Abstaining from blogging

Hi blogosphere, I missed you. I finally submitted the thesis (Electoral Reform in PEI: A case study in deliberative democracy, a future classic) last month. Now that I'm looking for honest employment, I suppose I could blog on a more regular basis, but I'm really enjoying the laziness lately.

Just had to come back to hype up this brilliant idea. In that spirit, I may have to abstain from washing the rest of the dishes piling up near the kitchen sink ;)

I've got some thoughts on the Irish referendum, so I'll probably be back with those sometime next week. Over the weekend, I'll be going to this event at Queen's. I understand there still might be spots, so if your in the area and a political dork, maybe I'll see you there!

Confidential to IP, congrats, I think you'll do a stellar job. Let me know if you need any help!

Still entitled to their entitlements ... 26 months later

I just couldn't resist blogging about this one - the latest Liberal opposition motion, a clearly desperate attempt to distract voters from the Dion-Harper coalition. And it's not just this Dipper saying that, Canada's foremost blogger-from-France Paul Wells agrees.

After a budget amendment that decried the Tory government's "NDP-like lack of fiscal prudence" (which of course ignores the evidence from the Finance department that shows that NDP goverments in Canada have had the BEST record of fiscal surpluses of any party), now the Liberals are bringing forward a motion that "condemn[s] the irresponsible and self-serving actions on Nov. 25, 2005, by the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois which led to the installation of a government that is hostile to the rights and needs of vulnerable Canadians."

I've got to agree with the unnamed NDP strategist, this motion is laughable!

Funny, I could've sworn it was CANADIAN VOTERS that put the Harper government in office.

Have the adults left the Official Opposition offices? Do they really think that this sort of whining does anything to bring the Liberals closer to power? Methinks it was precisely this sort of sense of entitlement that led voters to want to turf the Martin government out of office in the first place.

As this blogger notes, "don't expect that the average Canadian is still seething over that last election... they aren't. They've moved on. So should [Liberals]."

And Stephane if you keep this kind of whining up, you'll never get to see the inside of 24 Sussex. The smart Liberal bloggers realize this as well.

Truthiness about MMP and "fringe" parties

Another favorite canard of the defenders of the electoral status quo is that proportional representation, like MMP, will hand our government over to "fringe parties" and extremists who will bring in government policies that most voters abhor.

As the Toronto Star wrote in an editorial that will hopefully become infamous:

Routinely, whoever heads the leading party is forced to cater to the demands of small, sometimes radical special-interest parties that enjoy no wide support, just to stay in power. That in itself is a distortion of the voters' will.

Except well, there's NO evidence to show that situation has happened anywhere in the world under a PR system. In fact, I've been all over the internet for months now asking people who make those kind of statements to back them up with concrete examples. But for some reason, they never provide them?

But the media elites and opponents of fair elections won't let silly little things like reality getting in the way of their campaign to defeat MMP.

Under proportional systems, even when smaller parties enter into government they never get to enact their unpopular policies. Why? It’s simple when you think about it. All parties in a coalition government will be held to account for their policies, so why would larger parties risk losing support by bringing in “extreme” and unpopular positions?

They wouldn’t and, if people looked at the evidence, they don’t.

Don't take my word for it. Here's what Campaign Life Coalition - "a Canadian national pro-life organization" and "one of the first pro-life organizations to emphasize the international dimension of attacks on life and family" - has to say about MMP, in a piece entitled "We Oppose Proportional Representation":

"We understand that there is great disillusionment with the current political situation and frustration with the lack of progress on moral issues in the political arena. CLC appreciates that many people are looking to electoral reform as an answer to these issues ...

Some pro-lifers believe that proportional representation will result in the appointment of Family Coalition Party members at the provincial level and Christian Heritage Party candidates at the federal level ...

There are very few examples of social conservative legislation being passed in countries with PR. This summer The Interim newspaper had a team of three people examine the records of other countries to track the progress of prolife and pro-family legislation in countries with PR. They found just one significant example. In the Netherlands, the Christian Union Party, as part of the coalition government there, has effected some positive change in closing down brothels, reducing the number of marijuana shops and introducing guidelines requiring cooling off wait times for abortions.

But, for the most part, the researchers at The Interim found the reverse to be true: many countries with PR have experienced an advance of anti-life and anti-family agendas in recent years"

In fact, evidence shows that citizens in PR countries, like MMP, are more satisfied with government and feel better represented.

The cross-national comparisons show that citizens in countries using PR are significantly more satisfied than those in countries using systems like ours.

In another measure of voter satisfaction, it has been demonstrated that in PR countries the difference in voter satisfaction between winners of the election (those who voted for parties in government) and losers (those who voted for parties not in government) is significantly SMALLER in countries with PR systems.

Finally, two different studies, using data from the late 70s to mid 80s, shows that governments in PR countries are more like be closer to the median voter, as measured on a left-right scale.

Does that sound like what you'd find from countries where "the voters' will is distorted" and are ruled by "fringe" or "extremist" elements? Didn't think so, looks like we've found more truthiness about MMP!

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.

