Someone once noted that the ideal size of any committee was three, with two of the members permanently absent. Save the expense, drop the pretense, the Liberals are going to give us exactly what THEY want in the way of electoral reform. No matter what the representation is from other Parties on some committee.

Nathan, I do not recall NDP Mulcair making such a generous promise (should he become the PM) as giving up an NDP majority on such a committee during the election campaign! So I would suggest that you keep holding the Liberals’ feet to the fire not only now but also when on the committee.

Any future system would result in all parties having a more realistic number of seats than the first past the post system produces.

Better get used to the backbone of coalition governments. That sort of government requires arriving at a consensus through negotiation and give and take. Cooler feet.

Where exactly does he come up with the notion that the there should be ANY elected members on the committee.

How about a committee made up of people who are the electors, not the elected. They present a report of their deliberations with one or more recommendations and Parliament votes on the choices or votes on sending it back to the group if they did not like it.

Not a single person on the committee should be one who has a known affiliation with ANY political party and have given no funds to ANY political party in the amount which would have to be registered, whether Federal or provincial or even municipal from those regions of the country where municipal politicians are visibly associated with a local party system.

Try to wrestle with the idea of how to make this a truly non-partisan committee of people knowledgeable in the selection system of our elected representatives.

BTW, the voting in Parliament on this issue should be by secret ballot as a “free” vote.

What we have is a system governed by electoral areas, not by the national popular vote.

To try to move the system into one which is governed by the national popular vote may actually be against the Canadian Constitution. Get a few judges and lawyers who dabble in constitutional law mull that over before someone of any party affiliation will take the whole exercise to the Supreme Court of Canada.

If we are looking at becoming a democracy then the first step will be to have choice on the ballot, but not just a choice between names representing parties, but rather the choice to choose your first choice first… free of first past the post enforced strategic voting that is dominated by voting against a party, or for another party one would not normally support so as to ensure the tainted party does not get in.

The current first past the post only has merrit in local representation of a name that represents a party for a set riding area.

The current first past the post is by design not about representing the will of Canadians, but rather empowering legitimacy based on fear. Using fear and special interests along with money to steer voters to the only ‘safe’ vote.

I would like a system where I can vote my first choice first, my second choice second, and allow the ranking to determine which local candidate gets over 50% of the popular vote for a true consensus majority to represent my riding. My riding being one among many all of which have a consensus majority member elected.

I am absolutely against the concept of members sitting in parliament being appointed to the seat from a party list. This opens up the whole system to partisan corruption and limits true democratic accountability. It’s a slippery slope to sidelining the voter completely.

Barring that, to keep it in the spirit of an electoral region system, the vote was 184:99:44:10:1

So something like

6 liberals
3 conservatives
3 NDP/BQ/Grn (to be chosen by a lottery from the 3 parties)

In fact, we could get a committee of Major City Mayors to come up with a committee election process. Time to give those who preside over the everyday needs of the citizens of this country some say in what they would like to see.

Come on people, make some suggestions of how this should work instead of the same old partisan politic chit.

Eagleone posted: “I can vote my first choice first, my second choice second”

That is not a true consensus at all. One can only get a true consensus when one limits the parities to two. IN fact, if there are more than two parties running, one can start off by forcing the parties to create coalitions BEFORE the election and then present the joint platforms to the people.

There are many ways to arrive at the goal of making something a true consensus based on the notion that the majority rules. In real life, reaching a decision which is acted on is much more complex than that.

We have inherited notions from 100s of years ago when things where much more simple and people were much more independent of government because government was far away in the east of this northern half of the continent. We need to localize political decision making much more than we have it. Take care of national defense and other associated matters, give the municipalities more power and access to funding. For example, keep the sales tax and have it collected and used by the local regional districts/counties and municipalities.

The topic is vast. We are looking at band aid solutions which will not solve anything. The bickering is guaranteed to continue no matter what the solution. It is a make work project.

The system of Government we have to-day is just fine. The problem lies with how the system is used by those who are elected. Once elected we get very little in the way of representation.

To further aggravate the situation we have millions of Canadians who could care less one way or the other. Apathy reigns supreme when it comes to Canadian politics.

