MMP Made Easy

Scottish, Welsh, German and New Zealand Parliamentary elections use a type of Proportional Representation called the Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP).

The ten-second definition of MMP is this:

We still elect local MPs. Voters unrepresented by the local results top them up by electing regional MPs. The total MPs match the vote share.

MMP is a voting system which mixes our winner-take-all system with an element of proportional representation, so that the number of MPs elected to Parliament from each province matches the share of the overall votes cast by supporters of each party in that province.

Different places use different MMP models. This is a description of an MMP model with “open lists.”

Each voter has two votes.

The local vote is used to elect an MP to represent your riding, as today.

The regional vote or party vote is used to elect several regional MPs from your region.

The local vote can be cast by marking your ballot with an X for any candidate standing in your riding, as we do today. The candidate chosen by the largest number of voters in a riding wins the seat on a winner-take-all basis.

The regional vote can be cast by marking your ballot with an X for any regional candidate standing on the regional ballot.

If that candidate is a party candidate, this vote counts as a vote for your party. The parties' regional votes are then counted to give the level of support for each party in the region.

If a party’s voters have managed to elect only a few local MPs in that region, or none at all, that party gets additional “top-up” seats to make their final total more in line with their vote share in the "top-up" region.

The party’s regional candidates with the most votes win those seats. That’s why it’s called “open list.”

Every voter has competing MPs: you can go to your local MP or one of your diverse regional MPs. Germans call this "personalized proportional representation."

Your ballot will look like this ballot that PEI voters chose in their 2016 referendum.

Yes, the local riding is larger, but in return, voters with their diverse voices will have diverse MPs, just as they do in Scotland and Wales.

Voters are guaranteed two things which equal better local representation:

1.         A local MP who will champion their area.

2.         An MP whose views best reflect their values, someone they helped elect in their local riding or local region.

Here are further details on this model as designed by the Law Commission of Canada.

What would the 2015 election results have been under this model?

(The number of regional MPs you have depends on the size of your "top-up" region: if they are medium-sized regions it might be five, maybe as many as eight or more, but in smaller regions of eight MPs you would find five local MPs and three regional MPs. In smaller provinces, the "top-up region" would be the whole province.)

What would the British Columbia legislature look like under a fair voting system?

What would the British Columbia legislature look like under a fair voting system?

There are two likely options for a fair voting system for BC provincial elections. The British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform designed two systems in 2004.

BC-STV

They decided BC-STV was the best for BC, so that was the system that went before voters in a referendum, in 2005 and again in 2009. In 2005 voters were asked “Should British Columbia change to the BC-STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform?” They voted 58% yes, but the government had set a 60% threshold for success. In 2009 voters were asked “Which electoral system should British Columbia use to elect members to the provincial Legislative Assembly? ▪ The existing electoral system (First-Past-the-Post) ▪ The single transferable vote electoral system (BC-STV) proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform." This time they voted only 39% for BC-STV.

However, a poll after the referendum showed that 44.3% of those who voted for first-past-the-post in the referendum responded they are in “favour of replacing first-past-the-post with a voting system in which the percentage of seats a party gets in the legislature is more in line with their percentage of the popular vote.” That makes 66% of BC voters in favour of some proportional system.

Why not STV?

STV has been used in Ireland since 1922. It’s the only thing Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic agree on; Northern Ireland has used it since 1973. And it has now spread across the sea to be used in Scotland’s local elections. To those familiar with STV, it’s an excellent system if the district magnitudes are large enough for decent proportionality, like Northern Ireland’s six-MLA districts, and the population per district is low enough, like Northern Ireland’s 98,000 people per district. Unfortunately BC voters are not familiar with STV. If the British Liberal Democrats had succeeded in moving the UK towards STV, this might have changed; but even they gave up.

Furthermore, the BC-STV model designed by the Electoral Boundaries Commission was not very proportional. With each district having, on average, only 4.25 MLAs, Green Party voters, who deserved to elect seven MLAs on the votes cast in 2009, would have been lucky to elect even three MLAs. Yet many BC voters complained that the proposed 20 districts, with an average population of about 222,000, were already unmanageably-large. This is not a trivial point. In a country with as much geography as Canada, fitting our geography into the voting system is the major design issue.

Open-list MMP

The Citizens’ Assembly (CA) designed, before they chose STV instead, an excellent Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system. The majority (60%) of MLAs are elected in local districts like today’s. The others are "top-up" regional MLAs: to compensate for the disproportional local results we know all too well, the party’s voters elect personally some regional MLAs.

See MMP Made Easy.

This is the system invented by British political scientists in 1946 in the British Zone of West Germany. It took the old German proportional representation system and grafted British personal MPs into it. “Personalized proportional representation” the Germans called it. “The best of both worlds” said political scientists.

With the CA’s regional "Open list" version, voters can vote for whomever they like out of the regional candidates nominated by the party's regional nomination process. The elected Regional MLAs are the party's regional candidates who get the highest vote on the regional ballot. You have two votes: one for local MLA, one for regional MLA which counts as a vote for your party. The German province of Bavaria does this too.

If the CA had chosen the “flexible list” variant, where you can vote for the list or for an individual on it, the ballot would have looked like the one recommended by the British Independent Commission on the Voting System (the Jenkins Commission). The voter casts one vote for local MLA, and one for their party and (if they wish) for their favourite of their party's regional candidates. This same model was recommended for Scotland by the Arbuthnott Commission as an improvement on their MMP system; but no action yet. The result is much the same with any open-list model: all MLAs have faced the voters, and no one has a safe seat. (But I'd bet the CA would have chosen straight open-list, the Bavarian model.)

Power to the voters

An exciting prospect: voters have new power to elect who they like. New voices from new forces in the legislature. No party rolls the dice and wins an artificial majority. Cooperation will have a higher value than vitriolic rhetoric. One-party dominance by the Premier’s office will, at last, be out of fashion. Governments will have to listen to MLAs, and MLAs will have to really listen to the people. MLAs can begin to act as the public servants they are.

Based on the Ontario and BC experience, many reformers now think open-list MMP with regional lists is the only system likely to be acceptable to Canadians.

Local districts and regions

The 51 local BC districts would each have about 87,000 people (smaller in the North, no doubt). The CA ran out of time before settling details like the number of regions, which might have been four, five or six; I’m using six, electing a total of 34 regional MLAs.

What would the legislature look like?

For an example, let’s see what the BC legislature would have looked like under this model if voters voted as they did in 2009.

This projection assumes voters voted as they did in 2009. In fact, if voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted -- typically at least 6% more. And some would have voted differently -- no more strategic voting. We would likely have seen different candidates -- more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We could have seen different parties. Who knows who might have won real democratic elections?

But on the votes as cast in 2009, the overall result is 41 Liberals, 37 New Democrats, 6 Greens, and independent Vicky Huntington.

Competing MLAs

Instead of having only a local MLA -- whom you quite likely didn’t vote for -- you can also go to one of your regional MLAs. On this projection, all six regions will have at least one regional MLA from each of the three parties. Even Northern voters, assuming they elected three local Liberals and two local New Democrats, would have elected one regional MLA from each party. Even Interior voters, where I expect Liberal voters would have elected seven of the ten local MLAs, would also have elected one regional Liberal MLA. Even Vancouver Island voters, where I expect NDP voters would have elected seven of the nine local MLAs, would also have elected one regional NDP MLA. That’s because the CA wisely chose a model with 40% regional MLAs.

NDP:

Many NDP voters are under-represented. Voters in the Interior would have elected 16 MLAs (10 local, 6 regional), including two more NDP MLAs: maybe Doug Brown and Tish Lakes or Charlie Wyse or new candidate Lakhvinder Jhaj or Troy Sebastian?

Surrey-Delta-Langley-Fraser Valley voters would elect 17 MLAs (10 local, 7 regional), including two more NDP MLAs: maybe new candidates Debbie Lawrance and Pat Zanon or Bonnie Rai or Gwen O’Mahony or Lynn Perrin?