Truthiness about the Citizens’ Assembly

I haven't been able to put as much time as I've wanted to on my series about the "truthiness" of the defenders of the electoral status quo. But I've started a few and I promise to squeeze out a few more between now and referendum day. First is a piece about the truthiness being spread about the heroes of the Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.

There are many things that are frustrating about the campaign to preserve the electoral status quo, but one of the most frustrating is how they have ignored, suppressed and distorted how the Assembly brought us to this historic referendum.

Its ultimate success remains to be seen, but it is clear that the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly can be seen as an innovative experiment in making the ideas of deliberative democracy a reality.

The Citizens’ Assembly – promised by the McGuinty government in the 2003 election – was based on a similar experiment in British Columbia and built on that experience. It is premised on the idea that average citizens can come together to make good decisions on various policy issues. In particular, it is seen as a particularly good method for studying electoral reform as politicians face a fundamental conflict of interest when it comes to evaluating the system that elects them.

Jonathan Rose, Queen’s political scientist and academic director of the Assembly, told the Kingston Whig Standard why he wanted to be a part of the process:

Rose became involved in the process because, he said, political scientists always talk about the capacity of citizens to reason, but no one has ever had this opportunity in the province.

The assembly "really put it to the test," he said. "Are citizens able to learn about complex political issues? And they can."

The members of the Assembly spent months learning about electoral systems, consulting with Ontarians and deliberating on the question of which electoral system who best meet Ontario's democratic aspirations for the next century. I wouldn't go so far as to say voters should reflexively support their recommendation, but I think we owe it to them to inform ourselves about how and why they chose MMP. Thankfully, their original website is still up and has an overwhelming amount of publicly accessible material. All in all, the Assembly is a model of open and transparent public policy making.

Throughout the process, the Assembly contracted the respected Institute on Governance think tank to evaluate their work. Here's what they had to say about the Assembly in their evaluation report, which is available online here in PDF:

The whole Assembly process was undertaken in an open and transparent manner and is well documented for the benefit of future exercises of a similar nature. It serves as a model of how to engage and empower citizens to deliberate and decide on selected public policy questions

Most disturbingly, the opponents of MMP are trying to mislead Ontarians on the topic of the Citizens’ Assembly, likely because they (logically) think that the more voters know about the Assembly and its work, the more likely they are to support its recommendation.

Either the opponents of MMP are completely ignorant of their work (which is kind of disturbing to see from people arguing against their recommendation) or they are choosing not to fairly present it to voters. Here are some of the falsehoods they're spreading about the Citizens' Assembly.


TRUTHINESS - the Citizens assembly was "appointed"

Here are some distortions from an email the opponents of democracy are sending out across the province:

“The government spent millions of our dollars on a Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform. Purportedly, the members of the Citizens Assembly were chosen randomly but no one can establish which database or what information was used to determine such random participation, or history making participants.”

Actually, we do know how the Assembly was chosen and that information could be easily found out by anyone with decent research skills. As the Assembly process was marked by transparency, all their learning material and the results of their consultation phase are still available online here.

TRUTHINESS - ”The people of Ontario did not ask for this referendum.”

Actually, the Citizens’ Assembly was promised by the Liberal government in the last election. Are MMP opponents encouraging governments to break their promises – or just the ones they disagree with? That doesn’t seem like democracy to me.

Rose describes how the group was selected very well in this quote from a recent speech he gave in Kingston:

Formed in spring 2006, the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform was made up of 103 citizens, one from each riding in the province, plus a chair - Kingston's own George Thomson, who is a retired judge and former deputy minister. Half of the assembly was men and half women, and it had at least one aboriginal. Most importantly, the Citizens' Assembly was independent of government. It was given the task of assessing our electoral system and others in use around the world. After a thorough analysis, it had to recommend whether Ontario should keep its current system or adopt another one. If it did recommend change, it had to provide design details about what that system should look like.

Members were randomly selected last spring in a process run by Elections Ontario, which sent out 124,000 letters asking voters if they wanted to be part of the assembly. From the 10,000 who replied, 1,000 voters were invited to attend selection meetings across the province where 103 assembly members were randomly selected by drawing a name out of a box. At these meetings, the feeling of excitement at being picked was palpable. More than one member who was chosen was heard to say that it felt like winning a lottery. But why? This was for the chance to devote two weekends a month from September to May to discussing a subject that many had not thought about; to work on a project that would have no immediate benefit to them except the opportunity to talk to and learn from their fellow citizens. So rare in a democracy is this form of policy-making. In fact, other than in British Columbia, there has never been a citizens' assembly. It says a lot that the opportunities are rare for citizens to be part of a meaningful public conversation on an important matter.
The assembly was diverse in terms of age, occupation, education, country of origin and political beliefs. Members spoke a total of 28 languages, while 66 were born in Ontario, 27 were born outside of Canada and 11 were from other provinces. This great diversity meant that there were many perspectives and experiences from which the group could draw. It was remarkable that people who had nothing in common could work so effectively together in developing a proposal. Author James Surowieki describes this as the "wisdom of crowds."

