Liberals did not win majority, hence minority
Re: “PR switches from majority to minority”, (Citizen, Oct. 20)
Contrary to Bob Conibear’s assertions, the Liberals did not win a majority of the votes in the last election.
The Liberals received 796,672 votes, or 40.36 per cent of the total; the New Democratic Party received 795,106 votes, or 40.28 per cent of the total; the Green Party received 332,387 votes, or 16.84 per cent of the total; and other candidates received 49,749 votes, or 2.52 per cent of the total. In other words, the Liberals and NDP had essentially the same percentage of the vote. One of those two parties had to make a deal with the Greens in order to form a government, but since the majority of voters did not vote for the Liberals, the Greens chose to do a deal with the NDP. The fact that the Liberals, who had just 1,500 more votes than the NDP, won two more seats points to the flaws in the first past the post system.
I happen to prefer MMP, the form of proportional representation used by New Zealand and Germany. No system is perfect, but MMP comes closer to that objective than any of the other systems I’ve studied. I like it because unlike some forms of proportional representation, one votes twice — once for a candidate in one’s riding, and secondly for a party. Thus one has the chance for someone who will be accountable to the riding, but one also is guaranteed that the composition of parliament would mirror the popular vote for the whole province or country — the Liberals and NDP would both have 40 per cent of the seats, while the Greens would have 17 per cent. And thus, in most elections a minority government would be the outcome, forcing parties to figure out how to work together.
Mark Hazell
Duncan