Vancouver-Richmond voters would elect 14 MLAs (8 local, 6 regional), including another NDP MLA: maybe Gabriel Yiu or Jenn McGinn or Helesia Luke?

Liberals:

Liberal voters on Vancouver Island are under-represented. Vancouver Island voters would elect 15 MLAs (9 local, 6 regional), including two more Liberal MLAs: maybe new candidates Marion Wright and Dawn Miller or Dianne St. Jacques or Cathy Basskin?

Green Party voters would have elected six MLAs.

Green Party voters in Vancouver Island would have elected a regional MLA, no doubt the leader Jane Sterk.

Vancouver-Richmond Green Party voters would have elected a regional MLA: maybe Damian Kettlewell or Vanessa Violini or John Boychuk or Jodie Emery?

Burnaby-Tri-Cities-North Shore-Maple Ridge voters would have elected 15 MLAs (9 local, 6 regional) including a Green Party regional MLA: maybe young Michelle Corcos or Helen Chang or Jim Stephenson?

Voters in the North would have elected 8 MLAs (5 local, 3 regional), including a Green Party regional MLA: maybe Liz Logan or Lisa Girbav?

In the Interior, Green Party voters would have elected a regional MLA: maybe Julius Bloomfield or Hughette Allen?

Surrey-Fraser Valley-Delta-Langley Green Party voters would have elected a regional MLA: maybe Bill Walsh or Kevin Purton or Bernadette Keenan?

Regional independents

The CA never had time to decide whether independent candidates should be able to run for regional seats. I‘d bet they would have said yes. Scotland uses regional MMP to elect the Scottish Parliament. Two independent candidates have won regional seats there, and two more in local seats. STV fans like the way independents can win any STV seat. But they can win any seat in Scotland too, with regional MMP.

More choices

Maybe independent Arthur Hadland would have won a regional seat in the North. Maybe independent David Marley would have won a regional seat.

The CA’s MMP model had a 3% threshold. The Conservative Party fell below that threshold in 2009, yet they got enough votes for a regional MLA in the Interior. In a real MMP election they would have been sure to exceed the 3% threshold and elect an Interior regional MLA -- their leader Wilf Hanni or Joe Cardoso or Beryl Ludwig -- and quite likely regional MLAs in other regions.

Trade-off from a province-wide model

The Green Party would have won seven seats, not six, under a perfectly proportional system with province-wide lists. Losing one seat, to get every MLA democratically accountable in a model that voters will accept, is a good trade-off.

Higher turnout

If voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted, and some would have voted differently. The Greens, for example, were so close to winning two seats on Vancouver Island and two in the Interior that in a real MMP election they would have been sure to win at least eight seats.

More women, minorities and younger candidates

With a choice of your party’s candidates on the regional ballot, we would elect more women. Polls show 94% of women voters want to see more women elected, but so do 86% of male voters.

And when parties nominate a group of candidates, not just one, they nominate more women. What regional convention, nominating five candidates, would nominate only one woman, or no minorities, or no young people?

The BC Green Party, for example, was very white in 2009: they had no Chinese-origin candidates in Vancouver-Richmond region, which is 33% Chinese, and only one token South Asian candidate in Surrey-Fraser Valley-Delta-Langley region, which is 17% South Asian.

Who would have been the government?

Contrary to what some Canadian newspaper headline-writers think, you cannot say the largest party will form the government. “Conservatives win!” say Canadian headline-writers even when Harper loses his bid for a majority. Compare the Times of London headline last May 7: “Britain wakes up to a hung Parliament.” No instant winner. Remember also 1985 in Ontario when Frank Miller lost his bid to win a majority. Who won? We found out only 26 days later when the Liberal-NDP Accord was signed. In most countries with more than two parties, coalitions are normal.

No “bed-sheet” ballots

Since local candidates can also be on the regional half of the ballot, voters might have had as many as ten of their party’s regional candidates to choose from, but not the “bed-sheet ballot“ found in some countries. So voters would have a real choice among a manageable number of competing candidates from the party they support.

In a 15-MLA region, suppose Party A’s voters cast 53% of the votes in the region, but elect only seven of the nine local MLAs. They also elect one regional MLA. But if that MLA dies or resigns during the legislature term, the regional candidate with the next highest votes moves into that seat. A party must run a spare. But if the seven local winners were also on the regional ballot, the party needed at least nine regional candidates, one elected, and one spare. To be safe I can see them nominating ten regional candidates.

The Ontario mixed member model the Citizens’ Assembly almost chose.

When Fair Vote Canada members first met Kingston’s cabinet minister John Gerretsen back in 2004, we didn’t have to explain the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system to him. He explained “the German system,” as he called it, to us. We later found he had been pushing for it since he was first elected in 1995 (and even since 1986 when he was President of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario). When the Liberals finally won in 2003, they had spent 60 years in the political wilderness minus only the five years from 1985-90 -- and in 47 of those years they were facing a government with a fake majority supported by a minority of voters. They remembered for a few years why they needed PR.

In “the German system” you have two votes, and more choice. We still elect majority of MPPs locally. Voters unrepresented by the local results top them up by electing regional MPPs. The total MPPs match the vote share. With the regional "Open list" version, voters can vote for whomever they like out of the regional candidates nominated by the party's regional nomination process. Like this ballot which won the 2016 referendum in PEI.

See MMP Made Easy.

To compensate for the disproportional local results we know all too well, the party’s voters elect personally some regional MPPs. They are the party's regional candidates who get the highest vote on the regional ballot. So the voter casts one vote for local MPP, and one for their party and (if they wish) for their favourite of their party's regional candidates. An exciting prospect: new voices from new forces in the legislature, and the voters have new power to elect who they like.

John Gerretsen was quite specific. The top-up MPPs should be elected regionally, and the regions should not be too large. Kingston should not be lumped in with Ottawa, he said. Those who know Eastern Ontario know that the mid-eastern and Lake Ontario regions and the Ottawa region have many divergent interests, so we were not surprised when Gerretsen mentioned one or two of them.

However, the model put to voters in the October 2007 referendum, designed by the 103 members of the Ontario Citizens Assembly (CA), had province-wide closed lists, not the mid-sized regions John Gerretsen had told us he wanted, and that Ontario NDP policy had favoured since 2002. Ontario voters rejected closed province-wide lists in the 2007 referendum.

What would the 2011 election results would have been under the model John Gerretsen wanted? And the 2014 results?

Not enough time

The original schedule prepared by the Democratic Renewal Secretariat called for the process to begin one year earlier. The legislation was to be passed in the spring of 2005. Due to an end-of-session legislative logjam, the PCs were able to demand a Select Committee be inserted in the process. Although it produced an excellent report, the resulting delay was fatal.

In May 2008 the CA’s Chair, George Thomson, spoke to the Annual General Meeting of Fair Vote Canada. He said that, if those 103 Citizens had had another six or eight weeks to deliberate, he felt some elements might have been different, like regional lists and open lists. (He thought the basic model would have stayed the same: 129 MPPs, 90 local, 39 top-up.) Those additional weekends were not possible due to the tight schedule.

Those candidates on province-wide lists were to be nominated democratically by parties, but in the few months between May and the referendum, no major party -- not even the NDP -- had enough time to design a nomination system. The model’s opponents -- even, ironically, an appointed Senator -- said it sounded like parties would appoint those 39 MPPs.

The public had not enough time to understand the CA’s recommendation, even if it had been publicized properly. Adding injury to injury, the Ontario government surprised the Citizens Assembly by refusing to distribute their Report, unlike the BC process which they had otherwise been following. Clearly the majority of cabinet had lost interest in their democratic reform effort.

Nine mid-sized regions

What would their model have looked like, with those mid-sized regions?

The North would have been a separate region. It could have had a special feature: it could have kept unchanged the ten present ridings north of the French River, and added only two regional MPPs.

