Nova Scotia 2024 election

 Nova Scotia voters elected a diverse legislature this week – but not as diverse as they deserved.

Tim Houston’s huge majority PC government got 43 of the 55 seats, with 78% of the MLAs, based on only 52.8% of the votes. The new opposition leader, Claudia Chender, leads an NDP caucus with nine MLAs, featuring seven women, including two newly elected women and two newly elected men, eight from Halifax, and one from Cape Breton. The decimated Liberals dropped from 17 MLAs to only two, one in Halifax, one in Cape Breton.

As Nova Scotia’s 2019 Boundary Commission report recommended:
“Recommendation 8: Although it is outside our mandate, we respectfully recommend that future governments consider consulting the public and elections experts about whether a proportional system would achieve more effective representation than our current single-member plurality (first past the post) system.”

Nova Scotia is more than just Halifax and Cape Breton.

In the 14 ridings of southwest Nova Scotia, including Kentville and Wolfville (home of Acadia University in Kings County), Bridgewater and Yarmouth, Liberal voters cast 26.7% of the votes. Under the Mixed Member Proportional system they would have elected four MLAs. Their four best runners-up were leader Zach Churchill in Yarmouth, incumbent MLA Carman Kerr in Annapolis County, incumbent MLA Ronnie LeBlanc in Clare, and Brian Casey, a West Hants farmer. NDP voters cast 13.1% of the votes and would have elected two MLAs: their best runners-up were former cabinet minister Ramona Jennex in Kings County and Kentville Town Councillor Gillian Yorke.

In the 11 ridings of Nova Scotia’s North Shore (Truro, New Glasgow, and Amherst), NDP voters cast 14.1% of the votes and would have elected two MLAs: their best runners-up were former local journalist Abby Cameron in Hants East and two-time candidate Janet Moulton in Musquodoboit Valley. Liberal voters cast 13.9% of the votes and would have elected two MLAs: their best runners-up were retired nurse Sheila Sears in Antigonish and New Glasgow musician Kris MacFarlane.

In the 22 Halifax ridings, Liberal voters cast 23.6% of the votes and would have elected four more MLAs. Their best runners-up were former Liberal cabinet ministers Patricia Arab and Ben Jessome, and MLAs Braedon Clark and Ali Duale.

In the eight ridings of Cape Breton, Liberal voters cast 25.1% of the votes and would have elected a second MLA. Their best runner-up was Jamie Beaton, born and raised in Inverness.

This assumes the Mixed Member Proportional system used in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, and others. Usually it would still have 56 or 60 percent of the MLAs elected from local ridings. With the model recommended by the Law Commission of Canada, using the ballot PEI voters supported in their 2016 plebiscite, you have two votes, one for your local MLA, and one for the party you support. Your second vote helps elect regional MLAs for top-up seats. In New Zealand, about 31% of voters vote for a local candidate of a different party than their party vote, giving local MPs an independent base of support.

Of course, this is only a simulation. In any election, as Prof. Dennis Pilon says: "Now keep in mind that, when you change the voting system, you also change the incentives that affect the kinds of decisions that voters might make. For instance, we know that, when every vote counts, voters won't have to worry about splitting the vote, or casting a strategic vote. Thus, we should expect that support for different parties might change." 

    

Far-fetched scenario #1

 Far-fetched scenario #1 (Oct. 14, 2024)

When Quebec’s Charest government tabled a bill for a Proportional Representation system for Quebec in 2004, after going through their caucus it featured little 5-MNA regions – 3 local MLAs, and 2 regional MNAs for top-up seats.

There was an all party-consensus for PR in Quebec since the 2003 election. But after public hearings and negative reaction to this model, the Select Committee of the National Assembly recommended in April 2006 that the model be changed to better reflect Quebec’s political diversity. More proportional, that is, with larger regions. But the Quebec Liberal caucus were not too happy with more diverse MLAs. The model went back to the drawing boards, where it stayed. For years, up to the Liberal defeat in 2012, the government’s Minister for Democratic Reform kept saying the government was still committed to PR, the problem was the model.

