June Macdonald, President of Fair Vote Ontario, pointed to three design flaws in the referendum process that denied voters the opportunity they were promised.
First, the citizens' assembly process – which we enthusiastically support – was unnecessarily delayed until the end of the government’s first mandate. With four years to take action, the government did not convene the Assembly until one year prior to the referendum date. By the time the Assembly could issue its report, the referendum was less than five months away, including the summer vacation period, which left little time for public debate.
Second, the public education program was glaringly inadequate. The referendum was triggered by a recommendation from the Citizens' Assembly, which asked that the public education campaign include the Assembly's rationale for recommending MMP. Unlike the British Columbia referendum, the Assembly's report was not distributed to all households – in fact, the government stopped printing the Assembly's summary brochure several months before the referendum, blocking widespread distribution to voters.
Third, while it had no effect on the October 10 vote, the application of an unfair referendum threshold of 60 per cent is simply unacceptable in a modern democracy. Prior to the application of the rigged threshold in two other recent electoral reform referendums, no provincial or federal referendum in Canadian history used any threshold other than the democratic standard of 50 per cent plus one. The all-party Select Committee on Electoral Reform, which had a majority of members from the Liberal Party, recommended a simple majority threshold.
Premier McGuinty promised a citizen-driven process for electoral reform, including a citizens' assembly to assess the need for reform, and a referendum to decide upon any recommendation from that assembly. That was the right approach, but the implementation was so severely flawed, Ontarians have not yet had the chance to make an informed decision on electoral reform. As the new government begins setting its agenda for the coming year, we call on Premier McGuinty to address this issue as soon as possible.
There's lots of good information at the Fair Vote Canada website, including a Democracy Quiz (test your knowledge of Canada's electoral system) and a petition to make every vote count. Read and learn.
3 comments:
This article, which reports on a survey of why Ontarians voted no, digs down to reveal how the referendum could have been won:
So, knowledge about MMP and the Citizens' Assembly pushed voters toward the new system. Could referendum support have reached the 60 per cent threshold if voters had been fully informed about both? We can simulate the outcome if all citizens had known: (1) that MMP would give voters two votes, elect some members whose names never appear on a ballot, produce proportional outcomes with more parties and infrequent majorities; and (2) that assembly members "were ordinary Ontarians," "had an equal chance of being chosen," "represented all parts of Ontario," "became experts on electoral systems," and that "most members wanted what's best for all Ontarians" (rather than themselves).
Under these conditions, our data indicate the result would have been 63 per cent for MMP and 37 per cent for the existing system - exactly the mirror image of the actual outcome.
This is probably heartening, and yet disappointing, for electoral reformers. And perhaps opponents should show more relief than smugness.
Thank you I/P!
One of your earlier posts on this topic captured the issue which is that Ontario has not had a "crisis" to cause the public to be up in arms about an election result. Yes, you can talk about parties receiving less than a plurality but a majority government. Two recent cases are Mike Harris and Dalton McGuinty. In both cases the public got what it wanted - the NDP out and then the Conservatives out.
The pro MMP "lobby" kept refering to Germany and New Zealand as examples but their experiences aren't relevant to Ontario. Germany wanted to prevent another Hitler and NZ wanted to make sure that the economic dislocation casued by introduction of a GST and freeing the central bank to fight inflation couldn't happen again. Also, in NZ, a parliamentary democracy like Canada/Ontario, has a 5% threshhold, why did the assembly go for 3%.
As for the 60% majority, I totally agree with the requirement. If you are going to fundamentally change the way you elect your government, 50% + 1 isn't good enough. Besides it is somewhat arrogant (?) for Ontario to say 50% + 1 is good enough for us but Quebec needs more to separate.
I do agre that the whole process started too late and not enough funding was provided to both sides to present an adequate campaign to the public.
Regards,
Steve
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