The City of Toronto could have gone from 22 local MPPs to 25, 17 local and 8 regional.

The other seven regions would have had 12 to 14 MPPs each, such as 9 local, 4 regional.

How would regional MPPs serve constituents? Here's how it works in Scotland.

Open list

Since local candidates can also be on the regional half of the ballot, voters might have had ten or so of their party’s regional candidates to choose from, but not the “bed-sheet ballot“ found in some countries. So voters would have a real choice among a manageable number of competing candidates from the party they support. And they could also choose to vote just for their party, leaving the candidates ranked as their party’s nomination process had done. That's the variation of "open-list" recommended by the Law Commission of Canada, known as "flexible list."

The flexible open list method was also recommended by the Jenkins Commission in the UK. Their colourful explanation accurately predicted 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.”

The most recent official Quebec study on the topic also looked favourably at regional open list MMP.

More women and minorities

With a choice of your party’s candidates on the regional ballot, we would elect more women. Polls show 94% of women voters want to see more women elected, but so do 86% of male voters.

And when parties nominate a group of candidates, not just one, they nominate more women. What regional convention, nominating five candidates, would nominate only one woman, or no minorities?

90 local ridings

Local ridings would be slightly bigger than today, but not so you’d notice. Often, ten present ridings would become nine. (But the North could have kept unchanged the ten present ridings.)

Closed province-wide lists?

So why did those 103 Citizens choose province-wide closed lists?

George Thomson’s comments in May 2008 show the process the 103 Citizens went through. Their big design problem was Ontario’s geography, and the fact that our local ridings are already too large. Until Mike Harris shrank the House in 1999 we had 130 MPPs, compared with 101 MPs at that time. Many members of the CA wanted to keep the present 107 ridings and add at least 36 “top-up.” Others wanted to keep 107 MPPs but have only 80 larger local ridings and 27 top-up. Others wanted a higher ratio of top-up. Their big achievement was consensus on 90 plus 39.

They had decided on province-wide lists early in the process, before they agreed on the numbers. Back at that point, many members wanted to use all the most proportional options in order to leave them free to have less proportional numbers of MPPs. For example, on those 2007 votes, because the Citizens’ model had only 30% “top-up” MPPs, it would have resulted in more than 55 Liberal MPPs. And then, making the lists regional rather than provincial added a further four more Liberal MPPs.

Still, once they had 39 top-up MPPs, regional lists became possible, and open list became possible. Four Liberal MPPs too many, in our 2007 example, would have been a modest price to pay for a more accountable and democratic model. But by the time they made that decision for 39 top-up MPPs, it was too late to go back and redesign.

This is no one’s fault. The Democratic Renewal Secretariat had planned for the whole process to start a year earlier. The legislature’s Select Committee got inserted into the process, and did a wonderful job, but that left both the CA and the public debate short of vital time.

Regional candidates

Why do I say voters would have at least five of their party’s regional candidates to choose from, maybe ten or so, when most regions elect only four regional MPPs?

Take a region with 13 MPPs, nine local, four regional. Suppose Party C’s voters cast 30% of the votes in the region, but elect no local MPPs, and suppose no other party’s voters earn a regional MPP. Party C’s voters elect all four regional MPPs. But if one of them dies or resigns during the legislature term, the regional candidate with the next highest votes moves into that seat. A party must run at least five, to have a spare.

This matters to women and minorities. A regional convention, nominating five candidates, would almost certainly nominate at least two women, and at least one cultural minority member.

On the other hand, suppose Party A’s voters cast 61% of the votes in the region, but elect only seven of the nine local MPPs. They also elect one regional MPP. But if the seven local winners were also on the regional ballot, the party needed at least nine regional candidates, one elected, and again one spare. To get good balance I can see them nominating ten regional candidates.

What would the legislature have looked like in 2007?

For another example, let’s see what the Ontario legislature would have looked like under this model if voters voted as they did in 2007.

This projection assumes voters voted as they did in 2007. In fact, if voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted -- typically at least 6% more. And some would have voted differently -- no more strategic voting. We would likely have had different candidates -- more women, and more diversity of all kinds. Who knows who might have won real democratic elections?

But on the votes as cast, we would have seen 61 Liberals, 39 PCs, 20 New Democrats, and 9 Greens.

Since the Liberals got only 42% of the vote, they would not have had an outright majority of the 129 seats. But as John Gerretsen said “Nobody is ever 100-per-cent right and nobody is ever 100-per-cent wrong. Governing is the art of compromise. There’s nothing wrong with having the governing party take into account smaller parties.”

Because the Citizens’ model had only 30% “top-up” MPPs, this 2007 projection is not perfectly proportional. That would have meant 55 Liberals, 41 PCs, 22 NDP and 11 Green. But it’s close enough: the potential coalitions are the same either way.

Progressive Conservative voters would have elected 13 more MPPs.

Toronto PC voters would have elected five MPPs, not none. No doubt leader John Tory and councillor David Shiner, and maybe school trustee Angela Kennedy or Bernie Tanz or Pamela Taylor or Igor Toutchinski or Lillyann Goldstein or Andy Pringle or Gary Grant?

Peel-Oakville PC voters would have elected three MPPs, not just one. Maybe Rick Byers and Pam Hundal or Tim Peterson or Nina Tangri?

Ottawa Valley PC voters would have elected five MPPs, not just three. Maybe Chris Savard from Cornwall, and Graham Fox or Trina Morissette. (However, Central East Region PC voters would have elected one fewer MPP.)

Hamilton area PC voters would have elected five MPPs from Hamilton, Niagara, Brant and Burlington, not just three. Maybe Chris Corrigan and Bart Maves or Tara Crugnale.

Southwestern PC voters would have elected three MPPs, not just two from the London-Windsor area. Maybe Monte McNaughton or Allison Graham.

Northern PC voters would have elected two MPPs, not none. Maybe Bill Vrebosch and Rebecca Johnson or Ron Swain.

NDP voters would have elected nine more MPPs.

Central East region NDP voters would have elected two MPPs, not none. Maybe Kingston’s Rick Downes and Belleville’s Jodie Jenkins or Peterborough’s Dave Nickle or Muskoka's Sara Hall.

Southwestern NDP voters would have elected two MPPs, not none. Maybe London’s Stephen Maynard and Sarnia’s Barb Millitt or Windsor’s Mariano Klimowicz?

Central West NDP voters would have elected one MPP from the area from Waterloo to Owen Sound, not none. Maybe Rick Moffitt or Catherine Fife or Paul Klopp?

Peel-Oakville NDP voters would have elected one MPP, not none. Maybe Glenn Crowe or Shaila Kibria or Mani Singh or Gail McCabe?

Ottawa Valley NDP voters would have elected one MPP, not none. Maybe Will Murray or Edelweiss D'Andrea?

York-Durham region NDP voters would have elected two MPPs, not none. Maybe Oshawa’s Sid Ryan and York Region's Nancy Morrison or Rick Morelli?

Toronto NDP voters would have elected five MPPs, not just four. Maybe Paul Ferreira or Sheila White or Peter Ferreira or Sandra Gonzalez?

Green Party voters would have elected nine MPPs.

Toronto Green voters would have elected two MPPs: maybe leader Frank de Jong, and Caroline Law or Dan King?

York-Durham Green voters would have elected one: maybe June Davies of Uxbridge or Liz Couture of Richmond Hill?

Central East Region Green voters would have elected one: maybe Judy Smith Torrie of Northumberland, or Matt Richter of Muskoka, or Simcoe's Peter Ellis or Erich Jacoby-Hawkins, or Kingston's Bridget Doherty?

Peel-Oakville Green voters would have elected one: maybe Deputy Leader Dr. Sanjeev Goel, or Rob Strang or Marion Frances Schaffer or Paul Simas?

