If every vote counted, what would the Alberta Legislature look like?

The Wildrose Party used to support proportional representation. Many Alberta provincial Liberals favoured PR too. The party's website used to say "An Alberta Liberal government would organize a Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform, to determine if other voting systems — including proportional representation — could improve participation and representation in our democracy."

They were right. On April 23, "strategic voting" defeated Wildrose, at the cost of narrowing Alberta's political options, and letting 43.9% of the voters elect a one-party government. We've seen this movie before. 

In Alberta’s 2008 provincial election, the majority of voters stayed home. And in the 2011 federal election, while BC had a 60.4% turnout and Saskatchewan had a 63.1% turnout, Alberta had only 55.8%. Why? Because, outside of two or three ridings in Edmonton, the Conservatives had safe seats. Why bother voting? This time the turnout jumped to 57%. But since last May's federal election had a 61% turnout, the 2006 election had a 65% turnout, and elections in the 1980s had a 75% turnout, 57% is hardly healthy.

So what would the Alberta Legislature look like under a PR model?

On the votes cast April 23, PC voters would have elected 40 of the 87 MLAs, Wildrose 30. Liberal voters would have elected eight MLAs, NDP voters eight, and Alberta Party voters one. A PC-Liberal Coalition Government?

And voters in every region would have a voice in the Government, in the Official Opposition, and in the third and fourth party.
If voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted, and some would have voted differently. Alberta would have had different candidates - likely more women, and more diversity of all kinds. However, all I can do is project the votes cast in 2012 into a reformed voting system.

I used a Mixed Member Proportional model with regional open lists. You still have 87 MLAs. The 53 local MLAs are elected from districts larger than today's (about five of today's districts become three larger districts.) The 34 regional top-up MLAs are elected from five regions.

You, the voter, have two votes: one for your local MLA, the other for the party you want in government and for your favourite regional MLA candidate of your party (like the right-hand part of this ballot.) So you are free to vote for the best candidate locally; only your regional ballot counts for your party. The regional MLAs top up the local results, so the total result matches the vote shares in the region. Every vote counts equally. And the regional seats are filled by the party's regional candidates who get the most votes on the regional ballot (unless that person was already elected to a local seat.)

See MMP Made Easy.

Wildrose voters would have elected five of Edmonton’s regional MLAs instead of being shut out. Assuming that is the five best runners-up, it would be Paul Nemetchek, Garnett Genuis, Travis Hughes, Peter Rodd and Jackie Lovely. They would have elected seven of Calgary’s regional MLAs, not just two. Assuming that is the seven best runners-up, it would be Bill Jarvis, Richard Jones, Jeevan Mangat, Paul Hinman, Happy Mann, Tim Dyck, and Jasbir (Jesse) Minhas. From the 13 ridings of Northern Alberta, not just one MLA, but four regional MLAs: incumbent Guy Boutilier, Maryann Chichak from Whitecourt, Kelly Hudson from Spirit River, and Link Byfield. From Central Alberta’s 13 ridings, a regional MLA: Dave Nelson from Metiskow.

Liberal voters would have elected MLAs across Alberta, not just in Calgary and Edmonton. In Central Alberta, a regional MLA: Michael Dawe of Red Deer. In the 13 ridings of Southern Alberta, a regional MLA: Rob Miyashiro of Lethbridge. In the 23 Edmonton ridings, another MLA: Mo Elsalhy.

 
New Democrat voters would have elected MLAs across Alberta,not just in Edmonton. A regional MLA from Northern Alberta: Mandy Melnyk from Redwater. In Central Alberta, a regional MLA: Bruce Hinkley from Wetaskiwin. In Calgary, a regional MLA: Marc Power. In southern Alberta, a regional MLA: Shannon Phillips from Lethbridge.

Alberta Party voters in Edmonton would have elected one of its founders, Michael Walters. 

All MLAs would have faced the voters, and all votes would have counted. Democracy, eh?

Voters for all parties would be represented in all regions, except where they had too few voters to elect even one regional MLA: Liberal Party voters in Northern Alberta, and Alberta Party voters in most of Alberta. (Note: The Liberals would have elected an MLA in Northern Alberta except that 40% top-up MLAs was not quite enough when the PCs swept 12 of those 13 seats, although 40% was enough in the other four regions.)

Fair voting systems usually boost turnout by an average of about six percent. Funny thing: if there's no point voting, lots of people don't. Or as Elections Alberta stated "In an election where there appears to be a clear front runner, electors may be less motivated to vote since the outcome is perceived to be predetermined and their vote may not be needed or may not make a difference." So add a whole lot more votes to the picture, and who knows what would have happened?

This projection is based on five regions: Calgary with 25 MLAs (15 local, 10 regional); Edmonton with 23 MLAs (14 local, 9 regional); Central Alberta with 13 MLAs (8 local, 5 regional); Southern Alberta with 13 MLAs (8 local, 5 regional); and Northern Alberta with 13 MLAs (8 local, 5 regional).