It is the first citizens' assembly for Ontario and the second time in Canada that this innovative model of policy-making has been attempted. The rationale for letting citizens make this decision was simple: politicians are elected to make policy decisions but have a conflict of interest when it comes to choosing what system should be used to elect them. To paraphrase a British MP, "Asking politicians to vote for an electoral system is a little like asking turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving." An electoral system - how votes are translated into seats - is so fundamental to democracy that it should reflect the preferences of citizens, not those whose interests it could benefit.

TRUTHINESS - the mandate of the Citizens’ Assembly pointed them in a particular direction

Other status quo lovers are baselessly charging that the Assembly was tricked or mandated into “strengthening political parties” by the terms of their mandate. Even smart and politically saavy folks like sponsorship scandal whistleblower Allan Cutler, who wrongly comments on Rick Anderson’s blog that “the Citizens Assembly did an admirable job given that they were given a mandate that was to increase the power of the party system.”

Here’s the actual principle from the mandate given to the Assembly from the legislative committee that directed their work.

Effective Parties - the system supports strong parties that can offer different perspectives.

Clearly, this says NOTHING about “strengthening” political parties. It calls for effective political parties, which is very different – and very reasonable – consideration in designing an electoral system. Even the most cynical observer of politics has to recognize that no jurisdiction as large or as populous as Ontario functions without political parties. All the Assembly was asked to do was to consider how their decision would affect political parties.

And if the political parties are given so much more power under MMP, how come they aren’t openly campaigning for it? Or are they more concerned about it because MMP makes parties more accountable to voters by giving them a vote that counts?

TRUTHINESS - the Citizens’ Assembly was a “biased” body

Another outright fabrication from the naysayers:

As for the assembly, you have a selection bias problem with the Citizen's Assembly, which is overwhelmingly stocked with zombies from Fairvote, whose preformed opinions have been reinforced with more conversations with other such zombies. The Citizen's Assembly is a lobby group.

As noted above, Assembly members were randomly selected by Elections Ontario. None of them were Fair Vote members. Although I'm sure some of them are more interested in getting involved with the multi-partisan movement for electoral reform now that they've seen how the media and entrenched interests have distorted and misrepresented their hard work.

Also, I've heard it charged that the Assembly's learning phase pointed them towards reform or MMP specifically. If that was the case, it wasn't evident to the Assembly members themselves. As part of the independent evaluation of the Assembly, the members rated the neutrality of the secretariat and the facilitators 4.6 out of 5.


Conclusion

As noted above, the Citizens’ Assembly was randomly selected. But this created a decision-making body far more representative of Ontario than the current legislative assembly.

Here are some statistics from the Assembly's extensive background report - of course, available online here - and summarized here.

Gender

52 women and 52 men (including the chair who was a man).

Currently, there are only 26 female MPPs at Queen's Park.

Age

18 to 24: 11 25 to 39: 23 40 to 54: 32 55 to 70: 26 70+: 12

Currently, there is only ONE MPP under the age of 40.

Place of birth

Ontario: 66 Other provinces: 11 Outside Canada: 27 (Citizens' Assembly members were born in Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Croatia, Egypt, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, Iraq, Korea, Malta, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Serbia, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States).

There are currently only 18 immigrant MPPs and 8 visible minority MPPs.

Language

The Assembly members spoke a combined total of 28 languages: English, French, Arabic, Aramaic, Bengali, Cantonese, Dutch, Fanti, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Ibo, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Maltese, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Ukrainian, and Urdu.

I'd bet that with only 18 immigrant MPPs and 8 visible minority MPPs, our provincial legislators are less multi-lingual than the mosaic of the Citizens' Assembly.

As you can see, the Assembly is clearly more representative of Ontario's diversity than Queen's Park. I think this gives their deliberations an added legitimacy.

When Ontarians head to the polls and get their referendum ballots, they face a crucial choice about the future of our democracy.

They can believe the backrooms and the party bosses that MMP is bad for Ontario. That will mean either choosing to remain ignorant about the positive record of MMP in countries that use it or pretending that record doesn’t make a difference.

Or voters can trust the the group of average people like us who got an amazing education on the topic of voting systems and came up with a moderate and sensible recommendation for modernizing the way we elect our representatives.

Maybe that's why the defenders of the status are so set on misrepresenting the Citizens' Assembly's work.

Respected public servant Tom Kent calls for Ontarians to Vote for MMP

One of the great people I've had the pleasure of meeting through my electoral reform activism is Tom Kent, former principal secretary to Pearson, academic, and respected public servant. At a conference at Queen's last year, I got the chance to chat briefly with him about electoral reform, the Liberal leadership race and to thank him for a piece he'd written for the PEI MMP campaign.

He's got a stellar piece in the Globe and Mail this morning. Here are some highlights:

The referendum choice is between realism and romanticism. People who want to stick close to what is familiar are usually seen as the realists. This case is different. It is pure romanticism to believe that we can go back to the good old days when politics was the normal business of two grand old parties. And since we can't, the current electoral system is indefensible.