Central West Green voters would have elected one: maybe Shane Jolley of Owen Sound or Ben Polley of Guelph or Victoria Serda from Huron-Bruce or Judy Greenwood-Speers of Kitchener-Waterloo?

Ottawa Region Green voters would have elected one: maybe Greg Laxton or Elaine Kennedy?

Hamilton area Green voters would have elected one: maybe Melanie Mullen from Niagara or Peter Ormond from Hamilton or Ted Shelegy from Brant.

Southwest Region Green voters would have elected one: maybe Brett McKenzie or Jessica Fracassi?

The Liberals have needed proportional representation since 1979.

The Liberal Party has needed proportional representation for a long time, and its leaders have known it.

The 1979 election was a "wrong-winner" election. Pierre Trudeau's Liberals got 40.1% of the vote, but only 114 MPs. Joe Clark's PCs got only 35.9% of the vote, yet elected 136 MPs and formed the government with support from six Créditiste MPs, giving them a one-seat majority. Trudeau was short-changed only three Ontario seats by the voting system, and only two in Nova Scotia; his big problem was the West. Liberal voters in BC deserved to elect six MPs, but got only one. In Alberta, Liberal voters deserved to elect five MPs but got none. In Saskatchewan they deserved three, but got none; even Ralph Goodale lost his seat. In Manitoba three, not just two.

In November 1979 Pierre Trudeau said he was convinced Canada needs a system of proportional representation if the federal government is going to be able to identify itself with the whole country. He said one of the major problems governing Canada is that each of the three parties' support is not accurately reflected by the seats they hold in Parliament. He noted the Liberals then held only 3 seats west of Ontario even though they regularly won 20 to 30 percent of the votes in that region. And the Conservatives had only three seats in Quebec, even though they took about 20 percent of the votes there in the last election. He said in the future "it will be even more difficult for the federal government to speak in the name of the nation and form national policy" unless this were changed. 

Pierre Trudeau's problem with western underrepresentation in 1980 was extreme: he had only two MPs from the four western provinces, both from Manitoba. In 1980 Liberal voters in BC had deserved six MPs, but elected none. In Alberta, they again deserved five and got none. In Saskatchewan, they again deserved three and got none. In Manitoba, four rather than only two. Trudeau would have had sixteen more western MPs with proportional representation.

In its 1980 Speech from the Throne, the newly reelected Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau promised to appoint a committee to study the electoral system; however, none was ever struck because opposition to even modest reforms among Liberal Members of Parliament was intense. (Ironically, René Lévesque had the identical problem as Quebec premier at the same time: after being re-elected in 1980, Lévesque started to implement proportional representation for Quebec, and got part-way down the road when his caucus veto'd it.)

Someone has written that Trudeau said in 1980 that he would introduce legislation for proportional representation if the NDP would co-sponsor it. What he actually offered, if anything, is not known.

Ed Broadbent has written "Shortly following the election Pierre Trudeau asked me to meet with him. The subject of our subsequent discussion was his proposal that I join the cabinet. . . I said to him that I would of course need other members of the NDP to be included. I said, “We will need five or six and a couple of major portfolios.” He looked at me and said, “You’ve got them.”

"Trudeau explained that he planned to introduce in the coming session of Parliament what turned out to be two of the most important and divisive measures in recent political history: the National Energy Program and the repatriation of the constitution combined with a charter of rights. . . he wanted us in the cabinet because . . . we had 26 MPs in the four provinces.

"The failure of the Liberals to obtain seats in Western Canada anywhere proportional to their vote was by no means an isolated incident. I recently looked at the data for the four federal elections that took place since I left politics in 1989 (1993, 1997, 2000, 2004). There is a persistent failure of Western Canadians to get the Liberals they voted for elected. In each of the three provinces (Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C.), in virtually every election, large numbers voted Liberal but only a handful of Liberals were elected. . . the absence of equitable representation in caucus and cabinet plays a significant role in producing an imbalance in the substance of policy as well as weakness in persuading the public to accept it."

"My point is all regions deserve an electoral system that will ensure impact in Ottawa is equitably distributed. All caucuses deserve a system that ensures representation from all regions proportional to votes cast."

Even Jean Chrétien had some of the same problems in 1993. Liberal voters in BC deserved 10 MPs, not just six. In Alberta seven, not just four. In 1997 Liberal voters in BC again deserved 10 MPs, not just six. In Alberta six, but they got only two. In Saskatchewan four, but they got only one. In 2000 Liberal voters in BC deserved 10 MPs, not just five. In Alberta five, but they got only two. In Saskatchewan three, not just two.

Trudeau's western problem had actually began back in 1972, when BC Liberal voters deserved seven MPs not just four, in Alberta five but got none, in Saskatchewan three but got only one, and in Manitoba four not just two. Even in his 1974 comeback Alberta Liberal voters again deserved five MPs but got none, Saskatchewan four not just three, and Manitoba four not just two.

So for 31 or 38 years Western Liberal voters have needed PR, yet "opposition to even modest reforms among Liberal Members of Parliament" -- elected from Liberal strongholds -- "was intense." Understandable, since those who needed PR (such as Ralph Goodale) were not elected in 1980. But outside their strongholds, why don't more Liberals speak up?

The Law Commission of Canada Report

The Law Commission of Canada recommended a proportional representation system for Canada in 2004: a mixed member proportional system, like Scotland's and Germany's. We still elect local MPs. Voters unrepresented by the local results top them up by electing regional MPs. The total MPs match the vote share in the region. The majority of MPs are elected locally, and additional MPs are elected to represent under-represented voters and "top-up" the local results.

See MMP Made Easy.

It's a made-in-Canada model. To represent unrepresented voters the Law Commission, unlike the German model, did not recommend 50% "top-up" MPs. It had only 33% "top-up" MPs added to the local MPs, so local ridings don't have to double in size. Unlike the models which failed to win support in referendums in Ontario and P.E.I, it had open lists, not closed lists, so every MP faced the voters. In Ontario it did not have the province-wide lists which Ontario voters did not support in the referendum, but instead, the "top-up" MPs were to be elected regionally. Since the number of MPs from each province would not change, no constitutional amendment is required.

The full Report, all 209 pages, is on-line here. It has an eight-page executive summary. Here are the highlights:

. . . the Commission’s goal was to balance the benefits of introducing some element of proportionality into the existing system with the capacity to maintain accountable government, most notably as a direct link between elected politicians and their constituents. The Report, therefore, examines alternative systems from the premise that constituencies should stay small enough to maintain the Member of Parliament–constituent relationship. The Report also accepted the premise that there is little appetite for substantially increasing the size of the House of Commons to accommodate a new electoral system. Finally, the report is based on the premise that changes to the electoral system should be made without a process of constitutional amendment.

The conclusion of this survey is that adding an element of proportionality to Canada’s electoral system, as inspired by the system currently used in Scotland, would be the most appropriate model for adoption. Its potential benefits include:
• reducing the discrepancy between a party’s share of the seats in the House of Commons and its share of the votes;
• including in the House of Commons new and previously under-represented voices, such as smaller political parties;
• electing a greater number of minority group and women candidates;
• encouraging inter-party cooperation through coalition governments;
• reducing the huge disparities in the value of votes that currently exist, in which a vote for the winning party is often three to four times more “valuable” than a vote for any of the other parties;
• reducing the number of disregarded votes, thus increasing the number of “sincere,” as opposed to strategic, votes; and
• producing more regionally balanced party caucuses.

The Commission, therefore, recommends adding an element of proportionality to Canada’s electoral system, and that Canada adopt a mixed member proportional electoral system.

. . . democracy is more than just voting in a municipal, provincial, or federal election. Democracy is also about what happens between elections, how politicians and the electorate relate to each other, and the role that citizens play in their system of democratic governance.

