Fair Vote Canada
NEWSLETTER
Nov. 1, 2000

CONTENTS:
1) New Volunteers Join FVC Planning Council
2) Final Debate on PR Motion
3) Going to an All-Candidates Forum?

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1) New Volunteers Join FVC Planning Council

We are very pleased to announce that two more volunteer leaders have joined the FVC Interim Planning Council: Julian West, co-founder of the Electoral Change Coalition of British Columbia (ECCO-BC), and Richard Swift (Toronto), a Canadian editor of the New Internationalist magazine.

They join FVC founding members Doug Bailie (Edmonton), Christopher Billows (Winnipeg) and Larry Gordon (Toronto).

We are expecting to add more members in the coming weeks. If you are wondering how you can help, please read the FVC discussion paper (available for downloading from our website), which describes how we see the organization developing, and send your feedback to .

If you've had trouble downloading the paper, we believe we've ironed out the glitch. So please try it again, or send us a request to have a copy sent to you (via e-mail or regular mail).

2) Final Debate on PR Motion

The House of Commons completed its debate of the motion on proportional representation, on Tuesday, Oct. 17. Two opposition members, Libby Davies (Vancouver East - NDP) and Ken Epp (Elk Island - Alliance), spoke in favour of the motion.

Four speakers opposed the motion: John Bryden (Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot - Liberal), André Bachand (Richmond-Arthabaska
- PC), Susan Whelan (Essex - Liberal), Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds-Dollards -
Liberal), and Paddy Torsney (Burlington - Liberal).

The arguments againstproportional representation often betrayed the speakers' lack of understanding of what PR is and how it works. Bryden, for example, said, "In the proportional representation system, there are no costituencies. Not usually. In the majority of them there are no constituencies. What happens is the party leader, as is the case in Israel and so many other countries, once he gets the percentage of the vote, he
determines who takes his place in the parliament. Well the difficulty with that, Mr. Speaker, is that means that the party leader can hold his MPs, his politicians together with an iron fist."

Very few countries have an electoral system like Israel's where the whole country is treated as one constituency. It's more common for voters to elect their representatives in several multi-seat constituencies. And some
countries, like Germany and New Zealand, elect about half of the seats through single-seat constituencies.

Furthermore, many countries which elect representatives through party lists, use an "open" list system which allows voters to express their support for individual candidates. And the single transferable vote
achieves proportional representation without requiring voters to support a list of party candidates at all.

Therefore, the assertion that PR usually allows leaders to dominate their party's MPs is simply unfounded. It's no more true of PR systems in general than it is of First-Past-The-Post.

Bryden's argument that PR leads to unstable, coalition governments and frequent elections cannot be supported by evidence.

Epp, speaking in favour of the motion, addressed the Liberal members'argument that proportional representation would lead to "inefficient" government: "I've heard a number of people say the best governments we've had are minority governments, because when that occurs then the legislators have to engage in a fair amount of give and take, and negotiation, and accepting amendments to improve a bill. So we get better legislation."

The motion, M-155, was sponsored by Lorne Nystrom (Regina- Qu'Appelle - NDP) and called for the creation of an all-party committee to study how proportional representation could be adopted in Canada to be followed by a
national referendum on any reform of the electoral system suggested by the committee.
This was the second debate on the motion (the first took place in May) which received considerable support among opposition members. The motion died on the order paper when Parliament was dissolved for the
election.

3) Going to an All-Candidates Forum?

What if the federal election results in a minority governement?

It could be the opportunity supporters of PR have been waiting for to force the government to hold a referendum on electoral reform.

Rather than wait until after the election to see if opposition parties, and in particular the officially pro-PR NDP, decide to make electoral reform a priority, now is the time to apply a bit of pressure.

To that end, Doug McLachlan of Edmonton is spearheading an effort to put the same question to NDP candidates at all-candidate forums across the country. McLachlan's question, which he's developed with the help of other members of the Canada-Votes discussion list, is this:

"I believe it likely we are headed for a minority government.

"My question is to the NDP candidate whose party would hold the balance of power in such a minority government.

"Given that we are going to elect a Parliament which, once again, fails to reflect the intentions of Canadians as expressed by their votes, and given that the NDP, among others, supports changing our electoral system to one based on some measure of Proportional Representation -

"Will you commit yourself to making a binding referendum on Proportional Representation part of the price for NDP support of a minority government?"

If you're willing to help out by asking this question at one of the forums, please contact Doug at .
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