Compared with the province-wide calculation, the PCs get a one-seat bonus from the Liberals in Northern Alberta, and get a one-seat bonus from the NDP by rounding (the NDP was close to a fifth seat in Edmonton.)

The same kind of model works well federally too. Alberta's provincial Liberal party is quite separate from their federal cousins, and more popular, so federal Liberals need proportional representation even more than provincial Liberals.
This model is based on the recommendation of the Law Commission of Canada. An STV model like BC-STV would likely have had much the same result.

How to get to the fair voting system: consultation

(Updated Nov. 3, 2014)

Thomas Mulcair, like all NDP leadership candidates, said he will move forward with party policy: “New Democrats believe in:
a. Reforming Canada’s electoral system through mixed member proportional representation
b. Ensuring electoral reform is based on a transparent process with wide citizen involvement.”

The NDP motion in the House of Commons on March 3, 2011, proposed a Special Committee engage with Canadians, and make recommendations, on how best to achieve a House of Commons that more accurately reflects the votes of Canadians by combining direct election by electoral district and proportional representation, and report its recommendations in no more than one year.

That's called a Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP), or in French, le mode de scrutin mixte compensatoire (mixed compensatory voting system). The basic idea of MMP is simple and practical: 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.

All MPs, both local and regional, will be accountable. Instead of having only a local MP -- whom you quite likely didn’t vote for -- you can also go to one of your diverse regional MPs, all of whom had to face the voters. An exciting prospect: voters have new power to elect who they like. Cooperation will have a higher value than vitriolic rhetoric. Governments will have to listen to MPs, and MPs will have to really listen to the people. MPs can begin to act as the public servants they are. All party caucuses will be more diverse. No party rolls the dice and wins an artificial majority. Every vote counts equally, whether it's Saskatchewan NDP voters, most Quebec Conservative voters, or Alberta Liberal voters, all of whom were robbed of their voice in 2011.

Design options

How will this Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system work? What design options will the public be consulted on?

There are lots of working models, such as Germany, Scotland, New Zealand, and different variations in different German provinces. They have already been reviewed in detail by the Law Commission of Canada, after holding 15 public consultations across Canada. 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.

But that was in 2004. Designing today’s model needs new consultations.

The model designed by the Ontario Citizens Assembly in 2007 was, in hindsight, not the best with its province-wide closed lists. As the Jenkins Commission in the UK said, “additional members locally anchored are, we believe, more easily assimilable into the British political culture and indeed the Parliamentary system than would be a flock of unattached birds clouding the sky and wheeling under central party directions.”

Six important decisions must be made, with consultation, about how to combine direct election by electoral district with proportional representation.

1. Will voters elect the regional “top-up” MPs by a closed list model, open list, flexible list, or no-list? Most MMP models use closed list. The German province of Bavaria uses open list; the regional candidate with the most votes gets any regional seat needed to top-up the local results to make every vote count equally. The German province of Baden-Wurttemberg uses no lists; the regional “top-up” MPs elected by voters for an under-represented party are the local candidates of that party who came closest to winning local seats (see note below). The Jenkins Commission in the UK proposed adapting Sweden’s list model, which lets voters vote either for the regional list or for one candidate on it (“flexible list”). Canada’s Law Commission also recommended flexible list. Quebec’s Director-General of Elections also discussed MMP design in Dec. 2007 after a one-year study, and said “The aim of the flexible list system is to achieve a balance between voter choice, which is usually associated with open lists, and better representation of women and minorities, usually attributed to closed lists.”

2. But even with open lists or flexible lists, how can we guarantee voters that the regional list will be nominated democratically in the region? Should we have German-style democratic nomination laws?

3. Will the total number of MPs change? Some residents of remote regions like Northern Ontario would prefer to keep all their present electoral districts and add new regional MPs. Some urban residents would prefer to keep the House of Commons at its present size (338 MPs in the 2015 election). The Law Commission recommended no change in the number of MPs except three more from the Territories. And what is the ratio of local MPs to regional top-up MPs? Germany generally uses 50/50. Scotland has 57% local MPs. New Zealand has 58% local MPs. Wales has 67% local MPs, the highest ratio found anywhere. Higher ratios risk not having enough regional MPs to compensate perfectly for disproportional local results. The Law Commission recommended almost 2/3 local MPs, perhaps 62%. With smaller "top-up" regions, the regional MPs feel more accountable, and the ratio of local MPs could be lower. If we keep 338 MPs, that might be from 213 to 203 local MPs, and 125 to 135 regional MPs. Often, three existing ridings would become two larger ridings, or five would become three, but the number from the region would not change.