When Justin Trudeau was first nominated in 2007 and elected as an MP in 2008, the only discussion of PR among Liberals in Quebec was at the provincial level, where the issue was the size of the regions.

In the 2006 Liberal leadership race Justin Trudeau had supported Stephane Dion on the final ballot. In April 2012 Stephane Dion proposed a “moderate PR” model with five-seat regions called “P3.”

In January 2013 Justin Trudeau was running for the Liberal leadership, and stopped in Port Hope, where I got the chance for a brief chat. I asked him to support the report of the Law Commission of Canada (2004). He seemed not very familiar with it, and asked “how big are the regions?” I gave him an honest answer: “in the range of 8 to 14.” I wonder what he would have said if I had answered “could be as small as five.” But he rejected my answer, and said he could not support that.

Fast-forward to today. The Liberals face a wipeout by the Conservatives even if they win only 40% of the vote. Justin Trudeau is still talking of the ranked ballot as the way to prevent this, but the NDP will never support a system which usually favours no party but the Liberals.

A historic compromise

Now, suppose a Liberal leader (either Justin Trudeau or a successor) proposes a historic compromise: an agreement with the NDP for immediate adoption of two bills. The first will implement a ranked ballot for the next election, but only for one election. The second bill will implement a moderate proportional system, a mixed-member proportional model with five-MP regions – the Charest 2004 model. (It also had a few 3-MP regions and a few 7-MP regions). The government would immediately appoint Boundaries Commission for each province to group the ridings used this year into regions of an average of five MPs, to be used for the new system in the next election after this year. Elections Canada would want seven months to implement the new PR system; they would have it.

This presupposes that the 2025 election would, with ranked ballots, produce a Liberal-NDP alliance to last until implementation of the new system. On current polls, I think it would.

The Charest model

How bad would it be? It would not give representation to Canada’s full diversity. The fourth party in a region would seldom win a seat, such as the NDP in Quebec, the Greens, and the Peoples Party.

But it would accomplish the major objectives of proportional representation: 1) that no government should have a false majority with only 40% or 42% support; and 2) that partisan regional disparities should be prevented.

So as an exercise I have done a projection of the 2021 vote on the new boundaries using the Charest model, with 70 small regions, plus 3 remote single seats, total 207 local seats and 136 top-up, with regions of (average) 4.75 seats. Liberal voters in Alberta would elect 5 MPs (3 more, such as Sabrina Grover and Murray Sigler in Calgary, and Ben Henderson in Edmonton). Saskatchewan Liberals would elect two MPs, such as Buckley Belanger and Sean McEachern. BC Interior Liberals would elect 2 MPs, such as Tim Krupa from Kelowna and Jesse McCormick from Kamloops. Vancouver Island Liberals would elect an MP such as Victoria’s Dr. Nikki Macdonald. 

Westman Liberal voters would have elected an MP such as Shirley Robinson. In Ontario, West-Central Ontario Liberals would have elected a second MP such as Melanie Lang from Wellington County. Simcoe County Liberals would have elected an MP like Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux. East-Central Ontario Liberals would have elected an MP such as Belleville’s Neil Ellis. Mid-East Ontario Liberals would have elected another MP such as Frontenac’s Mike Bossio. In Quebec, Liberal voters would have elected three more MPs in the regions such as Terrebonne’s Eric Forget, Shefford’s Pierre Breton and Jonquière’s Stéphane Bégin.

NDP voters would have elected 41 more MPs, including 7 more in Alberta, 21 more in Ontario, 3 in Saskatchewan, 6 in Atlantic Canada, 2 in BC (Sonia Andhi in Surrey Centre and Danielle (D J) Pohl in Chilliwack—Hope), and even 4 in Quebec, but not the 8 they deserved in Quebec.

Green voters would had have added an MP: Anna Keenan in PEI. And likely a handful more if their vote went up as I expect it would. 

