Make Every Vote Count
Why electoral reform matters
“We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.” reads the Electoral Reform page on the Liberal Party website.
However, on February 1st, 2017, we found out this would not be the case. The Liberal Party made the decision to abandon their promise of electoral reform.
The main reason stated for abandoning this promise was the seeming lack of interest from Canadians, and the failure to reach a consensus on how to reform the electoral system.
This decision has left many people, including myself, feeling upset and disheartened. A petition to the government of Canada in favour of electoral reform has gained over 118,000 signatures already and climbing.
There were protests in major cities all across Canada on February 11, and there are more planned for April 20. The fact of the matter is, people are no longer satisfied with first-past-the-post (FPTP).
Voter representation is skewed with the current system. With only 39.5% of the vote, the Liberals hold a majority government over all the other parties. They hold 184 of 338 seats, which comes out to 54%.
The current organization of FPTP through regional ridings also hurts smaller parties. For example, the Green Party and the Bloc Québécois obtained 3.4% and 4.7% of the popular vote respectively, however, the Greens got 1 seat and the Bloc got 10. Despite having similar percentages of the vote, the Bloc obtained far more seats simply because they were concentrated in Québec ridings.
As a result of these smaller parties being at a disadvantage, many voters often feel forced to vote for the larger parties in order for their votes to matter.
FPTP has allowed the large Liberal and Conservative parties (and to a significantly smaller degree, the NDP) to dominate the system for a long time.
Another key reason to perform on reform is the potential to combat voter apathy and increase turnout. Last election, federal voter turnout was 68.3%. This was an improvement from the 2011 and 2008 elections, where turnout was 61.1% and 58.8% respectively, but still leaves much to be desired.
With inaccurate representation of voters within the House of Commons, and the feeling of being forced to vote strategically for a lesser of two evils, it is clear to see where this apathy comes from.
It is my opinion that a proportional representation system with a single-transferable vote component would be a good solution to this problem. Having representation in Parliament reflect the votes, as well as the implementation of ranked voting will encourage civic engagement and allow voters to vote for their chosen candidates.
It is disappointing and discouraging that we will not see this change under the Liberal government we elected to keep this promise. While I remain hopeful that this upward trend of voter turnout can continue, growth would be much more significant with a change in the electoral system.
(Published in the February 22, 2017 edition of The Campus newspaper)