It worked well enough in the past. But a world war followed the economic breakdown of the 1930s and began the rapid transformation of technology and society. For 60 years, our way of empowering governments has been out of joint with the times. That is the underlying cause of the great public disillusion with politics. Realists recognize the fact

Kent notes just how ancient our current voting system is:

Our current way of choosing governments goes back to the time when leaders of local interests tamed the power of English kings. The resulting parliament gradually moved to democracy, notably when the franchise was extended to women ...

As long as government had a relatively small part in our lives, political opinions could be easily concentrated between just two parties. As public affairs have become more complex, opinions about them have inevitably become more divided. And with more than two parties, the old electoral system cannot work either efficiently or fairly.

I particularly like Kent's conclusion:

Some people worry that members nominated provincially, not by party associations in the constituencies, would strengthen the self-seeking "party boss" element in politics. If that were so, the big party organizations would be backing MMP. They are not, because electoral reform would force politicians to improve their ways.

Now only one party at a time, with a majority in the legislature, though not in public opinion, has an interest in the practical business of government. Political controversy is concentrated on negatives, not on what should be done. With electoral reform, politicians will have less incentive to make special promises to special interests, and more incentive to campaign on what is good for the province as a whole. They will need to co-operate with other parties to get things done. The mood of politics will shift significantly from mindless, spin-doctoring combat toward more constructive competition.

This is not to predict instantaneous conversion. The atmosphere of public cynicism surrounding politics is too heavy for quick dispersion.

But electoral reform is a matter not only of fairness, of every citizen's right to have his/her vote count equally with others. It is necessary for rebuilding public confidence and participation in public affairs. On Oct. 10, the people of Ontario can take a decisive step that way. By endorsing a two-vote electoral system, we can move toward a future of constructive democratic government.

But after that great opinion piece, we then find the Globe making this unconscionable factual error in this piece - "The parties would be allowed to appoint a number of members from their lists based on their share of this vote".

If you're as shocked as me with this now debunked error, maybe you'll take a second to ask the Globe to print a correction in tomorrow's paper.

The big lie about MMP

From a recent Vote for MMP email that we've been sending around:

The defenders of the status quo have been repeating a statement about MMP that is fundamentally wrong: that the new at-large seats would be filled by “appointment” rather than by election.

Set aside for a moment the obvious question: why would a Citizens’ Assembly of Ontario voters propose something so stupid? Because they didn’t.

Every legislator under MMP would be elected – put in office by attracting votes and removed from office by losing votes. All of the party leaders have already said their parties would use a democratic process to nominate their at-large candidates (standard practice in all MMP countries). Those candidates are then elected according to how successful they and their parties are at attracting votes.

Electing candidates to fill at-large seats, as well as riding seats, gives voters stronger and better representation than we have now – which is why the Citizens’ Assembly recommends MMP.

Here's a great release from the campaign on this issue. Hopefully the media will give it similar prominence as the defenders of the status quo's hysterical - and now clearly unfounded - claims about appointed candidates.

"Appointed" List MPP myth debunked

A little birdy sent me an email from Don Guy at the Liberal campaign. Here it is:

We are committed to choosing all of our candidates through a democratic and transparent process. We are pleased that our party attracts people from all walks of life and we will continue to work to ensure our party reflects the diverse and multi-cultural nature of Ontario.

We are pleased to be the only party to meet its Equal Voice target of nominating at least 50% of women in our unheld ridings for this election campaign. And we remain committed to further improving the prospects of women candidates running for our party in the future.

So now that all of the major political parties in Ontario have committed to democratically selecting their list candidates under MMP, I expect that defenders of the electoral status quo will stop misinforming Ontarians by claiming they will.

Intellectual honesty would demand that, I'd think.

(More on this important issue at Scott's Diatribes, Democratic Space and Liberals for MMP)

Adventures in MMP - Northern edition

Sorry the blog posts were more sporadic last week but I had less time to write (and more sporadic internet access) last week as I did a little trip up to Northern Ontario to do some speaking engagements with some student unions in the North that have got behind the push for MMP.

Tuesday was a crappy day thanks to a really late Canadian. I’ve enjoyed my travels with VIA this summer but getting up really early, only to get to Union Station and find out the train to Sudbury was going to leave five hours late! By the time to got to Sudbury, rented a car (if you’re ever renting a car in Sudbury, go with Marc at Discount – top notch service!) and drove to Sault Ste. Marie – it was nearly 3:00 a.m. by the time I got tucked into my bed.

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to speak to a small lunchtime crowd of students at Algoma University College over some pizza and fair trade coffee. We first had a very good presentation from the Elections Ontario referendum information officer for that riding – who should be commended for an informative and balanced presentation. We’d heard less than glowing reviews of the information officers’ presentations but I was impressed by how this retired teacher got across the material.

I was also joined at the session by recently retired Algoma political science professor Terry Ross and the very articulate local member of the Students’ Assembly, a high school Kid named Spencer.

Prof. Ross brought the discussion back the essential principles of democracy – equality and majority rule – and argued that while the status quo fails those principles, MMP ensures that all voters are equal at the ballot box and that we are ruled by governments that reflect the views of a majority of Ontarians.

