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Can anyone justify carrying on with the first past the post system? I don't see how anyone can be in favour of it when theoretically a party could win 51% of the vote and end up with every single seat in parliament.

Please don't tell me that coalition governments automatically lead to instability, the reason we have all the ruckus in Ottawa at the moment is precisely because of first past the post, it discourages parties from working together. If the parties went into election sknowing that they probably wouldn't be able to form a majority without help maybe they'd be a bit less confrontational and partisan.

   

Hi, and new here.

We need electoral change, but I'm not totally in favour of proportional representation entirely. We need a mix , something like the German and N.Z. parliament. If we had prop. rep. during the last federal election I believe the Greens would have had around 10 seats. We also need fixed election dates and an elected Senate.

   

No Senate at all! Senate is obsolete, since legislative power is now the task of MPs. Let's hire more judges instead of Senators.

   

I'd like proportional representation. Based on the last election the NDP would have had more seats than the Bloc.
Any attempts to bring about change has been voted down and only recently too. At first I was disgusted with our parliamentarians for their reluctance to change the system. But then I heard a debate on this subject on CBC Radio. One guest mentioned that changing the voting system shouldn't be easy. That makes a lot of sense, otherwise we'd be changing things at the whim every party in power.

   

Thirteen seats to be exact. And what is the problem with that? That's 4.3% nationwide that some would just rather see tossed in the garbage. You can't have it both ways. And that's the problem now. They are thrown in the garbage. First past the post means that the people who voted for the candidate have their votes counted towards the government that they want and those that voted for other people behind him/her don't have their vote count towards the government elected. People of all political stripe are frustrated by this.

Let me give one example here from my last municipal election. It happens federally, provincially and every other election in the land. We had 8 people running for council in my riding. The incumbent was known not just for lining his pockets with expense money and under investigation for fraud, but also missed most of the council meetings during his tenure!! Yet he had the most money, so he had the most signs, flyers, newspaper ads, etc. Fortunately he only got 20% of the vote despite all his efforts. Unfortunately, the other 7 candidates split the other 80% equally, thus putting this loser back on council.

The vote splitting leads to a mess, including the people having complete disgust in the whole system. The people in my riding here are pretty pissed off with the whole first past the post process. I don't know how you fix it in municipal elections without party affiliations, but at least we can clean up the electoral mess in other elections.

BTW - I don't vote Green. I would under proportional representation. But instead I hold my nose and usually vote NDP.

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As for the Senate, I agree that I'd like to see the Senate abolished. We see in the United States how when one side holds Congress and the other had the White House how almost nothing gets passed. As Admiral Stockdale said, "gridlock". We have trouble enough getting bills to pass as it is with a divided house. I suspect that with four strong parties, I don't expect any majority government back any time soon. Even less of a chance of that under proportional representation. It will be hard enough to work with the other parties to find something everyone agrees on, much less if they have to work through a senate as well.

   

Oh, I agree it shouldn't be easy. I think it should be the same as BC. Have a national referendum on it. This is something almost everyone agrees on, whether left or right. Especially those of us that follow politics and have strong political views. We want democracy to work, we want everyone's vote to be counted, we want more people to have more faith in the electoral system (faith in the government elected will be a long time coming, but the process by which it is formed should be improved).... I think every vote should count towards the formation of the government. Not winner take all and the rest thrown in the garbage.

And I can see why Conservatives would want this as much as Greens or NDP. Ontario isn't homogoneous. At least 30% want the conservatives. Thirty percent of Ontario is still a lot of seats. And gives a basis for becoming stronger and more accepted.

   

True, but whats wrong with having your vote count, maybe more people would get and vote if they thought it would count for something.

As for the Senate, I'm not sure about abolishing it all together, as long as they are elected I can live with it. If that should come about would you go along equal and elected, or proportional. That would give Quebec and Ontario more seats.

I have a problem with appointing more judges, they are too partisian, I believe appointment of judges should go through a more rigorous screening process also.

   

More people that vote, this sounds good! So, what's wrong with that?



Senate is an old people's home for friends of government. They do nothing useful. But judges, if they are non partisan and truly impartial, do something very important for the society. And more judges will shorten the delays in the justice system. So, let's replace Senators by judges, or let's simply abolish the senate.

   

Not a big fan or proportianal representation. We'd probably a minority government all the time.

The senate is a huge problem. Equal representation by province might be more appropriate.

   

Taken from Wikipedia:

An interesting anomaly in the results of this system arose in the Canadian federal election of 1926 for the province of Manitoba. The province was entitled
to 17 seats in that election. The result was very different from how people voted.

(see link for table)

The Conservatives clearly had the largest number of votes (42.2%) across the province, but received no seats at all. The second party received 7 of the 17 seats with only 19% of the vote.

MAPLELEAVES: What do you mean by Equal representation by province? The same number of MPs in each province ? That would make no sense !

   

I'm all for proportional representation, but the the system we just voted on in BC wouldn't have worked because, simply put, people aren't that smart (and don't have the time). Under the proposed system in some ridings you would vote for as many as 7 candiates. People don't want to spend the time to know which 7 candiates they should vote for.

   

Don't automatically assume voters are too stupid to understand such a system. For an admittedly complex system it almost passed.

Your post reminds me of a quote I read from Winston Churchill: "The best case against democracy is a five minute discussion with the average voter."

   

Too Stupid might have been to harsh, but a lot of people definetly don't have the time to invest learning about candidates. But with 50% of people voting yes to STV it should certaintly spur more debate about what would work.

   

We don't need a Senate. Concretely, what does Senate do useful for the country? Answer : nothing.

For proportional representation, since it seems to produce minority government, I think that when a non confidence vote is won by the opposition before the end of the 4 year term, this opposition could have the possibility to form a second government without elections.

   

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