Electing our MLAs and MPs through first-past-the-post has served our province and country well, but the time has come to change to proportional representation. In a democracy faith in the institutions that govern us is paramount and there is growing evidence that this faith is being eroded because of the bewildering results of our current system. First-past-the-post has the benefit of being easy to understand—the candidate with the most votes in a riding wins. It also produces bizarre, unpredictable and occasionally unjust results. Federal elections should reflect the mood of the national electorate, not distort the popular vote beyond recognition. This gives those governments that win a false belief—that somehow their power in parliament is something more than a quirk of our electoral system. Under this system the allocation of MPs is not based on true nation-wide democratic power.
First-past-the-post can produce election results that are disconnected from the votes of the electorate. In Alberta’s last provincial election the NDP won a strong majority (54 out of 87 seats). But the popular vote hardly reflected the breakdown of MLAs. After all conservative parties took 52% of the vote. The NDP wave made history. It made national headlines and provided great political drama, but Albertans were understandably perplexed. How can a solidly conservative province be governed by a left of centre party?
These bizarre election results leaves governments vulnerable to the claim that they are somehow illegitimate. Elections in Canada are free and fair and played according to mutually agreed upon rules. Yet voters can be forgiven for sensing that something is amiss.
The winner take all model also has the disadvantage of not representing thousands of voters. An example. The 20 provincial ridings in Edmonton were swept by the NDP in 2015. However, 97,100 Edmontonians voted for conservative parties. Tens of thousands of Edmontonians don’t have an MLA that reflects their values. In a representative democracy that seems not just crazy, but fundamentally unjust.
Our society has changed dramatically since the inception of our country and province. Our political systems must evolve to match these changes. First-past-the-post can’t capture the slow ways that electorates evolve on issues. The dramatic swings between left and right leaning governments often hinge on the change of just a few percentage points. This makes for great political drama, but fails because the underlying electorate really hasn’t changed that much. In the 2011 federal election the Tories took 39.6% of the vote and won 166 seats. In 2015 they took 31.9% (- 7.7%) of votes yet lost 67 seats (-29%). The country moved only slightly to the left, yet has a dramatically different government.
Proportional representation would better capture the way political movements grow in the 21st century. Because of the increased mobility of people, geographic region is a declining factor in determining politics nowadays. But first-past-the-post rewards regional parties against parties spread across the country—something completely wrong for federal elections meant to gauge the mood of a nation. Like minded individuals across the province and county are now easily connected. The Green Party is a perfect example. In 2008 the Bloc got 1,379,991 votes (9.98%) and 49 seats. That year the Green Party got 937,613 votes (6.78%) and not a single seat. (You should read those two sentences again.)
How can this happen? If the Greens took 6.78% in each riding they wouldn’t win a single seat because their support is diluted nationwide. But if your base is concentrated in a few ridings it magnifies your power in parliament. The significant numbers of Green voters deserve a voice proportional to their numbers. Conversely, the Bloc Quebecois often receives a disproportionately high number of federal seats relative to their votes.
In a democracy we must trust in the institutions that govern us. That trust is weakened when we see election results that don’t make sense. Electoral reform will be challenging and there are drawbacks to proportional representation, but many countries have moved to this system. Germany, pound-for-pound the most productive and efficient country, has proportional representation. This should be a bi-partisan issue.