Why a National Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform?

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Dorito Democracy

The book The Dorito Effect proposes that the cause of our obesity epidemic lies in the food industry's fixation on mouth taste. Why do I specify mouth taste? Apparently other parts of our digestion system have "tastes" too. If these other tastes are not satisfied, we experience the Dorito effect and one Dorito becomes countless Doritos.


There is a parallel here to voting When we vote, we get a taste of power. Sadly, first-past-the-post voting is the equivalent of "mouth taste. It does not satisfy the needs of our democratic system. We can vote countless times and never count.

In 2016, the Electoral Reform Committee heard 88% of its expert witnesses and 87% of the people who stepped up to the mic say they believed a system of proportional representation would satisfy our democratic system.

In 2017, let's give our democratic system the proportional representation it needs to be healthy. Connect with our new Minister of Democratic Reform Karina Gould and tell her you want to experience how democracy tastes with a Canadian-made system of proportional representation. Email Karina.Gould@parl.gc.ca or phone 613-995-0881.

After experiencing a healthy democracy for a few elections, we could ask ourselves then if we wanted to return to a Dorito democracy.

Nancy Carswell, Saskatchewan Chapter Fair Vote Canada Co-spokesperson
Shellbrook, Saskatchewan