Proportional Representation?

Some years back during a federal election Canadian voters took part in a referendum. To signify how they felt about a new potential reform for the Canadian electoral system. It wasn't quite proportional representation, but a modified version of it. And voters turned it down. That hasn't stopped the proponents of proportional representation, however. And isn't it an odd thing that those who urge that such a change occur mostly represent political parties that have never been voted into power by Canada's first-past-the-post system.

Now those who protest our original and only electoral system insist that the majority the Conservative government under Stephen Harper were finally granted by the electorate represents a "false majority". On the basis that under 40% of the electorate voted for the Conservatives - that percentage rises to 48% if we exclude Quebec, and Quebec deliberately excluded itself as it is wont to do when its nose is out of joint; which is a perpetual state.

The protesting groups representing the NDP and the Green parties received far less of the popular vote, needless to say. But the principle that they espouse, that proportional representation would be a fairer recognition of how Canadians tend to vote is one that will not be laid to rest.

It does result, in countries which use that electoral system, in fractionalized governments which, to maintain their integrity must shuffle for support and alliances resulting in a process approximating co-operation, but not always to the best advantage of the country necessarily. The Green party's leader, Elizabeth May, portrays herself and her party as seeking PR from principle.

She won her party's first Parliamentary seat giving her party and herself cause for great celebration. But the Green party, despite fielding 300 candidates won just one seat, after three elections in which they won none. Because the party garnered 7% of the popular vote, a million dollars was doled out in vote subsidies to enable the party to operate and run an election campaign.

That campaign focused on one single seat, chosen because in all of Canada it seemed the most likely to submit to the blandishments of a party focused on the environment. Elizabeth May's previous riding election attempts failed; her reputation and her hubris simply weren't enough to sway voters there to her vision of a new Canada.

How much of a success was her single Parliamentarian win, when the other 299 candidates all failed?

And when, this time around, the Green party garnered a mere 4% of the popular vote? "My concern is less about the number of seats the Greens would have in Parliament, but that the first-past-the-post system has allowed this false Conservative majority when only 39.6% of voters voted for them." There's a vast difference between 4% and 39.6% is there not? Yet she professes unconcern about the lack of seats achieved by the Greens.

The spearhead group, Fair Vote Canada, is now focusing on moving the dispirited, failed Liberals around to their way of thinking, "...because under a proportional system they would have twice the number of seats they have now." Which still would not have given them the lead they anticipated, raising them toward governing status.

Elizabeth May's bravado and sense of entitlement is somewhat galling and insulting to the great numbers of Canadians who voted during this election and feel satisfied that their vote counted as intended. Her contention, "I realize that the term false majority isn't familiar to most Canadians, but the reality is, we will be governed under one for the next four years", makes one groan at the thought this poseur will now sit in Parliament.

The 41st Parliament under Prime Minister Stephen Harper cannot rescind the tax-paid vote subsidy fast enough for many of us. It falsely and insultingly enabled the Bloc Quebecois and the Green parties to assume an importance neither logically and practically were entitled to.