A Quick PR system

Look at this latest appeal for electoral reform, from Winnipeg author Alex Passey: “what better time than now to finally act on that dusty old election promise of electoral reform? After all, the Liberals have been stoking the fires with fears of what a majority government under the Pierre Poilievre Conservatives would mean for Canada and the world. . . . Introducing any of the many voting systems geared towards more proportional representation for the next election would almost certainly prevent the Conservatives from achieving a majority government. And all those arguments the Liberals made back in 2015 still stand.  . . . the Liberals have a chance to make history in these twilight days of their regime, by giving Canada the system of real representative government that they promised. There is still plenty of time and it would pass a parliamentary vote easily enough, as the under-represented parties would surely support such a motion.”

Plenty of time for the next election?

To do it properly, we would need a Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform, at least 121 people, who would spend months getting educated, more months holding hearings, and more months deliberating. Then we would need the usual Boundaries Commissions in each province to set up the new districts. Then Elections Canada would want seven months to organize and train for the new system.

But people keep saying this.

What if a new Liberal leader had an open mind? Can we find a quick system of proportional representation? One letting everyone still have a local MP, and using the new boundaries that have just come into effect?

Sure: the Mixed Member Proportional system used in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, and others. Usually it would still have 56 or 58 percent of the MPs elected from local ridings, but for a quick model, we could have 51% elected from local ridings: just pair up today’s local ridings, and top up the results by electing regional MPs so that each party gets the share of the seats that its voters deserve.

You have two votes, one for your local MP, and one for the party you support. Your second vote helps elect regional MPs for top-up seats. In New Zealand, about 31% of voters vote for a local candidate of a different party than their party vote, giving local MPs an independent base of support.

Why would Liberal MPs in strongholds like Toronto agree to give up some of their seats? To stop a party (like the Conservatives) winning a false majority. And so that Liberal voters in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Southwestern Ontario, and elsewhere, can be fairly represented. As Stephane Dion loved to say “I do not see why we should maintain a voting system that makes our major parties appear less national and our regions more politically opposed than they really are.” 

Who gets elected to those regional seats? Using the model recommended by the Law Commission of Canada, your second vote would be for the regional candidate you prefer. A vote for a candidate counts for a vote for that candidate’s party.

But some candidates, such as incumbent MPs, have already been nominated for the new local ridings adopted by the Electoral Boundaries Commissions.  They can remain nominated for the double-sized riding, but in case of overlap, I expect one of the two candidates will become a regional candidate, unless there is a nearby vacant nomination available. Local decision.

Who would design the regions, and pair up the local ridings? I see three provinces where the ridings pair themselves. In the other seven, independent Commissions for each province could make short work of this job, validated by citizen panels. To prevent local sweeps, I am assuming regions of around 14 to 20 MPs. In Ontario that’s 7 regions ranging from 16 MPs to 24, average 17.4.

What would this look like? Just as an example, using the votes cast in 2021, but if the election were held next year, I doubt the People’s Party would get over 5% of the vote, and I am assuming a 5% threshold would be applied in each province. In 2021 the PPC got 5.4% in Ontario, but for simplicity I’ll ignore them. Today it’s the Conservatives who are under-represented, despite getting more votes than the Liberals, but it’s the Liberals who are at risk.

In Toronto’s 24 ridings, where the Liberals won all 24 with only 52% of the votes, on the votes cast in 2021 they would elect the 12 local MPs plus one regional MP, while the Conservatives would elect six regional MPs and the NDP five.

In Southwest Ontario’s 16 ridings, on the 2021 votes transposed to the new boundaries, today that’s 10 Conservatives with only 40% of the votes, 4 Liberals, and 2 NDP. With the twinned ridings, the Conservatives get only 7 MPs (6 local and 1 regional), while the Liberals would elect 5 MPs and the NDP 4.