Spencer echoed a call made by his colleagues in the Student’ Assembly and bemoaned the lack of education about the referendum and the persistence of myths about MMP.

After our presentations, we took questions from the students who stayed around for close to an hour and a half. As expected, many of them were concerned about the issue of Northern representation, which I’ll get back to later in this post.

Wednesday evening, I manned the literature while my friend June MacDonald, the driving force behind Women for Fair Voting gave a great presentation to the Zonta club. I thought June did a great job and I was really impressed with you this group of female leaders reacted to MMP. Many of them expressed concerns that voters are not sufficiently informed on the facts about MMP and were glad to take literature to educate their social circles. And after all, that’s how we will win this referendum – one voter at a time.

On Thursday morning, I caught up on some emails and drove back to Sudbury. I really enjoyed the making the drive back during the day. It was a really scenic drive and I’m glad to have made it while the Fall colours were out. I look forward to making the trip again in a time where I can be less worried about political things and can just take in the landscape.

When I got to Sudbury that evening, I spoke to a small crowd at Laurentian and met with a group of campus activists who are working hard to get the word about how MMP in Sudbury. It was also nice that some media were in attendance and I got to speak to the local cable station Persona 10 (you can find part of my presentation online here) and CBC Radio for Northern Ontario.

My trip up North was great but certainly indicated that Northerners are concerned about how MMP might affect their community. However, it was frustrating that the defenders of the status quo are pushing several unsupported statements to try and keep down support for a new and fairer voting system in the North.

As I said when I was up North, I may not be from that community, but I think I understand their concerns about their economic future. Being from PEI myself, I can relate to the concerns about the exodus of young people from resource producing communities. But it is crucial to note that the relative decline of North has occurred under the existing electoral system. So it would be appear to me that first-past-the-post isn’t exactly good for Northern issues. And I think there’s little concrete evidence to support the assertion that MMP would be any worse.

So to that end here are some of the myths about how MMP would affect Northern Ontarians.

MYTH - MMP would mean less attention paid to Northern concerns

On my drive into Sudbury, I heard a CBC radio story that has Sudbury mayor John Rodriguez lamenting the prominence of Northern issues in the ongoing election campaign. So again, it would appear that the current system is not good for bringing Northern issues to the fore it would seem. But why is this?

FACT – The current system leads to parties ignoring certain regions

Simply, the logic of winning elections under first-past-the-post – where all votes are most certainly not equal – ensures that parties concentrate their efforts on “swing voters” in coveted “swing seats”. As Greg Morrow noted in a great press release from Vote for MMP last week (which regrettably was ignored by the media), this distorts the policy priorities of parties:

“Under Ontario’s outdated voting system, the outcome of next month’s election will once again be decided by about 75,000 “super-voters”, whose lucky location and vote-changeability mean their votes count for a whole lot more than the other millions of Ontario voters, says election expert Greg Morrow of democraticSPACE.

“One would think that in a democratic system, the votes of all Ontario voters should count equally,” says Morrow, who also works with Ipsos Reid on election seat projections. “But in reality, under Ontario’s unrepresentative first-past-the-post voting system, only a small fraction of votes end up deciding the outcome one way or another.”

Based on past elections, an estimated 4.7 million Ontarians will vote on Oct 10. In a recently-published online report, Morrow estimated that only about 1.5% of voters will determine the outcome of the election. Under today’s FPTP system, “since the government is decided by a series of one-on-one riding battles, it will be determined by 5% of voters in the closest 30% of the ridings.”

Vote for MMP Chair Rick Anderson, an experienced electoral strategist goes on to explain how the status quo ensures that regions like the North can often be ignored at election time:

“Rather than court all voters in all parts of the province, the undemocratic first-past-the-post system encourages parties to focus on a tiny minority of strategically-targeted voters,” said Anderson. “A proportional voting system such as MMP gives equal weight to all voters, meaning that parties need to compete for votes in all parts of the province. Whether a vote is cast in Timmins or Toronto, for party A or party B, in a swing riding or a safe one - they will carry the same weight and value under MMP.”

“This deeply changes the way parties compete for votes - and how they govern when in power,” said Anderson. “Under first-past-the-post, parties know they can win overwhelming control of the legislature and governing agenda with as little as 40 per cent of the votes. When parties focus on swing ridings, other voters, other ridings, and entire regions become a less-than-equal part of the picture when the cold hard calculus of policy-making is applied.”

“It’s time to replace the two-tier democracy and ’super voters’ of our winner-take-all system, and modernize our democracy by adopting MMP on October 10.”

Frankly, it’s no wonder that the North is marginalized under the current system. The swing voters and ridings are just not in the North. As Morrow notes, the real fight is concentrated in Southern ridings between the Liberals and the PC, primarily in the 905 region.

But under MMP, the logic of winning elections would be completely different. Parties would not be able to take strongholds for granted, as it’s in their interest to get as many votes as they can in every riding. Also, parties would not be encouraged to ignore areas where they don’t expect to win local seats. Every vote, even when in a region where a party is relatively weak, is counted towards electing members at Queen’s Park.