4. How large are the regions? Scotland’s have 16 MPs, Wales has 12. The Jenkins Commission in the UK recommended medium-small regions of only 8 MPs. A small-region model for Quebec (three or five MNAs per region) was rejected in 2006 after its Citizens’ Committee reported the effective threshold “could be between 13 and 17%. Given that one of the objectives of reform is to ensure effective representation of the electorate in terms of equality of votes, this threshold is far from being acceptable.” For Canada’s four smallest provinces, the “region” is likely the whole province. If we use the Law Commission’s 64% local MPs, we would see nine local MPs in Saskatchewan and five provincial MPs; Manitoba would be the same. In larger provinces, regions with an average range of 14 MPs (9 local, 5 regional) would reflect experience in Scotland and Wales. In BC we might have four regions: two in the Lower Mainland (maybe both 8 local MPs, 5 regional), the Interior (6 local, 3 regional), and Vancouver Island (4 or 5 local, 2 or 3 regional). In Alberta we might also have three regions: Calgary (6 local MPs, 4 regional), Edmonton (7 local, 4 regional), and the rest of Alberta (8 local, 5 regional). In Ontario we might see nine regions: Central Toronto—Scarborough (8 local MPs, 5 regional), Northern Toronto—Etobicoke (7 local, 5 regional), Peel—Halton (8 local, 6 regional), York—Durham (9 local, 6 regional), Hamilton—Niagara—Brant (7 local, 5 regional), Southwest (Waterloo—London—Windsor) (9 local, 7 regional), Central (Barrie—Guelph—Bruce—Peterborough) (9 local, 5 regional), Eastern Ontario (Ottawa—Kingston) (10 local, 6 regional), and Northern Ontario (6 local, 3 regional). In Quebec we might see five regions with a total of 47 local MPs, 31 regional. But advocates of "moderate proportionality" would suggest regions of only six or eight MPs, such as regions averaging eight MPs. And regions of 12 MPs would work well.

5. Should a party have to reach a threshold, such as 5% of the vote in that province, to qualify for regional top-up MPs in that province? Or 4%? Both are common thresholds in Europe. A threshold of 3% is unusual, and when the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly proposed 3% it was an unpopular feature. New Zealand’s Royal Commission recommended 4%, their government changed that to 5% when the system was designed, but the latest review of their model again recommends 4%. But with regions of only 14 or eight MPs, a threshold might look unnecessary. Still, suppose 11% of the voters in Northern Ontario voted for a Northern Ontario Party, enough to elect one MP, but that would be less than 1% of the total Ontario vote. Should it have to meet a 4% threshold? Next, should a party be exempt from the vote threshold if it wins one or two local seats in a province? Germany exempts a party that wins three local seats nationally. New Zealand has a local-seat threshold of one seat, but this made some small parties captive to a larger ally who let them win a local seat, so its latest review recommends abolishing that.

6. Should voters elect local MPs as we do today, by First-Past-The-Post, or should they use a preferential ballot? No working MMP model does this. However, some supporters of proportional representation for Canada admire the Jenkins Report in the UK, which did propose this option, so it should be considered.

Other issues are pretty easy:

1. Should voters have two votes, one for local MP, one regional vote for a regional list or a regional candidate? All normal MMP models give voters two votes, making the local MP more accountable. As many as 35% of voters in New Zealand feel free to vote for a local candidate of a different party than they want in government, since only their second vote determines the party make-up of the House.

2. Can a party nominate a candidate to run for a local seat and also run regionally? If the candidate wins a local seat, their name drops from the regional list. “Dual candidacy” is permitted in almost every MMP model, and with any flexible list or open list model it gives voters more choice. (However, with closed lists a dual candidate can look immune to voter rejection.)

3. If a regional seat becomes vacant, should it be filled by the party's regional candidate who stood next at the last election? Or should there be a regional by-election which would be rather costly? No working MMP model does this. Besides, as the Jenkins Commission stated, if a region-wide contest were to take place "it would almost by definition result in the victory of the predominant party in the area, thus negating the essential purpose of the Top-up seats."

Then there are some technical issues.

1. Within larger provinces, should seats be calculated by the regional count alone, or should the province-wide count set the number of top-up MPs, which are then allocated to each region in some way? Germany does this, but does not guarantee each region will have a fixed number of seats. Sweden and Norway set aside seats (11% in Sweden, 5% in Norway) to allocate to parties who were short-changed by the regional calculations, but again some regions would get extra seats. Using the regional count has the virtues of simplicity and transparency, but with only 38% top-up MPs they might not compensate perfectly for a regional sweep.

2. With “flexible list” a regional candidate will move up the regional list if he or she gets enough personal votes, and win election ahead of another candidate whom the party’s regional nomination process had ranked higher. How many is enough? Sweden and Belgium use different calculation techniques which need study.

3. What rounding formula should be used to round fractions up and down in the proportional calculation? “Highest remainder” helps small parties, “highest average” helps large parties, and the “Ste.-Lague” calculation now used in Germany is more neutral but harder to explain. With smaller regions such as eight MPs, "highest remainder" might be essential to offset the small regions.

4.  What qualification is required for regional candidates? The Law Commission of Canada recommended a party be eligible for compensatory regional seats only if it presents local candidates in at least 33 percent of the ridings in the region. Jenkins recommended 50%. The purpose of the compensatory regional seats is to correct disproportional local results, not to provide a parallel system of getting elected. These rules prevent the Berlusconi trick of running twin parties, one party with local candidates, the other with regional candidates. But these rules also prevent regional independent candidates, which Scotland permits but no other jurisdiction does.

