The conservative case for MMP

I'm very pleased that one of my favorite Canadians political columnists is voting for MMP - National Post columnist Andrew Coyne.

In a great piece, he sets out a strong case for why conservatives should be voting for MMP. Here are some highlights:

In the broad strokes, the government of Ontario would look much the same under Mr. Tory as under Dalton McGuinty. It would do much the same things, at much the same cost, with much the same results ... Whoever wins, the forecast is for McGuintory governments, as far as the eye can see.

I’m not blaming either man. Both are simply responding to the incentives in our political system -- notably the method of voting. Sometimes known as “first past the post,” sometimes called “plurality” voting, it should really be called the “winner take all” system, since that captures its most essential dynamic.

He continues to describe how the current system often gives voters less salient choices come election time:

In such a system, as we have seen, victory or defeat can turn on the swing of one or two percentage points.

Living on a knife-edge does strange things to people. On the one hand, it leaves the parties in a perpetual fever of anticipation, convinced they have only to gain a few points in the polls to destroy their opponents. That is one reason the two federal conservative parties, Progressive Conservative and Reform, were so reluctant to merge. It is also the reason why minority governments tend, under our system, to be so unstable.

On the other hand, the consequences of losing a few points makes them excessively, almost neurotically cautious, unwilling to take the slightest risk or advocate the mildest change, but each hugging as close as it can to the median voter, the status quo and each other. Hence the dominance of the two brokerage parties, indistinguishable in philosophy -- alike, that is, in the lack of it.

Put the two together, and you have much of Canadian politics -- viciously partisan, yet unspeakably trivial; much ado about nothing much. McGuintoryism, in short.

Then, the kicker, he argues (cogently, IMHO) that despite progressives' enthusiasm for MMP, it is actually rock-ribbed conservatives who are most hurt by how the current system shapes our politics:

So the case for electoral reform, it seems to me, is one that conservatives, if not Conservatives, should find appealing. It is a cause that has tended, historically, to be identified with the left, not least in the current referendum debate; many conservatives have accordingly rejected it. Yet it is not the left that has suffered most under the current system. It’s the right ...

The spectrum of acceptable ideas for debate would noticeably broaden.

Moreover, because the “winner take all” dynamic would have been broken -- parties get roughly the share of the seats their proportion of the vote would suggest, rather than the highly leveraged payoffs observed under FPTP -- all parties would have less fear of taking risks. True, there would also be less upside: progress would only come by sustained advocacy over many years. Conservatives grouse that a Mike Harris revolution would be unlikely, but so would the NDP disaster that preceded it.

So conservatives, genuine conservatives, have a choice. Hold onto the current system, and hope for a Harris-style change of government every fifty years or so. Or take a chance on something new, and start changing minds today.

Another Coyne masterpiece and one that will hopefully increase the number of thinking conservatives like these three bloggers that support MMP.

Finally, I saw another piece today from a prominent Ontario conservative leader, Family Coalition Party leader Giuseppe Gori. It's much longer but is a good - and detailed - discussion of how accountability to voters is different - and, we would both ,improved under MMP