Finding ways of getting more people from more political parties elected is an exercise is futility. What we will end up with is more politicians feeding at the trough.

We need to put pressure on our elected representatives under the present system to do their jobs and represent all constituents in their riding. We need political parties to stand by their election promises after they are elected. This is where the real problem lies.

As it now stands, once they get elected they do whatever they please and we sit back and watch, and complain, but actually do nothing.

“We need political parties to stand by their election promises after they are elected.”

Well said!

The Liberals won the election. Will they now keep the promises they made? I sure hope so!

It really is simple, and this system is already in use !
What it requires is 2 separate voting days.
The first is for all the candidates to find their level of support.
If in the first day of polling a candidate receives 50% + 1 of the votes they are declared winner in that riding. In all other ridings where there is no clear majority winner the top 2 finishers compete in a run off election. With only 2 candidates you should always end up with one that receives the magic 50% + 1.
No fancy transferable vote, no random appointments, no trickery. Perhaps a little more expensive, but if we limit the primary election phase to 30 days or less, I would suggest that over all it will not be significantly more.
With this system you will truly elect a government that has achieved at the very least a majority of the vote in a majority of the ridings!

I believe we should leave well enough alone. Though that’s not what’s likely to be done. First past the post is no worse than any of the other set-ups proposed. There’s no indication of which I’m aware that shows people in other countries who elect their governments using any of the alternative systems to FPP are any more satisfied with their governments than we are with ours, and often seem to be much the less so.

Besides, how can you ever really have ‘political’ democracy if don’t first have ‘economic’ democracy? If someone is in a position to deny you the income you need to live unless you do what they want, and you have no alternative income available to you to live on unless you comply, they control you.

If a politician is elected on the promise to do various things which are completely physically doable and socially desirable, and then tells you they, “…can’t be done, because we have no money,” WHO is really in control? You, who voted that these things be done; the politician, who was elected on the promise to do them; or those who control “the money”? We might ask just WHO does ‘control the money’?

“With this system you will truly elect a government that has achieved at the very least a majority of the vote in a majority of the ridings!”

Actually they have not since one or more persons have to be dropped, thus a large portion of the people have had their choices removed.

In fact, the two top people may not even have a combined vote of 50%+1. 25 cons
23 libs
22 ndp
18 green
12 independent

One can bat this around till the cows come how.

Leave it as it is and we simply have to put up with minority governments as we did with Harper and others on occasion. One of these days we might even get wise and parties will band together before the vote to form a coalitions with a platform worked out as a coalition. Now wouldn’t that be unique for this part of the world! It sure would show that we are maturing beyond “winner takes all” to co-operation put in front of the voter when they mark an X on the ballot.

The two separate voting days are for presidents when there are more than three people running and the constitution requires a 50%+1 vote for the president. France is an example of that, for instance.

Why would the Bloc be included in any reform discussion? The sole purpose of the Bloc is to break up the Country.

One of these days we might even get wise and parties will band together before the vote to form a coalitions with a platform worked out as a coalition.

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That works for me!

I think the FPP system is fine, it’s what happens once we have elected governments that is the problem. I’d be happy to simply see more free votes in the HOC and the introduction of reasonable recall legislation.

The FIRST thing that should be addressed is the disparity in the number of seats in the house, and senate, we enjoy. Ontario and Quebec should not be able to dominate the rest of the country by sheer numbers in the manner they do.

The FIRST thing that should be addressed is the disparity in the number of seats in the house, and senate, we enjoy. Ontario and Quebec should not be able to dominate the rest of the country by sheer numbers in the manner they do.

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Roughly 60% of the people in Canada live in those two provinces and they have roughly 60% of the seats in the house. Seems pretty logical does it not?

NMG:-“Roughly 60% of the people in Canada live in those two provinces and they have roughly 60% of the seats in the house. Seems pretty logical does it not? ”
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It does, for the House of Commons, based on representation by population. But it might be better if the Senate balanced that more equally by giving BC and the western Provinces better representation based on area, or jurisdiction. The seats there seemed to be stacked against us.