How might the process of reform unfold? Drawing on the results of its consultation process, and the experiences of other Canadian jurisdictions, as well as the experiences of other countries, the Report concludes that it is crucial that citizens be included in an ongoing dialogue about electoral reform, and that the process of reform include a citizens’ engagement strategy. Many Canadians are eager to participate in democratic governance, and they need and want information. This strategy should have diverse and broad representation, including representation from women, youth, minority groups, and all regions. It should seek the views of political parties (minority parties as well as mainstream parties), Parliamentarians, and citizens’ groups. Any reform process should also include provision for formal review after implementing changes.

Highlights of their recommended model are:

Adding an element of proportionality to Canada’s electoral system, as inspired by the systems currently used in Scotland and Wales, would be the most appropriate model for adoption.

A mixed member proportional system should be based on giving voters TWO votes: one for a constituency representative and one for a party list. The party vote should determine who is to be elected from provincial and territorial lists as drawn up by the parties before the election.

Two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons should be elected in constituency races using the first-past-the-post method, and the remaining one-third should be elected from provincial or territorial party lists.

Within the context of a mixed member proportional system, Parliament should adopt a flexible list system that provides voters with the option of either endorsing the party “slate” or “ticket,” or of indicating a preference for a candidate within the list.

The federal government should prepare draft legislation on a mixed member proportional electoral system as proposed in this Report. After drafting the legislation, a Parliamentary committee should initiate a public consultation process on the proposed new electoral system.

An ad hoc Parliamentary committee should review the new electoral system after three general elections have been conducted under the new electoral rules.

"Recent Canadian research contends that turnout is 5 to 6 points higher in countries where the electoral system is proportional or mixed compensatory" says the Report. To quote the Jenkins Commission in the UK on “safe seats,” ”many voters pass their entire adult lives without any realistic hope of influencing a result. In these circumstances it is perhaps remarkable that general election turnouts remain at a respectable level.” In Canada, they have dropped well below a respectable level.

The Report says it is inspired by the systems currently used in Scotland and Wales, which have 16-MP regions (9 local MPs, 7 regional MPs) or 12-MP regions (8 local MPs, 4 regional MPs). In Canada, with 2/3 local MPs, a 14-MP region would have 9 local MPs and 5 regional MPs. With the present 308 MPs, this would mean seven regions in Ontario, five or six in Quebec, two in BC, and two in Alberta. (With more MPs in 2015, BC and Alberta might well have three regions each.) The report also includes a sample "demonstration model" with larger regions, because they make it easier to show the smallest parties winning seats. But the point is, this "demonstration model" is NOT part of their recomendation.

The flexible open list method was also recommended by the Jenkins Commission in the UK. Their colourful explanation accurately predicted 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.”

The process used by the Law Commission to prepare this Report included issuing a Discussion Paper and holding 15 public hearings, mounting an internet questionnaire, and holding more than 30 other meetings.

Should independent candidates be able to run for regional MP? The Commission recommended that the right to nominate candidates for regional top-up seats should be limited to those parties which have candidates standing for election in at least one-third of the ridings within the top-up region. This prevents a possible distortion of the system by parties pretending to split into twin decoy parties for the regional seats, the trick which Berlusconi invented to sabotage Italy’s voting system.

On a related point, some democrats strongly believe that, if an MP is elected as a party candidate (even as a local MP), he or she should resign if they wish to cross the floor, and seek re-election as an independent or for their new party in a by-election. The Commission is silent about that. So this is a separate issue, not part of the design of an MMP system.

What would the House of Commons look like under such a system?

Why Liberals need the Law Commission of Canada’s recommended electoral reform.

How would Canada look if Michael Fortier had won in Vaudreuil-Soulanges last year?

How would the current history of Canada differ if Michael Fortier had won in Vaudreuil-Soulanges last year?

And why didn’t he?

It must have looked like a winnable riding, only 72% francophone in 2006, yet part of Quebec’s fast-growing Montérégie region (87.4% francophone).

Provincially the PQ won it only once in 1976. Otherwise it was solidly Liberal, safely held by Daniel Johnson who was premier in 1994.

The Bloc could not take it even in 1993 when the Bloc won 54 seats, nor in 1997 with a different candidate, nor in 2000 with a third candidate.

It had been held by the Tories from 1958 to 1963, while Jack Layton (born in 1950) was growing up there. It was held by the PCs again in 1984 to 1993. (Jack's father Bob Layton was a Liberal when Jack was young, as was Jack, and Bob tried for the local Liberal nomination in Vaudreuil in 1972, but in 1984 Bob Layton ran and won for the PCs in Lachine.)

Yet the Bloc took it in 2004 and holds it today.

Fast-growing Montérégie is typical of what winner-take-all does for the Bloc. Its candidates won 10 of the region’s 11 seats last year, although it got only 45% of the vote. A democratic voting system would have let Conservative voters, with 18% of the vote across the region, elect two MPs, along with two Liberals and one or two New Democrats. And one of the two Conservatives would surely have been Michael Fortier.

Similarly, there would have been three Conservative MPs from Montreal Island (perhaps including Hubert Pichet and Andrea Paine), and two from fast-growing Laval--Laurentides--Lanaudière (no doubt including Claude Carignan).

In Vaudreuil-Soulanges in 2008 the incumbent Bloc MP whom Fortier would face, Meili Faille, must have looked like as much of an “accidental MP” as Quebec City’s three surprise MPs of 2006. (Sylvie Boucher, Daniel Petit and Luc Harvey were the “accidental Tories” as Phil Authier famously called them. Phil’s great story is no longer on the Gazette website, but can be found here.)

In 2004 the Bloc had run a new young candidate Meili Faille, 31, who turned 32 just 10 days before the election. Her father had been the defeated PQ candidate in Vaudreuil in 2003, as he had also been in 1998.

Her mother Feng-Chi and her father Yvon Faille had named her “Meili,“ a Québecois version of the Chinese name Mei Li which means “beautiful.” Her mother tongue had been Mandarin.

Meili had left the riding in 1989 when she finished high school, going to Ottawa for university, getting a Business Administration degree. She had worked at Employment and Immigration Canada from 1993 to 1995 as a Project Manager for the International Service group. Her son Jasmin was born in 1996, and she had then worked for an IBM affiliate LGS Group as a Project Manager from 1996 until her election. In her team at LGS Group she was its only Mandarin-speaker, which was sometimes very useful.

To her surprise, she had won in 2004 with 44% of the vote. In 2006 Liberal star Marc Garneau thought she was easy prey, but she had held on, although her vote had slipped slightly to 43%.

Yet in 2008 Michael Fortier crashed and burned against her, when she still got 41% but he got only 24% while the new Liberal woman candidate, 28-year-old Brigitte Legault, recently president of the Quebec Young Liberals, got 21%. (She had been appointed to run there as a consolation prize; like other Liberals she had hoped to run in Outremont.)

There was more to Meili, a double giant-killer, than Fortier had first thought.

Her father Yvon had been a Catholic priest, working as a missionary and teacher in Taiwan in the 1960s. Her mother Feng-Chi, 12 years his junior, had once been his student, and became a linguist. Their relationship began while she was working as a translator on a U.S. military base in Taiwan. He left the priesthood and they married. They moved to Quebec in 1970, where Meili was born June 18, 1972, in Montreal. A younger sister and brother followed.

Yvon got a job as a teacher at College Bourget in Rigaud, 7 km from the Ontario border, where he would become his daughter’s favourite teacher. Meili grew up on a farm just outside of Rigaud, just upstream from Jack Layton‘s hometown Hudson, on what has become the limit of Montreal‘s commutershed. (The AMT runs 13 trains a day to Vaudreuil but only one to Hudson and Rigaud.)

Her grandfather Émilien Faille had run for the Bloc Populaire in 1944 in Châteauguay, also in Montérégie, and lived until 1978 when he died in Valleyfield, Beauharnois, also in Montérégie. Her father Yvon first ran for the PQ in 1981 in Huntingdon, also in Montérégie.

