While some chastise the 40% of Canadians who did not bother
to vote, we have to ask ourselves how many of us have tried strategic voting in
the hopes of making our votes count? Strategic
voting is undemocratic. You are not
voting for someone who represents your voice but for the voice of a lesser
evil. This graph shows the past
elections as seats (white bars) and what our House of Commons would look like
if we had proportional representation (red bars).
The FPTP system makes parties more concerned with beating the
competition than engaging in cooperation for a better Canada. While the majority of us are wage slaves, it
appears that the majority of MPs have become party slaves. Like our scientists, our MPs may be kept in
line with an economic whip. Next
election, let's free our MPs and elect a party committed to immediately
implementing proportional representation.
There is a simple way of replacing FPTP with a new Proportional Representation system based on existing single member constituencies. Direct Party and Representative Voting (DPR Voting) is a PR voting system that requires no changes to constituency size or boundaries, or the number of MPs.
ReplyDeleteCompared with First past the post, DPR Voting makes Parliament more ‘party proportional’ in its voting and gives MPs more independence from their parties, but also makes them more accountable to their constituents.
Unlike some PR systems it would not result in a multiplicity of small parties. Introducing the new system would require very little change either for voters or administrators, and thus the cost and disruption of the change would be low.
DPR Voting is a system that could be adapted for use in Canada.