One way to reach these decisions is to have a discussion draft. The Law Commission recommended: “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.” Quebec prepared a draft bill in this way in 2005, but it took a long time to get through their government caucus, and it produced a poor model. Another way is to have a new expert Commission hold the consultations, perhaps jointly with a Parliamentary Committtee and a Citizens’ Committee. These details are not easy to debate in a referendum; about 70% of Canadians support proportional representation, but in the Ontario referendum the image of unrepresentative party hacks from Toronto getting in through the back door was fatal.

Note: for problems with the "no-list" method used in Baden-Wurttemberg, see Chapters 9 and 14 of Massicotte's Report. In regions that tend to give the same party massive support, that party may have no losing candidates! Since 1956, such an outcome has occurred five times, always in the region of Tübingen, which very strongly backs the CDU. So any "top-up" seats go to substitute candidates nominated before the election at the same time as the primary candidate, in the event of such an outcome.

Stephane Dion’s favourite proportional representation model.

For months, former Liberal leader Stephane Dion has been hinting that he will talk about proportional representation soon.

On Feb. 19, he finally did, at a meeting in Toronto hosted by Liberal MP and PR supporter Carolyn Bennett.

NOTE: This entire post is now out-of-date. Dion has published a modified proposal discussed here.


Back in 2006 he favoured the Mixed Member Proportional system, with two-thirds of the seats being elected as they are now and a further one-third compensatory (top-up) seats with a five percent threshhold in every province. He wanted to guarantee that each region of our country is not marginalized, i.e., to make it possible for, say, a Liberal government to have MPs elected in areas where they tend to be weaker, so that one region of a country doesn't dominate another.

But now he has a new proposal.

Swedish-style list PR with small regions

Dion advocates Swedish-style list PR, but with small regions like Spain's but even smaller. You elect between four and six MPs from multi-member districts, with some exceptions like northern seats, but generally, four in rural Canada and six in urban Canada. He wants open lists like Sweden, and with small regions this would be very feasible. You would have two votes: one for a party, one for a candidate on the party list.

So, how proportional would the result be, with small regions? You’d expect it should be very close to perfect proportionality for larger parties, less so for the Greens.

As Dion said “proportional in a way that is not extreme, that is moderate.”

Sure enough. Let’s take the votes as cast in 2011 for the present 308 MPs.

Spreadsheet simulations

In my spreadsheet’s simulation of Dion's model, due to small regions the results are: 129 Conservatives, 101 NDP, 59 Liberals, 18 Bloc, and only 1 Green. If I had used province-wide totals with perfect proportionality the results would have been: 126 Conservative, 94 New Democrats, 59 Liberals, 18 Bloc, and 11 Greens. The small regions cost the Greens 10 MPs, and give the NDP a bonus of seven, and the Conservatives a bonus of three.

What difference does this make? With full proportionality the NDP and Liberals have 153 seats, one less than a majority: an NDP-Liberal Coalition needs support from either the Greens or the Bloc. With Dion’s model an NDP-Liberal Coalition would have 160 seats, a clear majority.

In my simulation, Vancouver Island is a six-MP district, and the Greens got 14.9% of the votes, which might not have been quite enough, but assuming you use the “highest remainder” rule the quotient calculation is:
NDP 2.316 quotients: 2 MPs
Conservative 2.31: 2 MPs
Green 0.89: 1 MP
Liberal 0.47: 1 MP

Charest's 2005 Quebec proposal

This is not the first time a Liberal in Quebec has proposed a "moderate" small-region model. It's what Charest's government proposed in 2005. He proposed an MMP model with five-MNA regions (three local, two regional.) Except in rural areas it would be three-MNAs (two local, one regional.) Pretty similar. They held public hearings in 2005-6, by a joint committee: a Select Committee of the National Assembly sitting together with an 8-member Citizens' Committee (an excellent consultation model, by the way.) The superb Report of the Citizens' Committee reflected the public reaction: such a small-region model was not sufficiently proportional to "reflect the diversity of ideas that exist in Quebec society." "In concrete terms, the actual threshold for entry into the National Assembly could be between 13 and 17%. Given that one of the objectives of reform is to ensure effective representation of the electorate in terms of equality of votes, this threshold is far from being acceptable."

But Dion also has a new idea not used in Sweden. He wants voters to rank the parties with a preferential ballot. Not STV, where a surplus is transferred; just preferential. A party would be dropped from the count in favour of your second choice party if it didn't get enough votes to elect someone in your small district.

So the Green votes would count for their second choice.

The Greens’ next best districts in my simulation were Okanagan—Kootenay with 8.39% and 5 MPs, Calgary with 8.31% and 6 MPs, Vancouver-Richmond with 6.99% and 6 MPs, and Simcoe-Muskoka with 6.06% and 5 MPs. None of those are enough for an MP.