What would Alberta look like? Instead of 35 Conservative MPs and 2 New Democrats (Randy Boissonnault’s slim majority evaporates with the new boundaries of Edmonton Centre), it would have 23 Conservative MPs (18 local, 5 regional), 7 Liberals (4 in Southern Alberta, 3 in Northern) and 7 New Democrats (3 in Southern Alberta, 4 in Northern). Similarly, Saskatchewan would have, not 13 Conservatives (new boundaries give the Liberals the Northern seat), but 9 (7 local, 2 provincial) plus 2 Liberals and 3 New Democrats.

Or take the 18 constituencies of Eastern Ontario. On the 2021 votes transposed to the new boundaries, that’s 9 Liberals, 9 Conservatives. With the twinned ridings, we get 3 Liberals and 6 Conservatives. Adding the nine top-up regional MPs, we get 3+5=8 Liberals, 6+1=7 Conservatives, and 3 NDP.

The total in Ontario on the 2021 votes would be 53 Liberals, 46 Conservatives and 23 NDP, assuming a 5% threshold. Maybe the Greens' 2021 total of 2.3% would become at least 5%. In that case, their Ontario total would likely be 3 MPs. In BC, this model would make little change on the 2021 votes except at least one more Green MP, but it would prevent a false majority sweep by one party. In Quebec, the new boundaries transfer two Liberal seats to the Bloc, and this model would take four more seats from the Liberals but give seven more seats to the NDP, while taking nine seats from the over-represented Bloc and giving six to the Conservatives.

Why am I using a 5% threshold? The Green total in BC, PEI and New Brunswick was already over 5%. In fact, on the 2021 votes this model would have elected Green candidate Anna Keenan as a PEI MP. If I was presenting to a Citizens Assembly I would argue for 4%. However, for a quick PR system the 5% used in Germany and New Zealand should be non-controversial, avoiding the risk of micro-parties.

How do we pair up the ridings in BC, Alberta, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador, which have odd numbers of ridings? One riding is left unchanged, as Labrador must be. Do we give the three Territories an extra MP each, as recommended by the Law Commission of Canada, so they have one locally elected MP and one proportional top-up? I would, but for simplicity, not today.

Canada-wide results on this model: Liberal 125, Conservative 125, NDP 65, Bloc 25, Green 3. (Note that the new boundaries add 5 seats and already give 7 to the Conservatives and 2 to the Bloc, taking 3 from the Liberals and 1 from the NDP. My calculation assumes the votes as cast in 2021 but on new boundaries, with Green Party seats only on that basis, not adding the bump they may get, and no People’s Party seats.

Do Greens have more reasons for optimism than the PPC? Polls since Feb. 9, 2024, have averaged 4.3% for the Greens, almost double the 2.3% their disastrous 2021 campaign gave them. By contrast, the PPC has dropped from 4.9% in 2021 to 2.6% in polls since Feb. 9, 2024. In Ontario, in 2021 the Greens got 2.2%, presumably 4.1% today. Once every vote counts, the Greens can expect to do better.   

Final point: A Liberal-NDP agreement on quick PR might imply coalition-building and co-operation could be offered to voters ahead of time, as they are in other countries. Why not?

Brian Mulroney`s Legacy was crippled by First-Past-The-Post

The late Brian Mulroney`s legacy was crippled by Canada`s disastrous 1993 election, when his 1988 majority collapsed to 2 seats under Kim Campbell, who deserved better.

But wait a minute. In 1993 the Bloc Quebecois got only 13.5% of the vote, standing in fourth place, yet formed the Official Opposition with 54 seats. At the same time Kim Campbell`s PCs got 16.0% worth only 2 seats, while Reform got 18.7% of the votes but its 52 seats left it short of the Bloc. Was this election rigged?

Yes, by First Past The Post. A few years later, beginning in 2001 the Law Commission of Canada under Prof. Nathalie Des Rosiers took a look at that result. In their 2004 Report ``Voting Counts`` they noted Prof. Henry Milner`s conclusion: after the 1997 federal election “the results of Canada’s last two federal elections are becoming political science textbook cases of the distortions under [first-past-the-post].” “The first-past-the-post electoral system, with its two dominant parties, appeared unable to accommodate the pressures of regionalism.” Our winner-take-all voting system exaggerates Canada’s regional differences.

