Time to fix our voting system
What can we do to prevent a future elected dictator?
“Apparently, not a single bloody thing!”, to quote Doug Martens of Teslin. Doug is absolutely right, unless we improve our voting system.
With the help of our present voting system, any political party with less than 40 per cent of the votes can elect a majority of members, which gives them 100 per cent power.
Over half the voters had no effect on the outcome of former elections under our present voting system. If you didn’t vote for the winner in your riding, your vote had the same effect as if you hadn’t voted. This happened to voters of all political parties.
What are the effects of this voting system?
Federally, we recently had the 425-page Bill C-38, the omnibus budget bill, pass through Parliament without one word changed.
Many sections of Bill C-38 were not related to the budget. Not one of the 871 amendments suggested by the opposition were passed. To pass, an amendment would have required 13 out of 166 members of the government to vote with the opposition on it.
Territorially, we had the joint Peel plan rewritten by the government alone. These types of unfairly elected dictatorships would not happen with a better voting system.
Would you like to live in a representative democracy with a balance of power where your vote has a good chance of counting in a meaningful way? If you would, ask your MLA why our legislature is not making it happen.
The government has the power and time in its term to have a better voting system in place before the next election, if they don’t wait too long to start working on it. If the government waits too long, you will be shown the value it places on your vote and true representative democracy.
You can do something to prevent a future elected dictator. Ask your MLA if the government and opposition can work collaboratively for a better voting system.
Dave Brekke
Whitehorse
4 Comments
I’m with B and truetagish on this one. As truetagish basically said, For Mr. Brekke’s perspective to be meaningful, he must not just express his concerns, but also spell out his plan. As B basically said, the US proves that a two party solution can be really sad.
Agreed. The political parties do not tolerate less than 50% of the vote to elect a leader for themselves. The citizens of Canada on the whole should demand the same. Political parties have a ballot system where the bottom candidate drops off and the vote is re-done until one person has 50% plus one vote. The same effect could be easily realized by having an option to give your first and second choice on a territorial or federal ballot. That is just one simple solution to the current situation, there are more.
So we should go to the 2 party system like the US and be screwed no matter which party you vote for? Politics is not black and white or right and wrong. I have liberal views and conservative views and green party views and I vote accordingly every election. Thats what makes our country great. The system isn’t broken when the party you vote for doesn’t win it’s called politics. People should stop being negative and use that energy for something positive.
Im not sure what Mr Brekke wants! We now elect our city, territorial, and federal governments. It is impossible for any party to get a 50% vote when you have four or more parties running!
I spoke to a man who had escape from Iran the other day and he said if you want to see dictator ship take a look at his former country. He was so glad to be in a country where you could cast a vote which was actually counted and said that the Canadian system may not be perfect but was better than most other countries. You can suggest that the government is wrong and not end up in jail or worse.
I ask that Mr Brekke stop and think about what could happen should he start tinkering with the present system.
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