Would the preferential vote make a difference in those districts? In Okanagan—Kootenay, Liberal voters might have:
Conservative 2.64 quotients (3 MPs)
NDP 1.54 (2 MPs)
Green 0.42
Liberal 0.39

If Liberal second preferences went 60% Green, 40% NDP, they would give both parties a higher remainder than the Conservatives, and the Greens would have taken a seat from the Conservatives. Elizabeth May would have had a seat-mate (maybe retired lawyer Greig Crockett or real estate agent Alice Hooper?)

But the Greens still would not have held the balance of power. In Calgary by my spreadsheet the Conservatives would clinch 4 MPs, the Liberals 1 and the NDP 1; the Green second preferences would make no difference. In Vancouver-Richmond the three parties would each get 2 of the six MPs, and the Green second preferences would again make no difference. In Simcoe-Muskoka it would be Conservatives 3, NDP 1, Liberal 1, wherever the Green votes go.

Of course, these projections assumes voters voted as they did in 2011. In fact, if voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted -- typically at least 6% more. And some would have voted differently, perhaps 18% of them by one study. 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?

So Dion's "moderate" model might be good for the Greens after all, if they got more votes. Anyway, it's a vast improvement over winner-take-all. By having no local MPs, it might be less appealing in single-MP communities than the Law Commission's MMP model.

Other options

The real Swedish model would work better: they allocate 11 per cent of their MPs to top up the regional results, with similar results to the Mixed Member Proportional model recommended by the Law Commission of Canada. Except the Law Commission’s MMP model would let us elect two-thirds of the MPs from local single-member ridings, and the other one-third from regional open lists, so every MP has faced the voters: the regional vote can be cast by marking your ballot with an X for any regional candidate standing on the regional ballot.

Could Canada have 105 proportional MPs and scrap the Senate?

Could Canada have a proportional parliament while keeping all our local ridings, by enlarging the House of Commons? From time to time, someone suggests scrapping the Senate and adding a new tier of 105 MPs in place of the 105 Senators, with no net additional Parliamentarians.

First, scrapping the Senate needs unanimous consent of the provinces, while a normal proportional representation system needs no constitutional amendment.

That’s because voters still elect MPs from each province proportionate to its population. That’s the basis of the model recommended by the Law Commission of Canada: the number of MPs from each province stays the same, but about 65% are elected from local ridings while about 35% are elected regionally as “top-up” MPs.

That’s the Mixed Member Proportional system (MMP), combining direct election by electoral district and proportional representation. 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.

However, let’s assume fast consensus on abolishing the Senate.

(Otherwise, onward to the Law Commission Report. For example, NDP policy in the 2011 platform and the March 3 House Motion is “We will propose electoral reform to ensure Parliament reflects the political preferences of Canadians. To this end we will propose a new, more democratic voting system that preserves the connection between MPs and their constituents, while ensuring parties are represented in Parliament in better proportion to how Canadians voted. Your vote will always count.” “That the House appoint a Special Committee for Democratic Improvement, whose mandate is to engage with Canadians, and make recommendations to the House, on how best to achieve a House of Commons that more accurately reflects the votes of Canadians by combining direct election by electoral district and proportional representation, and that the Committee shall report its recommendations to this House no later than one year from the passage of this motion.” Here’s what that would have looked like.)

If fast Senate abolition is possible, would 105 “top-up” MPs really be enough? With 338 MPs to be elected in 2015, those 105 would be only 23.7% of 443. That’s “MMP-lite.” No MMP model now operating has fewer than 33% “top-up” MPs (Wales).

Speculating on the 2015 election results is not easy. But we can see how it would have worked to add 105 “top-up” MPs to the 308 elected in 2011: 25.4% of 413.

This projection assumes voters voted as they did in 2011. In fact, if voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted -- typically at least 6% more. And some would have voted differently, perhaps 18% of them by one study. 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?

Open regional list MMP

With the Law Commission model, the regional MPPs are the party's regional candidates who get the highest vote on the regional ballot. 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: voters have new power to elect who they like.

So we’re talking about MMP with open lists from middle-sized regions. All MPs have faced the voters. All MPs are “locally anchored” and accountable.

In Ontario’s 2007 referendum, 63.1% voted against that MMP model, with closed province-wide lists. About 31% were simply against proportional representation. Many more were voters who wanted all MPPs to be personally elected, not on closed lists. Many more were voters who wanted all MPPs to be anchored in their own region, not on province-wide lists. Another 7.5% were voters outside Toronto who disliked province-wide lists even more than Toronto voters did.

How proportional is MMP-lite?

I’ve compared my spreadsheet’s projection of MMP-lite with a fully proportional result, and assumed each region and province gets 34% more MPs.

When you look at regions, you see many differences between MMP-lite and a normal MMP model. Not bothering with one-seat differences, here are the bigger ones:

Peel-Halton with 12 local MPs and 4 regional: Con. 12 (should be 8), Lib. 2 (should be 5), NDP 2 (should be 3).