So what would the results have been under proportional representation on the votes cast in 1993, calculated province-by-province, with a 5% threshold in each province, and three extra MPs for the Territories? Liberals 131, Reform 58, PCs 51, Bloc 39, NDP 19, total 298. The Liberals would have had no artificial majority, needing NDP support. The Leader of the Opposition would have been Preston Manning, not Lucien Bouchard.

The Law Commission in 2004 recommended Canada adopt a Mixed Member Proportional system, as used in Germany, Scotland and New Zealand but with open regional lists. “Two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons should be elected in constituency races using first-past-the-post (in larger ridings, three ridings becoming two), and the remaining one-third should be elected from regional party lists” to top-up the results by a flexible list system that provides voters with the option of either endorsing the party list or of voting for a candidate within the list. In addition, one top-up seat each should be allotted to Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and Yukon.

As for the 1993 PCs, instead of Jean Charest being one of only two MPs, he and Kim Campbell would have had company, under no pressure to merge with Reform. These names will bring back memories of the end of the Mulroney era:

18 MPs from Ontario (maybe Ministers Perrin Beatty, Rob Nicholson, Tom Hockin, Doug Lewis, Garth Turner, Paul Dick, and Pauline Browes, maybe former Speaker John Bosley, and maybe David MacDonald, Barbara Greene, Patrick Boyer, Bill Attewell and Alan Redway);

9 more MPs from Quebec (maybe Ministers Gilles Loiselle, Pierre Blais, Gerry Weiner, Monique Landry, Jean Corbeil, and Pierre Vincent, and maybe Deputy Speaker Andrée Champagne and Jean-Pierre Blackburn);

5 MPs from BC (Kim Campbell, and maybe Ministers Tom Siddon and Mary Collins);

4 MPs from Alberta (maybe Ministers Jim Edwards and Bobbie Sparrow, and Lee Richardson and Jim Hawkes);

3 MPs from Nova Scotia (Maybe Minister Peter McCreath, and maybe Bill Casey);

2 more MPs from New Brunswick (maybe Minister Bernard Valcourt)

2 MPs from Manitoba (maybe Minister Charles Mayer, and maybe Dorothy Dobbie);

2 MPs from Saskatchewan (maybe Minister Larry Schneider);

2 MPs from Newfoundland and Labrador (maybe Minister Ross Reid); and 1 MP from PEI, and 1 MP from Nunavut.

How would regional MPs serve residents? See how it worked in Scotland in 2013. 

The MMP ballot would look like this ballot that PEI voters chose in their 2016 plebiscite, unlike the closed-list MMP model Ontario voters did not support in 2007. The open-regional-list mixed-member model is used in the German province of Bavaria.

You have two votes. One is for your local MP. The second helps elect regional MPs for the top-up seats. All MPs have faced the voters. No one is guaranteed a seat. The region is small enough that the regional MPs are accountable.  

Competing MPs: You have a local MP who will champion your community, and at least four competing regional MPs, normally including one whose views best reflect your values, someone you helped elect in your local district or local region. 

The Jenkins Commission in the UK had a colourful explanation accurately predicting why closed lists would be rejected in Canada: additional members locally anchored are “more easily assimilable into the political culture and indeed the Parliamentary system than would be a flock of unattached birds clouding the sky and wheeling under central party directions.” 

Of course, this is only a simulation. In any election, as Prof. Dennis Pilon says: "Now keep in mind that, when you change the voting system, you also change the incentives that affect the kinds of decisions that voters might make. For instance, we know that, when every vote counts, voters won't have to worry about splitting the vote, or casting a strategic vote. Thus, we should expect that support for different parties might change." NDP voters would not have switched to the Liberals to stop Reform.