MMP means more competition for voters – in all regions of the province. This will very likely mean MORE attention paid to Northern concerns.

MYTH - MMP will mean less Northern MPPs

As mentioned, this was a concern I heard repeatedly; however, there is NO BASIS for this claim. It would be accurate to say that we don’t know how many Northern MPPs there would be under MMP. There could be a slight decrease – or a slight increase – in the proportion of MMPs at Queen’s Park that come from North of the French River if we move to MMP.

The result will be influenced by two factors. First, how the legislature redraws the new 90-seat electoral map and, second, the proportion of Northern candidate on the party slates of “at-large” candidates.

But there are a couple of important things that we can be relatively sure of under MMP. First, it’s that we can expect to an increase in the absolute number of Northern MPPs. As the legislature size increases slightly, we can be very confident that there will be at least the current number of MPPs that have offices in the North.

Equally importantly, we can be very confident that MMP will be that Northern members are elected from all political parties represented at Queen’s Park. This is not an insignificant change. It will ensure that Northern voices are included in all party caucuses and that Northern issues are taken into consideration during party policy-making processes.

The existing voting system distorts election results in Northern Ontario. This becomes crystal clear by looking at the results in the last seven elections.

First, it took dramatically different numbers of votes to elected MPPs from different parties. The past seven elections saw NDP voters in the North get the best representation as it took on average 18,144 votes to elect a NDP MPP. On the other hand, it took almost 50 per cent more votes (26,826) to elect a Liberal MPP and 30,795 votes to elect a PC MPP.

Interestingly, we have seen more NDP MPPs from the North than Liberal ones, despite the latter party winning over 50,000 mote votes in the North than the NDP since 1981 (831,600 compared to 780,192). Since 1981, the NDP have sent 43 MPPs to Queen’s Park, while the Liberals have only elected 31.

Meanwhile, the PCs have only earned about 135,000 less votes than the NDP in the North (646,704 compared to 780,192), but have won less than half the seats (21 compared to 43)!

FACT – We don’t know what the new map will look like

On the question of the new map, no one, either in the pro-MMP or pro-status quo camps, knows what final shape it would take. It should be noted that in the last re-distribution the legislature did not increase the size of Northern districts, recognizing their already vast geographical expanse. It is certainly possible that they might make similar accommodations when redrawing the district boundaries for MMP.

From my perspective, it is very justifiable under MMP to have slightly less populous riding in less densely populated areas. Under the current system, where the legislature is shaped by 107 individual riding races, there are concerns about inequality of votes when some ridings are much larger than others. But under MMP, the shape of the legislature is determined the province-wide vote totals for each party. As someone who lives in a larger urban riding, I would have no problem with Northern ridings remaining the same size under MMP, because in the new system all Ontarians votes would count equally in electing members to Queen’s Park.

REASONABLE ASSUMPTION – Parties will fairly represent all regions in their at-large candidates

In terms of the proportion of Northern candidates on the party slates of at-large candidates, I think it is a faulty assumption to thing that Northern candidates would be under-represented.

All parties have previously committed to holding democratic selection processes for their candidate lists.

It is very likely that candidates will be chosen in regional conventions and with an eye to regional balance. We also know that those lists will be made public before the election. This means that voters in every region of the province will be able to look at the lists to see if parties have strong candidates from the region.
It is certain the regional media, particularly in the North, will be ready to critique the party lists and inform their readers about which parties have “fairly” represented their region. I would also imagine that other parties would be ready to inform Northerners if any part under-represented that region on their slate.

From my experience talking to Ontario voters form many different regions of the province, I just don’t think that parties will fill their at-large slates with candidates with those from the GTA. Frankly, because there’s no votes in that! The issue of representation for that region is not as important for voters from larger urban centres, but it is in rural Ontario and the North. A party that over-represents those areas is not likely to lose many votes because of that, but a party that doesn’t present strong provincial candidates from those regions they will be harshly criticized in those areas and likely lose votes because of it.


FACT – MMP will give every Ontario voter, no matter where they live, a vote that elects someone.

I don’t know why the defenders of the status quo are so afraid of this. But I hope this long post as has helped people understand why MMP will preserve strong local representation while improving voter choice and ensuring fair election results.

All candidates will be democratically selected - even Tory admits it

Good news for Ontario democracy this morning. Because John Tory has now basically admitted that should MMP come into effect, his party will democratically select their province wide members.

In a recent interview with the National Post, Tory admitted the PCs will likely find a democratic way to develop its list of candidates." Quoting him directly:

“The history of our party is that the party insists on choosing its candidates democratically. Even the notion that the leader would appoint candidates is something that has been not well received when it’s come up.”

Also, in the news today, the Green Party of Ontario outlined its plans for selecting its provincial candidates. Quoting Frank DeJong:

"Under MMP, voters will expect each party to select its list candidates in an open and democratic fashion. We are committed to using a transparent and equitable process to produce a slate of qualified Green candidates who accurately reflect Ontario's diverse population."