Montérégie with 13 local MPs and 4 regional: NDP 13 (should be 8), Bloc 2 (should be 5), Con.1 (should be 2), Lib. 1 (should be 2).

York-Durham with 12 local MPs and 4 regional: Con. 11 (should be 8), Lib. 3 (should be 4), NDP 2 (should be 3), Green 0 (should be 1).

Quebec City and Eastern Quebec with 18 local MPs and 6 regional: NDP 13 (should be 9), Con. 5 (should be 7), Bloc 4 (should be 5), Lib. 2, Green 0 (should be 1).

Central Ontario (Belleville to Owen Sound) with 12 local MPs and 4 regional: Con. 12 (should be 9), Lib. 2 (should be 3), NDP 2 (should be 3), Green 0 (should be 1).

Laurentides--Lanaudière--West & North Quebec with 13 local MPs and 5 regional: NDP 13 (should be 9), Bloc 3 (should be 5), Con. 1 (should be 2), Lib. 1 (should be 2).

Luckily, on the 2011 votes, these tend to cancel each other out.

When you look at each province, again you see many significant differences.

Ontario: Con. 75 (should be 64), NDP 33 (should be 37), Lib. 30 (should be 36), Green 4 (should be 5).

Quebec: NDP 59 (should be 44), Bloc 17 (should be 24), Con. 12 (should be 17), Lib. 12 (should be 14), Green 1 (should be 2).

Saskatchewan with 14 local MPs and 5 provincial: Con. 13 (should be 11), NDP 5 (should be 6), Lib. 1 (should be 2).

New Brunswick with 10 local MPs and 3 provincial: Con. 8 (should be 6), NDP 3 (should be 4), Lib. 2 (should be 3).

Luckily these again tend to cancel each other out.

So Canada-wide with 413 MPs we get: Conservatives 178 (should be 168), NDP 137 (should be 128), Liberals 70 (should be 78), Bloc 17 (should be 24), Greens 11 (should be 15). Luckily, not bad at all. An NDP-Liberal-Green coalition government would have had a majority either way: 218 (should be 221).

But one can easily imagine an election where MMP-lite would let voters for one party elect a false majority with less than 50% of the votes.

Conclusion: MMP-lite can get close to proportional results, and is certainly a vast improvement over our undemocratic winner-take-all system. However, it sometimes does not make every vote count equally.

Note: This simulation uses no legal threshold. If there was a legal threshold of 5% in each province, Green voters would have elected no MPs from Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Nova Scotia, electing only 4 MPs not 10. But of course in a real MMP election Green voters would likely have cast over 5% of the vote in many provinces.

Where will British Columbia's six new seats be?

The six new seats will be four in the Lower Mainland, one on Vancouver Island, and one in the Interior, using the 2011 census figures.

Growth in Kelowna (now too big for a single riding), Kamloops, etc. requires a new Interior riding. Four present Interior ridings are all well over quotient: Kelowna - Lake Country is 28.6%, Okanagan - Shuswap is 15.6% over, Kamloops - Thompson - Cariboo is 14.8% over, and Okanagan - Coquihalla is 8.7% over.

The North and the Kootenays can, in my opinion, remain unchanged. The present three Northern ridings do not, as a whole, over-represent the North. The present Kootenay--Columbia riding is almost 16% below quotient, but it can remain without causing other areas to be under-represented, and with six new ridings for BC, it would be shocking if the Kootenays had to lose representation.

So here's my prediction of what the Boundaries Commission is likely to do.

Details, referring to quotients from the census (104,763):
The Lower Mainland, including Sunshine Coast and the Squamish area, has 2,637,911 residents, 25.1798 quotients, 25 ridings. Today it has 21, one of which includes Powell River, and 14% of Chiliwack—Fraser Canyon is in the Interior.

Coast-North Shore (not including Powell River or Whistler):
WEST VANCOUVER--NORTH VANCOUVER--SUNSHINE COAST (including Squamish) 10.4% over quotient.
NORTH VANCOUVER 10.98% above quotient.

Vancouver-Richmond-South Delta gets 8 (now 7).
VANCOUVER EAST 5.09% over quotient, unchanged The other ridings would be about 0.78% over quotient.
VANCOUVER CENTRE loses 31,692 residents to a new VANCOUVER FAIRVIEW.
VANCOUVER QUADRA loses 16,288 to the new VANCOUVER FAIRVIEW.
VANCOUVER KINGSWAY gains 38,236 from Vancouver South and loses 57,597 to VANCOUVER FAIRVIEW.
VANCOUVER SOUTH-RICHMOND NORTH gains 20,133 from Richmond.
RICHMOND STEVENSON (the remaining Richmond riding) might be renamed.
DELTA - RICHMOND EAST largely unchanged, move about 5,000 residents of the Hamilton neighborhood to New Westminster, about 1.57% over quotient.