(The various parallels with Jack Layton, whose grandfather was elected provincially in 1936 as a member of the Union Nationale and ran federally as an independent PC in Mount Royal in 1945, and who has a Cantonese-speaking wife Olivia Chow, cannot have escaped Meili.)

Her father had taken his eldest child to countless political events since she was nine, and she had stayed at her father’s side. An active PQ member since 1992, she had worked in election campaigns in Vaudreuil--Soulanges in 1994, 1997, 1998, and 2003, and was president of the BQ riding association when she took the nomination in 2004, a veteran at age 31.

Her mother ensured Meili, a multi-talented girl, excelled in piano and oil painting. She also excelled in judo, and played hockey (defence).

During university, she had worked as an intern in the office of two PC Ministers. For Pierre Cadieux, the local MP for Vaudreuil (born in Hudson), as Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development in 1989. For Pierre Cadieux again, as Solicitor General of Canada in 1990-1991. For Pierre Cadieux again, as Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport and Youth) in 1991-1992. And for Bernard Valcourt, the Minister of Employment and Immigration in 1992-1993; and also for the Secretary General of the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 1993. Her resume even includes being a volunteer for the United Way campaign in the federal public service in 1991-1993.

Both Meili Faille and Michael Fortier deserved to be in the House of Commons. But winner-take all could let only one of them be elected, while leaving 55% of Montérégie's voters unrepresented.

What would Quebec’s National Assembly look like with a proportional voting system?

Below is a simulation based on the votes cast in 2008 and the new electoral map just announced. With 133 MNAs, Quebec would have 58 Liberals, 48 PQ, 23 ADQ, and four Quebec Solidaire.

Quebec has been debating proportional representation since before 1980. The latest step in the debate is the new electoral map announced Nov. 25, 2009.

Why a new map?

Population growth has been concentrated in the Montreal suburbs. Several no-growth regions of Quebec stood to lose seats if the number of MNAs was kept at 125. Without an increase, the ridings of Gaspé, Kamouraska-Témiscouata and Beauce-Nord would have been scrapped.

(This is a familiar issue in Ontario. In 2003, the no-growth North stood to lose up to three of its 11 MPPs. McGuinty’s Liberals promised to let the North keep them, and they kept that promise. But as the Conservative opposition critic Norm Sterling told the House: “Our Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada to say that you can't give more electoral power to one segment of our population than others. . . if you're going to have 11 ridings in the north, you're probably going to have to have, not 96, but 105, or maybe even 110, in the south.” Ontario needed more MPPs, but left that issue to the Citizens' Assembly which recommended a return to 129 MPPs, inserting that issue into the debate on proportional representation. Quebec may be wiser in tackling the issues separately.)

Quebec’s Bill 78 will protect the four ridings of Bas-St-Laurent, the three of Gaspésie, and the eight in Chaudière-Appalaches, as well as all the other regions, totalling 123 seats. As well, three exceptional ridings are spelled out: Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Ungava and Nunavik. After dividing the population of the 123 normal ridings by 123, any region with a shortfall is given more seats. By my calculation this means seven extra ridings, for a total of 133.

A unanimous consensus

On Nov. 11 and 12, 2009, Quebec's National Assembly unanimously voted for Amir Khadir's motion that reform of the Elections Act ensure "fair representation of political pluralism." As the government spokesman said "Everyone can agree on the principle, the problem is the how. . . We want a proportional voting system, we must specify which method of proportional representation we put forward. We have resumed the debate, the issue is not dead, the issue is evolving, the question is before us, the issue moves forward."

The DGE Report

Quebec’s Chief Electoral Officer (DGE) reported on mixed compensatory models for Quebec in December 2007: “Systèmes Mixtes Avec Compensation (SMAC),” what the rest of Canada calls the Mixed Member Proportional system.

See MMP Made Easy.

Based on his report, my simulation uses the nine regions he uses, with the open list system called “flexible lists,” a 3% threshold, and region-by-region calculation.

In referendums in PEI and Ontario, voters turned down a Mixed-Member system with closed province-wide lists. BC voters recently turned down an STV model. That leaves a Mixed-Member system with regional open lists.

Open regional lists

You have two votes. You vote for your local MNA -- whoever you like best locally, and this vote won't count against your party, for a change -- and you also have a vote for your favourite out of your party's candidates for regional MNA. Your regional vote counts for your party.

A regional MNA, who faced the voters in the region, will represent voters in the region whose votes didn‘t elect a local MNA. Unrepresented and under-represented voters will finally have a voice. And all voters will then have a choice after the election: you can go to your local MNA for service, or to one of your regional MNAs. Instead of having to vote for your party's single candidate, and then having to go to your single MNA, you have competing MNAs! What a concept!

Simulation of 2008 results

In the following simulation, Quebec has nine regions, based on its established 17 regions but grouping some smaller ones. Overall, 61% of the MNAs are still from local ridings, 81 of them, while 52 MNAs are from the nine regions. Montreal Island has 28 MNAs as it does today: 17 local (from larger ridings) and 11 regional. The three regions of Outaouais–Abitibi-Témiscamingue–Nord-du-Québec (West-and-north Quebec) have 11 ridings under the new map, up from the current nine since Nunavik gets a special seat and the Outaouais gets an extra MNA due to growth. With PR this becomes seven local MNAs, four regional.

Take the votes as cast in 2008. (This isn’t real, since many voters in safe ridings don’t bother to vote today, while others have no hope of their vote counting and also stay home. So with a Mixed-Member system more voters would vote, and we’d expect more choices to vote for. But take 2008 as an example.)

Liberals

In Montreal’s northern suburbs of Laurentides--Lanaudière, Liberal voters elected only one MNA last fall, despite casting 30% of the region’s ballots. They would have elected three more. Which three? The ones who got the most votes on the regional ballot (after skipping over anyone who won a local seat.) I’d bet on the three who were the best runners-up: Monique Laurin, director of the Collège Lionel - Groulx, who missed election by only 403 votes. Then Isabelle Lord, Political Assistant responsible for the Laurentians Region to the one Liberal MNA previously elected. Then Johanne Berthiaume, former municipal councillor for the City of Boisbriand.

Under-represented Liberal voters would have elected two more MNAs from the suburban Montérégie south of Montreal. Maybe two rising young Liberal stars: Chambly lawyer Stéphanie Doyon, and Longueuil lawyer Isabelle Mercille who is also Director of Public Affairs for the well-known comedy festival “Just for Laughs.” (Polls show 90% of Canadians want to elect more women, and if a good woman candidate is on the ballot, we’ll elect them.)

In Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean–Côte-Nord Liberal voters again elected only one MNA last fall, despite winning 37% of the vote. They would have elected at least one more: the best runner-up was Joan Simard, a former Chicoutimi Councillor.

The government would have fewer MNAs, but a more representative caucus.

Parti Québecois

Two more MNAs from Montreal, where PQ voters were underrepresented. Maybe Frédéric Isaya, a teacher whose father was born in Côte d'Ivoire and whose adoptive father is of Congolese origin, and Martine Banolok, a marketing professional of Nigerian origin.

Two more from Outaouais–Abitibi-Témiscamingue–Nord-du-Québec. Maybe Dr. Gilles Aubé of Gatineau, plus former Val-d'Or MNA Alexis Wawanoloath (first aboriginal elected to the National Assembly), former Rouyn MNA and teacher Johanne Morasse, or Gatineau teacher Thérèse Viel-Déry.

One from the City of Laval. Maybe legal aid lawyer Donato Centomo, real estate agent Rachel Demers or retired police office Marc Demers.

One more from Capitale-Nationale--Mauricie. Maybe Congolese-born Neko Likongo who just finished his LL.M., or lawyer and United Way Campaign Chair Françoise Mercure.

One more from Chaudière-Appalaches–Bas-Saint-Laurent–Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine (Est-du-Québec). Maybe Annie Chouinard from Gaspé, who teaches social work techniques and is president of the teachers union at the Cégep de la Gaspésie et des Îles. She was Québec Solidaire’s candidate in 2007 but came back to the PQ in 2008.