Since Howard Hampton has already committed the NDP to a democratic candidate selection process, that just leaves Premier McGuinty to clarify how he thinsk his party should select its province-wide candidates.

McGuinty deserves credit for starting the Citizens' Assembly process, but I must admit I find myself agreeing with Tory when he says:

“He started this process. I would have thought that by starting it, he obviously was recognizing some need for change — why else did he start it?” Mr. Tory asked, adding that Mr. McGuinty want to “have it all ways.”

“For him to start the process and then express no opinion at all is another abdication of leadership….He’d like to have everybody think he’s on their side, because that’s politics as usual for Dalton McGuinty.”

We don't even need to hear your opinion on MMP itself Dalton, just do like the other leaders and commit to democratic candidate selection - that would take a big (and false) weapon out of the arsenal of the opponents of democracy.

Vote for MMP calls out Tory on his misinformation

It's great to see the Vote for MMP campaign hitting back at PC leader John Tory - the most prominent politician working to defeat democratic progress in the October 10 MMP referendum.

First, on Monday, the group called for Tory to ask for his name to be removed from list of opponents of democracy on the main pro-status quo website. Even more importantly, they called for him to assure voters that he would respect the results of the referendum should MMP prevail:

"It is regrettable that Mr. Tory's name is being used to sway voters one way or another in this important referendum," said Mr. Anderson. "When this process commenced, the Legislature was very wise to have placed redesign of Ontario's antiquated electoral system beyond the self-interest gamesmanship of competitive partisan politics. It would be a shame if today partisan politics are allowed to lower the level of thinking on this important matter in the way they unfortunately do on so many issues."

"We encourage Mr. Tory to have his name withdrawn from the anti-MMP website, and to state clearly to voters that their decision will be respected.

On Wednesday, Vote for MMP challenged Tory to commit to democratic nominations for PC list candidates should MMP come into effect next election, after Tory again intimated (erroneously) that list candidates would be appointed under MMP by telling Canadian Press that "I think the whole notion of having
appointed people may be heading in the opposite direction that we should".

Vote for MMP campaign chair Rick Anderson challenged Tory to commit to democratically selecting PC list candidates:

"We certainly agree with Mr. Tory that appointed candidates have no place in the province's legislature," said Rick Anderson, chair of the VoteForMMP Campaign. "No one is proposing that there be appointed candidates under MMP - unless Mr. Tory is intending that Conservative party province-wide list candidates would be selected in this undemocratic manner."

Most advanced democracies have moved toward some kind of more
proportional system, as the Ontario Citizens' Assembly has recommended
Ontarians adopt.

"In all countries where MMP is used, parties use democratic processes to nominate their list candidates - just as in Canada today the parties use democratic processes to nominate riding candidates," said Anderson.

"Mr. Tory's remark stands to confuse and mislead voters on the matter of whether candidates will be democratically nominated. Is he saying that the Conservative Party will not select candidates democratically? Is he accusing the other parties of this? Is he advocating that Ontario's Elections Act specify how parties select candidates, a matter heretofore left to parties in the expectation they will proceed democratically?"

It's a shame that the media hasn't pressed Tory to clarify these obvious questions when he trots out that lame talking point about appointed MPPs. Hopefully, now they will.

More on MMP and truthiness

Before I start my blog series discussing the problems with the debate over the upcoming referendum, I thought it might be good to give a little background on why I became so interested in the issue of electoral reform.

They say apathy and loss of civic interest characterizes my generation, but I’ve always been interested in politics. I grew up in a political home in Prince Edward Island, the kind of place where issues of the day were (and still are whenever I’m back) invariably discussed at the kitchen table. This led to a life-long interest in political affairs, particularly elections. My parents are both educators – in my view, the noblest profession – and always promoted critical thinking and open discussion.

I had the distinct pleasure of serving as a legislative page in both the PEI Legislative Assembly and the House of Commons, so I’ve observed more than my share of parliamentary debates.

I observed grown men and women two or three times my age behave like children. Sadly, in a 21st Century Canadian legislature, “debate” appears to be far too often characterized by misleading, personal and unwarranted attacks on political opponents rather than a respectful discussion of policy alternatives. At its root, this must be a reflection of the inescapable fact that, due to our outdated first-past-the-post electoral systems, our legislatures reflect neither how we vote nor our diversity. Thanks to our pre-democratic voting system, we are facing the challenges of a new millennium with political institutions that under-represent minority viewpoints, inflame regional tensions and prevent new ideas and perspectives from entering the legislature.

By the end of my year in the House, I knew that we could ask for more from our politicians and our democratic institutions, I just didn’t know exactly how to remedy this problem. In my second year at university, I learned more about the diversity of voting systems used around the world. It was like a bolt of lightning – we could demand more from our politicians and proportional representation was the way to best hold them to account. I sent in my membership form to Fair Vote Canada shortly thereafter and have been involved with the organization for years now.

