they at least get to have a discussion about it during these talks.

Having a good voting system means a better democracy and more accountability placed on the politicians to represent the people. With FPTP, Trudeau doesn’t have to care as much if he fucks up and gets the left wingers to dislike him because he knows that they will vote for him anyway in order to prevent a conservative majority. With SVT for instance we will just vote Trudeau away when he does some bullshit in favour of an NDP government or other.

Increased accountability is especially important because we need those fuckers to address the climate crisis and a more democratic voting system would mean there would be real consequences for the politicans if they fail to do so.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Hasn't made much difference in Australia. Much of the last 50 years has been a coalition between the right-wing Liberals and the right-wing, rural grievance, National party.

Along with different voting systems come different voting patterns. We could easily end up with coalition of the CPC , Bloc, and similar regional grievance parties.

Some people seem to think that a change to a proportional system would shut out the CPC. There is absolutely no guarantee that that would be the case.

Likud in Israel has little popular support, something like 30% in the last election, but they managed to cobble together an assortment of extremist parties to gain power. It's not much different in Italy, Hungary, Türkiye etc, where various fascist parties have gained and maintain control.

Just to be clear, I'm not oppose to change. I'm pointing out that while the voting system is important, having an engaged and educated voter is importanter.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The point is that a proportional voting system would be more democratic overall. There would still be a right and left wing split but it would allow for many more parties with differing perspectives to exist within it.

Coalitions are always a possibility but I’d rather have two left and right wing coalitions made up of 5+ parties than a two party system as coalitions are less likely to be as unified. Also more diversity probably reduces corruption and regional grassroots movements may have an easier path towards attaining political power.

And like you said, such a change wouldn’t prevent fascism from taking hold either. Fascism never respects democracy and as such it cannot be dealt with by changing our voting systems. Rather, I believe the best way to deal with it is to explicitely ban it by law, paradox of intolerance style. In other words, you shouldnt be able to vote for someone who doesn’t believe in voting or in democracy. Also education is very important in this matter like you said.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

As someone who’s grown up within a proportional systems that’s exactly what happens; there’s space for the little parties to exist and compromises are made in parliament, not in the back rooms.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

canadian politics are interesting to say the least

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Too little too late. Huge broken promise.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

It would be fun to throw something random in there like term limits. I'd appreciate barring anyone who has been an MP for 20 years from running again.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Conservatives might win, time for election reform!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Did you read the article? They're just making it easier to vote (3 day voting window, expanding mail in votes, etc.) they're not doing any serious changes

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

No, it's clear by the comments in this thread that most people didn't read the article.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Well if most Canadians don't want a conservative government isn't it in our interest? Doing Ford was re-elected in Ontario by 19% of the electorate...