Action démocratique du Québec

The 2008 election was a disaster for Mario Dumont’s Action démocratique du Québec, which dropped from 41 MNAs to only seven, losing official party status. However, its voters cast more than 16% of the votes, and deserved to elect 23 MNAs. That would have included:

Three from Laurentides--Lanaudière, where the ADQ was wiped out. Maybe François Desrochers MNA for Mirabel 2007-8, a Vice-Principal and Shadow Minister of Education. Maybe Pierre Gingras, MNA for Blainville 2007-8, former mayor of Blainville and ADQ Caucus Chair. Maybe Linda Lapointe, MNA for Groulx 2007-8.

Three more from Montérégie, where the ADQ was reduced to only one MNA. Maybe Richard Merlini, MNA for Chambly in 2007-8 and vice-president of the ADQ in 2006. Maybe Simon-Pierre Diamond, MNA for Marguerite-D'Youville from 2007-8, the youngest MNA ever elected, a law student who was ADQ Youth President. Maybe Lyne Denechaud; she was political assistant to ADQ MNA André Riedl until he crossed the floor to the Liberals.

Two from the Island of Montreal: maybe Diane Charbonneau, lawyer, vice-president of the ADQ, and three-term president of the Association of Businesspeople of Ahuntsic-Cartierville; and maybe 45-year-old lawyer Pierre Trudelle.

Two from Estrie-Centre-du-Québec. Maybe Jean-François Roux, MNA for Arthabaska 2007-8, and Sébastien Schneeberger, MNA for Drummond 2007-8.

Two more from Capitale-Nationale--Mauricie. Maybe Sébastien Proulx, MNA for Trois-Rivières 2007-8, lawyer and House Leader of the ADQ, and Catherine Morissette, lawyer, MNA for Charlesbourg 2007-8 and Vice-President of the ADQ.

One from the City of Laval: likely Tom Pentefountas, who was then President of the ADQ.

One from Outaouais–Abitibi-Témiscamingue–Nord-du-Québec. Maybe Gilles Taillon, MNA 2007-8 and party President 2006-7.

One from Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean–Côte-Nord. Maybe Robert Émond, a union militant in the CSN for 20 years, or Baie-Comeau chiropractor Dr. Louis-Olivier Minville.

One more from Chaudière-Appalaches–Bas-Saint-Laurent–Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine (Est-du-Québec). Maybe Christian Lévesque, MNA for Lévis 2007-8, or Claude Morin, MNA for Beauce-Sud 2007-8.

The ADQ would have a broader base and wider perspective.

Québec Solidaire

To add to Dr. Amir Khadir’s solitary win in Mercier, PR would let Québec Solidaire voters elect at least three more MNAs.

One more in Montreal, no doubt co-leader Françoise David.

One from Montérégie. Maybe young Longueuil trade unionist Sebastian Robert who is responsible for QS internal communications at the national level, or Longueuil community development worker Manon Blanchard.

One from Capitale-Nationale--Mauricie. Maybe Serge Roy, president of the Quebec Public Service Union (SFPQ) from 1996 to 2001, or Martine Sanfaçon, community activist.

Power to voters

What’s the point? First, voters everywhere would have real choices, for both candidates and parties.

Second, all voters would have an MLA they trusted. Competing MLAs would be more accountable.

Third, you’d be sure that the system gave fair results. Supporters of all political parties would be fairly represented in proportion to the votes they cast.

Rural and urban voters would be fully represented. All regions would be sure of effective representation.

MNAs would have real control, not be rubber-stamps for a powerful Premier. MNAs and their parties would have to work together, like a real democracy. Bring it on!

Does anyone else use this particular model? Lots of countries use a Mixed-Member system. This particular open-regional-list model is used in the German province of Bavaria, and has been recommended as an improvement to Scotland's similar system.

Quebec-wide proportionality

The Citizens’ Committee in 2006 insisted on Quebec-wide proportionality. (Original French text here.) However, their model was not complete. The DGE’s Report seemed to favour the German model of national calculation and regional allocation, within parties, by the weight of the regional votes within that party’s total, even though this can cause a region to gain or lose “a seat or two” said the DGE’s report.

So I calculated my simulation both ways. With province-wide calculation, some regions lose more than two seats.

My 2008 province-wide projection shows the East losing all three seats that the government just decided to give back to them. Montreal also loses three seats due to lower turnout. Ouest-et-Nord-du-Québec loses the two seats the new map would have given them, and one more. The winners are:

- Capitale-Nationale--Mauricie with three more than even the government wants to give them (they now have 16, the new map gives them 17, and regional allocation gives them 20)
- Montérégie with two more than even the government wants to give them (they now have 21, the new map gives them 23, and regional allocation gives them 25)
- Laurentides--Lanaudière also with two more than even the government wants to give them (they now have 14, the new map gives them 16, and regional allocation gives them 18)
- Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean–Côte-Nord with one more than they have now (the new map left them unchanged)
- Estrie-Centre-du-Québec with one more than they have now (the new map left them unchanged)

In return for all this, would Quebec get more proportionality?

Well, Québec Solidaire would get a fifth MNA, in Laurentides--Lanaudière. Maybe Lise Boivin, a teacher at Cégep de St-Jérôme, and former full-time coordinator of the Women’s Committee of the Quebec Teachers Federation.

The model of regional calculation works better than many had feared. The model of Quebec-wide calculation works much worse than I had expected.

Can the DGE’s 9-region model be improved upon? Certainly. The smallest of their nine regions is Laval, which is hardly a remote region. It does not need to be a separate region. Combine it with Laurentides--Lanaudière, and you will have eight regions which work even better. For example, QS got only four seats with the 9-region model, when it deserves five; but with the 8-region model it gets a seat in Laval--Laurentides--Lanaudière.

Why doesn't New Zealand have open regional lists?

Since the consensus among Ontario electoral reformers now is that closed province-wide lists will not fly here -- as some founding FVC members had warned from the start -- we should examine why New Zealand has closed nation-wide lists for its MMP system. (Open lists require regional lists, since voters need a manageable number to choose from, and most candidates don't have nation-wide reputations.)

This very issue was examined in New Zealand's last review of their MMP model, by Parliament in 2001:

“Survey information shows significant majority support for the principle of open lists, the idea that closed party lists deprive voters of choice has wide currency. Those favouring open lists suggested that MMP would not be fully accepted until voters had the opportunity to exercise some influence over which candidates were to be elected from party lists.

The United party suggested the use of open lists would provide voters with a means to signal to parties how they rated the performance of particular members. The party submitted “there is an understandable adverse reaction [when a member is defeated in an electorate] if an MP defeated in this way returns to Parliament subsequently because of a high place on the list.” The party also submitted list MPs were “effectively beyond public sanction” and, as long as they retained the confidence of their parties, were likely to be re-elected because of their place on the list."

But all parties except the small United Party liked it that way.

The original Royal Commission had considered the issue of open or closed lists at some length. Did subsequent public opinion matter? Apparently not.

"It (the Royal Commission) noted that while the idea of voters having some influence over lists was attractive in principle, there were considerable difficulties in practice with combining open national lists with constituency contests, particularly with dual candidacies. Although supportive in principle of the idea of open regional lists, in the end the Royal Commission recommended that a system of closed national lists be adopted.

The parties that supported the status quo agreed it was good for democracy when political parties had the ability and a strong electoral incentive to present a balanced list.

These parties also saw the ability to control the party lists as an important means to encourage party discipline.

• a national list enables parties to ensure balanced representation among its candidates

• regional lists may lead MPs and electors to concentrate unduly on local or regional issues to the detriment of national issues

• since New Zealand does not have clearly defined regions and is not a federal state, it may be unnecessary and unwise to artificially create such divisions

• with regional lists and each party’s entitlement determined nationally, there is no obvious correlation between list position and the likelihood of election

• in order to make it clear that the party vote is a choice between parties and their leaders, all voters should have the same key names in front of them.

