Friday, October 17, 2008

Proportional Representation

Pumpkineater, some dude or dudette commenting on a thread at the National Post's website, has this to say:
"Prop Rep is a Crock Proportional representation has too many serious problems which are impossible to overcome.

Both British Columbia and Ontario, in recent years, utilized a team of citizens to come up with a new voting "System" which was then put to the People in a referendum.

In both Provinces, the advocates had difficulty explaining how their variation of the Prop Rep "System" actually worked. In both Provinces, when put to a vote, the new "System" was rejected by the electorate.

In such "Systems", a significant flaw is that too much decision-making is taken out of the hands of the actual electorate. Aside from Members of Parliament who have been elected in ridings by voters, Prop Rep "Systems" require that additional Members of Parliament be "appointed" to fill any other seats which the proportional percentage of votes cast for a Party dictates.

The result is that this "appointment" process is taken out of the hands of voters and put into the hands of the Party old boys and old girls who then see it as payback time for Party hacks to get their due. Some of those "Party hacks" will only have the merit of being friends or relatives of those in charge of the appointments. This is a regressive step in that it reverts back to the days when the "common wo/man" had little or no say in how their governments were formed because those governments were put into place by only those who had the right combination of money and guns.

Finally, Prop Rep results in seriously fragmented "Pizza Parliaments" as seen in some other Countries who have adopted variations of the "System". Consequently, more time is spent on haggling, "consensus building", the sacrificing of principles, deals and double-dealing and, all this, often, with very little positive result with respect to moving forward the agenda of the day. And then, Governments working under such a "System" regularly collapse in acrimony and chaos.

If there are people out there who are unhappy with the frequent elections which we have been having in recent years in this Country, then you ain't seen nothing yet until you live in a jurisdiction that has Prop Rep.

Prop Rep is seriously flawed.

Prop Rep will not fly as a proposition that is honestly put to the People of Canada."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Lorne Gunter also has a good article in the Edmonton Journal about its flaws.

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