The summer after second-year university, as a part of co-operative work placement, I worked as a research assistant at the Public Policy Forum, an Ottawa-based think tank. The main project I worked on, and certainly the one I enjoyed most, was on youth voter turnout – which as I’m sure you are aware is steadily in decline. I studied a good portion of the academic literature on this subject and had come to the inescapable conclusion that talking about increasing voter participation without fixing our broken electoral system is ignoring the real reason behind the problem. And when you think about it, does it not make sense that young Canadians of my generation, who are accustomed to unbelievable choice in most areas of their lives – from beauty products to colas to television channels – are being turned off by a political system that reduces the effective choices they can make?

So when my home province was holding a plebiscite on a form of mixed-member proportional in the Fall of 2005, I had to go back to get involved with the campaign. Over the course of three months, I had the great pleasure of working with a great group of supporters and doing my best to educate Islanders about MMP.

At a public forum in PEI moths after the plebiscite was over, I gave a speech that I’ve posted on my blog before, and I think much of what I said is relevant to the ongoing campaign here in Ontario:

I’m still disappointed that I obviously didn’t educate enough Islanders. I think we can all agree most voters felt did not feel sufficiently informed on the issue, many clearly didn’t feel it was worth their time – or would make much difference to them …

Because as much as I wish I could say otherwise, November 28th was NOT a bright day for Island democracy. I believe the plebiscite results reflect:
- lack of knowledge about MMP among many voters
- increased cynicism among voters
- deepening cleavages between urban and rural Islanders, ones stoked by the failures of successive generations of MLAs to take leadership on modernizing our voting system
- low turnout (likely due to lack of polls/voter info cards/lineups). The turnout was much lower than indicated in a survey done before the plebiscite.
- finally, it is difficult to even gauge support for changing our voting system among Islanders, as it seems every second thing the No side was “we support electoral reform, just not this model”

I guess the primary lesson I learned from this Fall was that it’s easier to tear something down than to build something up

It is easier for opponents of fair voting systems to misinform the public than it is for proponents to educate them on the functioning of alternative electoral systems ...

Again as I’ve said to members of the group in private discussion, the No side’s work during the Fall can be fairly described as misleading, incorrect, and designed to play upon Islanders’ misconceptions rather than their hopes for a more democratic future.

My experience in PEI made me very skeptical about the motivations of those opposed to electoral reform. And I see many of the same misleading arguments being used here in Ontario. Although I must note that the movement for electoral reform in Ontario is MUCH broader and deeper than it was on PEI two years ago. We have hundreds of times more supporters and a much more broad-based support network, bringing in people from all political perspectives.

In short, we're much better prepared to win this vote on MMP. But we still need your help and support.

As I will argue in this blog series, those opposed to MMP are either willfully misleading Ontarians about how it will affect our political life or just ignorant of how proportional voting systems work. I’m very proud of how the Vote for MMP campaign is sticking factual and verifiable claims about how electoral change will affect government and democracy in this province.

I would compare the public debate on MMP to two other controversial debates of recent years – the debate leading up to the Iraq War and surrounding climate change. In all three cases, we can see certain political interests and actors willfully distorting the facts to serve political ends.

In my mind, talking about “appointed party hack MPPs” is no different than talking about “weapons of mass destruction”. Pretending that MMP won’t affect women’s representation at Queen’s Park is logically analogous to asserting that CO2 emissions have nothing to do with rising global temperatures. They ignore the best available evidence and research - why? Because the facts don't support those interests' pre-ordained positions - invading Iraq, protecting the oil industry and preserving the electoral status quo.

The Citizens’ Assembly process inaugurated by the current government could have been a shining example of deliberative democracy. But deliberative democracy necessitates informed and reasoned decision-making. We already know that most voters aren't aware of the referendum and even less feel informed. So unless the Ontarians can see through the spin and misinformation about MMP, it will be difficult to say that the October 10 referendum is a triumph for democracy - regardless of the results.

MMP and truthiness

I've been planning a blog series for the rest of the campaign. I've sketched out a bunch of ideas but was looking for a way to tie them all together.

Then today, on the train to Toronto, as I was taking a break watching an episode of my favorite satirical news program - it dawned on me!

I'll have to do the series exposing the "truthiness" of the arguments against MMP.

As the American Dialect Society definied it when they named it 2005's "Word of the
Year", truthiness:

refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.

So I look forward to exposing the truthiness of the arguments against MMP over the next three weeks. It should be educational, as I'll provide references and evidence debunking all the wild accusations made against the Citizens' Assembly's recommendation.

As one of my colleagues notes often, if MMP were a person, they could sue the people organizing for the status quo in the referendum for slander. Their arguments either gloss over, or plainly ignore, the best evidence and research on voting systems and electoral behaviour.

And as one of my favorite bloggers noted last week, I've been proud to be associated with an organization and a campaign that "[more than] any non-academic organization ... argue[s] so much from research findings rather than trying to play on raw emotion". Wish I could say that about our truthy opponents - but then again, if they weren't distorting the facts, they'd have to admit that MMP will work just fine for Ontario.

To paraphrase Colbert, opponents of MMP don't trust books. They're all facts, no heart.

And opponents of MMP won't let facts get in the way of defending the status quo.