Monday Night MMP link blast

As expected, the discussion of MMP is (finally) starting to increase in the media. There are a few pieces on note that have come out in the past few days that I wanted to bring attention to.

First, today’s Globe and Mail had a great column from Roy MacGregor, who shows why he’s one of the best in the business:

That second vote will be held on whether or not to approve Mixed Member Proportional, a political reform idea that sounds, unfortunately, like a bad title for a porn movie - which may explain the reaction of some shoppers to any mention of it.
It is a bad phrase that has simply not caught on. No one talks "MMP." Some know there will be a "referendum," but not much more.

"Can you give me a quick and easy explanation about the possible repercussions of the referendum question?" a politically aware woman from Northern Ontario writes in an e-mail. "Please keep in mind my attention span, like that of most other voters, is very short for this type of issue."

Quick and easy, I'm afraid, doesn't quite work.

MacGregor continues:

Those behind MMP have put up convincing arguments for MMP being a fairer system and a system that has worked elsewhere, such as New Zealand. It offers hope to the underdog and the marginalized.

One of the supporters' studies says that Ontario elections are essentially decided by 75,000 "super-voters" who just happen to live in tight ridings where the slightest shifts will decide who rules and who sulks. The predicted 4.7 million who will vote on Oct. 10, therefore, will have their government determined by 1.5 per cent of the electorate. Not fair.

Knowing Ontario's reluctance to embrace change, the MMP campaign includes a delightful skit featuring Don Ferguson of the Royal Canadian Air Farce greeting historical change - the 1888 drive to allow non-property owners to vote, the 1919 push to enfranchise women - with a cackling dismissal that to do so would "be the end of civilization as we know it."

It’s great to see MacGregor bring some much needed attention to the debate and we really appreciate the link and the shout-out to the Ferguson video, but I’ve got to disagree with him that you can’t explain MMP in a quick and easy way. I think that those who want to preserve the status quo are very keen to make MMP more complicated than it really is.

Simply, under MMP you get one ballot with two votes. One to pick your favorite local candidate and another to pick your favorite party. The overall standings at Queen’s Park will reflect how we vote on the second vote.

There you go, explained MMP in 39 words.

The other great MMP piece that came out recently was another column by MMPs "great right hope" National Post columnist Andrew Coyne. The column title tells it all - "PR:Debunking the fearmongers". Here are some highlights:

Indeed, apologists for the status quo have more or less given up arguing for first past the post on its merits. The pretense that it delivers "stable majorities" can no longer be sustained: recent elections in Ontario have produced, in order, NDP, Conservative and Liberal governments, none with a majority of the votes, yet each interpreting the support of its own minority as a mandate to impose a succession of radically different policy regimes on the rest of us.

As Coyne, notes the arguments against MMP are generally misinformed, disingenuous or some combination thereof:

So, to take up the first, we are told that changing the system will result in chronic instability, a series of minority governments, one falling after the other; or else that it will lead to chronic gridlock, a legislature divided into dozens of smaller parties, some extremist, who would use their bargaining power to hijack the political process, demanding that one or other of the mainstream parties adopt their agenda in return for their support. The spectre of Israel and Italy are often invoked, as if to cinch the argument.

We can dispose of the last easily enough. One: Israel and Italy are uniquely divided societies, and were long before they adopted PR. Two: Neither country has ever used anything like the mixed system proposed for Ontario, but rather adopted much more extreme forms of PR, with no threshold for support.

As for the more specific fears, they would perhaps be more tenable were we the first country ever to try proportional representation -- were it not already in use, in one form or another, in most of the democratic world. But in fact it is, and in no country have any of the scare stories come to pass ...

As for the prospect of extremist hijackings, that is supported neither by experience nor common sense, depending as it does on a number of increasingly unlikely conditions: that the extremist party has just enough seats to hold the balance of power; that none of the larger parties' members break ranks, but rigidly vote the party line; that, likewise, the mainstream parties are incapable of voting with one another to defeat the extremists; and, most importantly, that none of the parties, large or small, pays any price for their behaviour with the electorate.

In the last line, he says he'll be back with a second column to further debunk the fatuous arguments against MMP in particular. Can't wait!

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention to absolutely horrendous Toronto Star editorial over the weekend.

Vote for MMP rips apart their flimsy arguments in a couple of press releases.

Hat tip also to my friend Queer Liberal who cancelled his Star subscription over their baseless slurs against MMP.