Truthiness about MMP and diversity

I did a panel debate at UTM yesterday and after hearing some pretty weak arguments from the defender of the status quo concerning how MMP might affect diversity in the legislature, I knew I had to do a piece about the truthiness of his assertions.

One of the big arguments the forces for democracy have been making is that MMP would increase the representation of women and minority communities at Queen's Park.

Here’s what they say about this question on their website.

QUESTION

Will MMP allow for more women and minorities to be elected?

ANSWER

That is entirely up to the political parties. If political parties do not want to field more women or minority candidates, they are not compelled to do so. There is no guarantee that political parties will put more women or minority candidates on their party lists.

As it stands now, the Liberal Party of Ontario have promised to have women make up 1/3 of their candidate slate, and the Ontario NDP have managed to have women make up 50% of their candidate list for the upcoming election. MMP will not make political parties step up their efforts in this area.

Now, the above quote is technically correct. There is nothing in the proposed MMP system that compels political parties to nominate more women. But is it a reasonable assertion that MMP would not affect female or visible minority representation at Queen’s Park?

Not in the least.

But first, let’s look at how MMP has actually affected minority representation in MMP countries.

It is clear that proportional representation systems, like MMP, elect more women. Of the twenty democracies with the most women elected, they all have proportional voting system. The main western democracies using MMP – Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales – all have at least 50 per cent more women in their parliaments.

Also, the MMP experience in New Zealand provides strong support for arguments that MMP would improve legislative representation for other minority groups. Here's a graphic showing the representation of minorities in the New Zealand House of Representatives, pre- and post-MMP (note that 1996 was the first MMP election in NZ):



As we can clearly see, after adopting MMP, New Zealand saw a dramatic increase in the representation of women, aboriginals and other minority groups. In fact, the number of Maori elected is now greater than their share of the population!

How did this occur? Because parties in New Zealand democratically selected candidate lists that were more reflective of the population than they had when they only selected single candidates in single districts.

Recent polling has shown that between 80 and 90 per cent of Ontario voters would like to see more women elected. Would any party risk alienating this large majority of voters by failing to nominate plenty of female list candidates? Not if they wanted to win the election.

The same goes for candidates from other under-represented groups, like visible minorities, youth and the disabled. The list of at-large candidates will be carefully parsed by the media and interest groups. While parties might be able hide their continued under-representation of their groups in the halls of power under the current system, it is highly likely they would continue to do so under the current system.

This is why it is certain that MMP, or any other proportional voting system that uses multi-member districts, will increase women’s – and other under-represented groups’ – representation at Queen’s Park.

This is why women groups like Equal Voice, the national movement to improve women’s representation in elected office, and several multi-cultural groups have endorsed MMP.

Finally, in the quote above, the enemies of democracy, assert that the increased nomination of women by the Liberals and NDP will increased the number of women elected. Sadly, the logic of the current voting system does not allow this – and I expect those writing that know that full well.

Under first-past-the-post, over half the seats in the province are “safe” – that is, barring massive vote swings, they will be won by one party. Indeed, there are parts of the province that have only been represented by one party for generations. So for women’s representation, what matters less is the number of female candidates, but rather where they are located in the province.

For example, the provincial Liberals have nominated women in more than half of the ridings where incumbents are not running. This is a positive sign, but as the Liberals are unlikely to gain many seats, their proportion of female MPPs is not likely to rise appreciably. The same goes for federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion’s commitment to running 1/3 women candidates. Again, a good principle, but will likely not lead to more women elected if they run mostly in Alberta, the Prairies and Quebec, places where the party is unlikely to make gains.

The evidence is clear, if we’re concerned about having legislatures that better reflect our diversity – and I think we should be – than we need proportional representation. And clearly the best way to get PR is to vote for MMP tomorrow.

No wonder the opponents of democratic improvement feel the need to misinform voters on this.