Burnaby-New West-Maple Ridge gets 6 ridings (now 4.7).
BURNABY NORTH about 3.49% below quotient.
BURNABY SOUTH about 3.49% below quotient.
NEW WESTMINSTER--BURQUITLAM about 3.61% below quotient.
COQUITLAM--PORT MOODY about 3.43% below quotient.
COQUITLAM CENTRE—PORT COQUITLAM about 3.22% below quotient.
MAPLE RIDGE—PITT MEADOWS—PORT COQUITLAM (taking about 7,000 from Port Coquitlam) about 3.58% below quotient.
Surrey/White Rock-North Delta gets 5 (now 4).
The new SURREY FLEETWOOD riding might get 51,800 from Fleetwood, 19,600 from Newton, 19,400 from Cloverdale, and 17,600 from North Surrey.
The four present ridings would then be about 3.4% over quotient:
NEWTON--NORTH DELTA
SURREY NORTH
SOUTH SURREY - WHITE ROCK – CLOVERDALE, and
PORT KELLS.

Langley-Abbotsford-Mission gets 3 (now 2.3).
LANGLEY loses about 28,000 Aldergrove residents, 3.28% under quotient.
ABBOTSFORD WEST—ALDERGROVE about 3.33% under quotient.
ABBOTSFORD EAST—MISSION about 3.63% under quotient.

CHILIWACK--FRASER CASCADE loses the areas outside the Fraser Valley RD, and is 0.86% below quotient.

The North, still 3:
SKEENA - BULKLEY VALLEY add 8,524 in Vanderhoof area, 5.96% below quotient.
CARIBOO - PRINCE GEORGE after transferring those 8,524, 4.24% below quotient.
PRINCE GEORGE - PEACE RIVER unchanged only 0.97% over quotient

Interior, 7, now 6
KAMLOOPS--SHUSWAP—THOMPSON including 65% of Kamloops City, 1.19% over quotient. About 67% of these residents are within the present Kamloops--Thompson–Cariboo. (The growing city of Kamloops is large enough for its own riding, but I cannot find a good way to do that.)
OKANAGAN NORTH--LAKE COUNTRY--NORTH KELOWNA, 4.7% over quotient. About 78% of its residents are in the present Okanagan—Shuswap riding.
KELOWNA has all but 7,000 City residents, 5.3% over quotient.
OKANAGAN SOUTH-CENTRAL (remove the 13,244 residents of Okanagan–Coquihalla who are in Thompson-Nicola), 3.98% under quotient.
The new riding of COQUIHALLA—LILLOOET—CARIBOO is centered on Merritt. It includes about 31,500 Kamloops city residents, along with 3,633 in Logan Lake and area. It includes 11,171 people in Merritt and area. It includes 32,621 residents of Squamish-Lillooet RD, all of the district west to and including Whistler. It includes 4,492 residents of Princeton and area who are, for example, in the same Nicola-Similkameen school district as Merritt. And it includes the 14,421 residents of Cariboo who are now in Kamloops - Thompson – Cariboo. This riding reminds one of Cariboo-Chilcotin which, from 1976-1987, included Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, parts of Thompson- Nicola Regional District, and Cariboo Regional District. About 48% of the residents of COQUIHALLA—LILLOOET—CARIBOO are now in Kamloops - Thompson – Cariboo, while the other 52% are now in three other ridings. It has 97,838 residents, 6.61% under quotient, quite appropriate for a far-flung riding.
BRITISH COLUMBIA SOUTHERN INTERIOR, after losing the Princeton area, 10.79% under quotient.
KOOTENAY—COLUMBIA unchanged, 15.98% under quotient.

Vancouver Island gets a new riding:
VANCOUVER ISLAND NORTH—POWELL RIVER (includes Comox), 1.3% under quotient.
PARKSVILLE—ALBERNI—COURTENAY 0.04% under quotient.
NANAIMO (includes Lantzville), 2.84% over quotient.
COWICHAN—LANGFORD (includes Highlands), 6.6% over quotient.
ESQUIMALT - JUAN DE FUCA, loses Langford and Highlands but gains 8,000 from Saanich, 4% over quotient.
SAANICH—GULF ISLANDS loses 8,000 residents, now 3.8% over quotient.
VICTORIA unchanged, 5.9% over quotient.
Note that every riding is within a 10% deviation except the two remote ridings of Kootenay-Columbia and Southern Interior, and the two North Shore-Coast ridings are again just over 10% as they were in the 2003 report, to avoid a cross-Burrard-Inlet riding.

Ontario's 121 seats for 2015

Where will Ontario’s 15 new seats in Parliament be? This will be determined by the new Boundaries Commission. But since there is so much interest, I have spent some time on the answer. (Note: this post has been updated with the census figures.)

First, how many seats will be available for southern Ontario, after the North is dealt with?

Last time, in the 2004 Boundaries Commission Report after the 2001 census, the North (north of the French River) had enough people for 7.74 “quotients.” The Commission decided they could not give them more than nine ridings. This time, with fewer people and a higher quotient, that area has only 7.01 quotients.

