Where do you want your doctor to place their confidence? In
tradition, authority, or reason? While
tradition and authority do have roles in decision making, I want my doctor's
decisions to be based in reason.
In Canada, we have a tradition of using first-past-the-post
(FPTP) for electing our leaders. The
candidate in the electoral riding with the most votes wins. The media authoritatively inform us that a
party has won a majority. They ignore
the fact that the party has a majority of seats
rather than a majority of votes.
Repeatedly, FPTP produces a phony majority giving all power
to one party so in the next election people vote them out rather than voting a party in. This means a new government spends its energy
and our tax dollars undoing what the last government did; only to have this
process repeated when they are inevitably voted out.
Countries with proportional representation avoid this counter-productive
in-out pattern plus they produce high grades for voter turnout, women and
visible minorities in government, income equality and strong economies, and, my
priority, environmental protection.
The Liberals are mailing you an electoral reform
postcard. When you receive yours, place
your confidence in reason, not tradition or authority. Our democracy needs a system of proportional
representation that means 40% of the vote results in 40% of the seats in the
House of Commons—not 54% of the seats and 100% of the power.