• parties should be able to retain those they regard as talented even if the public did not appreciate these talents to the same degree.

• open lists would undermine the effectiveness and legitimacy of political parties by providing for an outside influence that might rank candidates on a superficial basis."

Good arguments, but hardly democratic ones.

In Scotland surveys also showed significant majority support for the principle of open lists, so their Arbuthnott Commission reviewed the model and recommended a change to the open-list variation of MMP. There is one available for inspection in the German province of Bavaria, with seven regions, that might suit Scotland, and Canada's larger provinces, nicely.

The open list method was also recommended by the Jenkins Commission in the UK. Their colourful explanation accurately predicted 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.”

Does New Zealand have, say, four natural regions? Perhaps not, but Canada's four large provinces certainly have natural regions. As for ensuring balanced representation among parties' candidates, all polls show that most Canadians want more women in parliament, and if parties give us women we can vote for, we'll elect them. Open regional lists will do that. MMP with open regional lists is the Ontario model the Citizens’ Assembly almost chose.

What would Saskatchewan's legislature look like with a proportional voting system?

Today the ten MLAs from Yorkton-Melfort-Humboldt are all from the Saskatchewan Party. Although 27% of those voters voted NDP, they elected no representatives. Conversely, only three of Regina's 11 MLAs are in the government caucus, although 37% of Regina voters voted SP.

With a regional open-list Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system such as the Law Commission of Canada recommended (but with smaller regions), if Saskatchewan voters voted as they did in 2007 they would have elected 30 Saskatchewan Party MLAs, 22 New Democrats, and six Liberals.

See MMP Made Easy.

That's using a model with at least one-third of the MLAs elected regionally, in five regions. Three local ridings would generally become two larger ones. You might have 37 local MLAs and 21 elected regionally.

One interesting difference would be the 12 MLAs from Moose Jaw-Swift Current-Estevan-Kindersley: instead of a SP near-sweep, my spreadsheet projects three New Democrats and a Liberal, once NDP votes and Liberal votes count equally with SP voters. That would include the two regional NDP candidates and one regional Liberal candidate who got the most votes across the region. Maybe NDP voters would have elected Glenn Hagel and Sharon Elliott or Ken Crush, and Liberal voters Colleen Christopherson-Cote or Tim Seipp or Michael Klein. The 12 MLAs in that region would be eight local, four regional. The SP would no doubt have won seven of the eight local seats, so those SP voters would even elect one of the regional MLAs.

Another change would be the 10 MLAs I mentioned from Yorkton-Melfort-Humboldt: instead of an SP sweep, we'd see three New Democrats and a Liberal. That would be the three regional NDP candidates who got the most votes across the region (maybe Randy Goulden, Marlys Knezacek and Jordon Hillier) and the top-voted Liberal (perhaps Brent Loehr). The 10 MLAs in that region would be six local, four regional. Those SP voters would no doubt have elected all six local MLAs.

Of course, this projection simplistically assume voters would have cast the same ballots they did in 2007. The reality would be different. When every vote counts, we typically see around 8% higher turnout.

And we would see different candidates. Note that, when the SP members from Moose Jaw-Swift Current-Estevan-Kindersley met in a regional nominating convention, they would have not only voted to put the eight local nominees on the regional ballot, but would have added several regional candidates. With only one or two women from the eight local ridings, when they nominated several additional regional candidates, they would have naturally wanted to nominate a diverse group: more women. And 90% of Canadian voters say that, if parties would nominate more women, they'd vote for them.

Conversely, SP voters across Saskatchewan would also count equally. In the 12 ridings of Regina plus Indian Head - Milestone, instead of four SP MLAs we'd see five, and a Liberal (maybe Michael Huber.) If the SP had won three of the eight larger local ridings, who would Regina voters have chosen as the two regional SP MLAs?

The 13 ridings of Saskatoon plus Martensville were less skewed. Instead of seven NDP and six SP we'd see five NDP, six SP and two Liberals: perhaps David Karwacki and Zeba Ahmad?

The 11 ridings of Prince Albert - Battlefords & North would have an extra NDP MLA (perhaps Maynard Sonntag) and a Liberal (perhaps Ryan Bater).

The exact numbers might be different if Sakatchewan had four regions rather than five. But this is only an exercise in projection: the real results would have been different when more voters turned out to vote in what are now "safe seats."

As noted in previous posts, I prefer regional "top-up" MLAs elected personally under the "open list" model. You would have two votes, and more choice. "Open list" means that voters can vote for whoever they like out of the regional candidates nominated by the party's regional nomination process. The party would win enough regional "top-up" seats to compensate for the disproportional local results we know all too well. Those regional seats would be filled by the party's regional candidates who got the highest vote on the regional ballot. Canadian voters have twice rejected models with closed province-wide lists. The open-regional-list mixed-member model is used in the German province of Bavaria, and was recommended by Canada's Law Commission and by Scotland's Arbuthnott Commission.

Imagine that 1.5 million fraudulent votes had been stuffed in Canada's ballot boxes

Larry Gordon wrote:

“Imagine this election scenario. A party wins 155 seats in a 301-seat Parliament and forms a majority government. But after the election, officials discover that 1.5 million fraudulent votes had been stuffed in the ballot boxes, giving the winning party 38 seats it didn't deserve and majority power that it didn't earn.

That would be electoral fraud on a breath-taking scale. Fortunately the scenario is imaginary, but the following one is real.

In 1997 federal election, the Liberals won just 38 per cent of the votes, but the voting system —- not the voters —- gave them 51 per cent of the seats, or 38 more seats than warranted by the popular vote. If Canada had a fair voting system that treated all votes equally, the Liberals would have needed another 1.5 million votes to capture a majority of seats.

The imaginary scenario would be criminal because individuals manipulated results to give an undeserved 1.5 million vote advantage to one party. The real-life election in 1997 also produced an undeserved advantage equal to 1.5 million votes. The only difference is the fantasy fraud was perpetrated by individuals, whereas the culprit in real life is a voting system that distorts what we say with our ballots.”

In the same vein, let’s look at The Bloc Bonus, and other chronic bonuses.

In the 2008 federal election, the Bloc won just 38 per cent of Quebec’s votes, but the voting system gave them 65 per cent of those seats, or 21 more seats than warranted by the popular vote. If Canada had a fair voting system that treated all votes equally, the Bloc would have needed an extra 2.8 million votes to capture 65 percent of Quebec’s seats. (More precisely, an extra 2,843,986 votes to capture 65.333 per cent of those seats.)

In the 2008 federal election, the Liberals won just 46 per cent of the City of Toronto’s votes, but the voting system gave them 91 per cent of those seats, or 10 more seats than warranted by the popular vote. If Canada had a fair voting system that treated all votes equally, the Liberals would have needed an extra 4.6 million votes to capture 91 percent of Toronto’s seats. (More precisely, an extra 4,604,061 votes to capture 90.909 per cent of those seats.)

In the 2008 federal election, the Conservatives won 65 per cent of Alberta’s votes, but the voting system gave them 96 per cent of those seats, or 8 more seats than warranted by the popular vote. If Canada had a fair voting system that treated all votes equally, the Conservatives would have needed an extra 11.3 million votes to capture 96 percent of Alberta’s seats. (More precisely, an extra 11,301,192 votes to capture 96.429 per cent of those seats.)

Wow!

No wonder some Toronto Liberals and some Alberta Conservatives are willing to put up with the Bloc Bonus.

Who cares if the equivalent of 2.8 million fraudulent votes had been stuffed in Quebec ballot boxes, when you’re benefiting from the equivalent of 4.6 million fraudulent votes stuffed in Toronto ballot boxes, or from the equivalent of 11.3 million fraudulent votes stuffed in Alberta ballot boxes.

Proportional representation would be good for Canada.