Fairness and the Electoral Process

 

Though the calls for electoral reform have been oddly silent in the media during this federal election, I would like to take this time to caution those who would get caught up in the hype of reform. We have all heard the arguments against our current electoral system:

 

-FPTP encourages regional or balkanized parties (Bloc, Reform, etc.) while it punishes national parties with national policies and agendas.

 

-FPTP hinders the ability for smaller parties to break through and win seats.( see Green Party)

 

-FPTP creates “false majority” governments. That is, governments with 50% or more of the seats in the House with less than 50% of the popular vote.

 

These arguments, many of which are intelligent and fair criticisms, claim that our current electoral system is flawed, distorted, anti democratic, archaic, and a number of other mean and nasty words that leave you feeling sad. Simply put, these arguments claim that the current system in unfair. It is unfair to reward parties with regional bases, it’s unfair for a party to govern with a majority with less than 50% of the popular vote, and finally, it is unfair that smaller parties cannot flourish within the system.

 

Fair, to those who call for electoral reform, would be for seats to be distributed proportionally to the popular vote. This however, operates upon a very strict interpretation of the notion of fairness while completely ignoring the fact that the current system could be “fair”.

 

However, it is not all together clear to me that our system is prima facie unfair. Each riding returns one member to the legislature (the member with the most votes), and the Premier/Prime Minister is the person with the most members supporting his/her ministry. Why is fairness not conceived in these terms anymore? Is there something inherently unfair about competition between candidates within a riding? Proportionality has never been the way in which our political system has defined fairness, nor should it ever be the way in which fairness is defined.  

 

Coupled with the inadequacy of the claims of fairness, I would like to touch upon one possible consequences of reform that is often overlooked. That is coalition governments.

 

 It is a well known fact that electoral reform in Canada, especially in the form of proportional representation, would result in perpetual minority governments. While it is true that most other parliamentary democracies have experienced far greater numbers of minority governments, Canadians have come to expect, and even enjoy majority governments. Indeed, with only 12 of our 39 Parliaments resulting in such minorities, Canadians have had the advantage of being governed by healthy majorities more often than not.

 

Other parliamentary democracies have dealt with the issue of constant minority governments (a result caused by their abandonment of the first past the post system) by creating coalition governments. Our history, in comparison with a wide range of other parliamentary democracies is a truly unique one. Though Canada has witnessed a wide range of protest parties emerge, they have rarely shown interest in becoming part of a coalition government. The reason for this is simple: unlike in many other countries, our third parties (Social Credit, CCF, and now the NDP) all aspire to become governing parties on their own. As a result of this, Canada has only experienced one very short lived coalition government.

 

Blessed by the “fairness” of a new electoral system, new, and smaller one issue parties would emerge onto the Canadian political scene as has been the case in all other parliamentary democracies that have toyed with electoral reform. These parties, no longer oppressed by the archaic and unfair FPTP system would be likely to win some seats, however few, in the House. This however, is the danger of reform. Without the aspirations of forming a government like our traditional third parties, these new smaller parties would greatly enhance the chance of coalition governments.

 

It is the likelihood of coalition government that I find to be the most disturbing consequence of electoral reform. I can already hear the complaints: “Coalition governments encourage compromise and consensus building”

 

There are many reasons to be cautions about coalition governments, for the sake of time I will only briefly discuss two. Firstly is the issue of accountability. Within the context of a minority or majority government, it is relatively easy for the electorate to hold the government accountable. It is easy to see what has been accomplished, what has been placed on the back burner, and what is currently being worked on. In other words, come election time the voters can easily reward (by continuing its mandate) or punish (by removing it from government or by reducing its number of seats) a government based upon its record. Invariably this task becomes much more difficult when there are two or more parties involved. Distinguishing between who is responsible for what (by extension who should be rewarded or punished) becomes much more difficult.

 

Secondly, it is ironic to see those who claim that FPTP creates “false majorities” are among the first to support the “consensus” building that is coalition government. At the heart of their argument against FPTP is that a party is governing with less than a majority of the popular vote, thus making it anti democratic and what not. Their beloved coalition governments on the other hand often result in third, fourth, or even fifth parties, all with rather small percentages of the popular vote, becoming “kingmakers” and major players within the House. Of course by their very own standards of fairness, coalition governments become the most unfair of them all.