But with Ontario getting more MPs, how can a Commission explain the North losing an MP? Conservative MP Michael Chong said in the House debate “the bill would ensure that rural Ontario continues to have the number of seats it has presently, while, at the same time, adding new seats to the rapidly growing urban regions of our province. One of the challenges with the bill that the Liberals have proposed is that, while it would add some new seats to the rapidly growing regions of urban Ontario, it would take seats away from rural Ontario and add them to urban Ontario. Our bill would not do that.” House debates are not binding on the Commission, but this comment does reflect the likely approach of most Commissioners.

There is a simple solution, since the Ontario government now defines the North as including Parry Sound. Adding Parry Sound, it is possible for the North to keep nine MPs without breaking any rules, as detailed below.

So I think the new 15 seats will be:
Peel-Halton gets 5 more seats (3.9 in Peel, 1.1 in Halton)
York Region gets 2 more (2.9 mathematically, considering they now share one MP with Simcoe, and will have to share one with Durham)
Toronto 2 more (1.6 mathematically, but they won't have an MP shared with Pickering)
Durham 1 more (0.9 mathematically; they won't have to share an MP with Scarborough East but will with York.)
Ottawa—Prescott & Russell 1 more (1.2 mathematically, since they won't have to share an MP with Lanark)
Hamilton 1 more shared with Brant; Niagara will no longer have to share one with Hamilton.
Kingston to Peterborough 1 more (due to growth in Kingston and Frontenac, Napanee won't have to share an MP with Lanark anymore, and the growing urban area of Belleville-Quinte West will now have their own MP)
Waterloo—Wellington—Dufferin 1 more (0.7 mathematically, but they won't have to share an MP with Perth anymore)
Windsor--Essex 1 more (0.7 mathematically), a new MP in suburban Windsor, by giving Essex-Kent-Lambton an extra half riding and London-Middlesex the other half, so they no longer have a riding straddling the regions' boundary.
Simcoe—Muskoka has growth worth 0.5 MP, accommodated by Muskoka not having to share an MP with Parry Sound anymore.

Total 15.5 mathematically, but there are only 15 new seats. The North loses 0.4 seats. Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry loses 0.1.

How do I calculate this?

We have the 2011 census figures. These don’t include 13 Indian reserves and Indian settlements in Kenora where forest fires made the census impossible, and some other Reserves, so I have added them.

The results are shown below, with the exact quotients in brackets. Note that all my southern ridings are within 10% of quotient, although the Commission is allowed to deviate by up to 25%.

I have tried to follow districts and counties as much as possible, and District School Boards such as the Near North Board (Parry Sound—Nipissing). I have eliminated 12 boundary-straddling ridings, but created five new ones, sorry. Despite the major changes required by growth and the 15 new electoral districts, 17 of the 121 ridings are unchanged from the 2003 Order.

Toronto has 24.59 “quotients.” But no major region can get its quotients rounded up, after the North gets an extra 1.7 seats. So Toronto will get 24 seats.

Toronto 24 (24.59). (Note these 24 ridings will be only 2.4% over quotient.)
York—Durham 15 (15.43), including a Durham North—Georgina alignment.
Peel—Halton 17 (16.91), including a Halton Hills--Brampton Mount Pleasant.
Hamilton—Brant 6 (6.18), including an Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough—Brant North.
Niagara Region 4 (4.06)
Haldimand-Norfolk 1 (1.02)
Waterloo—Wellington—Dufferin 7 (7.26) (3.7% over quotient, details below)
Oxford 1 (0.99)
London-Middlesex—Elgin 5 (4.95)
Windsor-Essex—Chatham-Kent—Lambton 6 (5.84) (details below)
Simcoe—Muskoka—Grey-Bruce-Huron-Perth 7 (7.49) (details below)
Peterborough—Kawartha Lakes-Haliburton—Northumberland 3 (2.89) (details below)
Hastings-Prince-Edward—Lennox & Addington 2 (1.90)
Kingston-Frontenac—Lanark 2 (2.03)
Leeds & Grenville 1 (0.93)
Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry 1 (1.08)
Renfrew 1 (0.96)
Ottawa—Prescott & Russell 9 (9.11)

Here are details of the more difficult areas where ridings will have to straddle the boundaries of counties, regional municipalities or districts, showing what amount of a “quotient” each riding has.

North 9:
Sudbury 0.86
Nickel Belt—Timiskaming (includes West Nipissing and Temagami) 0.85
Nipissing—Parry Sound (North Bay and east) 1.03
Timmins—Cochrane 0.80
Sudbury—Algoma—Manitoulin (includes Bruce Mines) 0.82
Sault Ste. Marie (includes Michipicoten (Wawa) and Dubreuilville) 0.84
Thunder Bay – Superior (includes White River and Hornepayne) 0.77
Thunder Bay – Fort Frances 0.77
Kenora—West Rainy River 0.66 (recognized as exceptional already by the last Commission)

Simcoe—Muskoka—Grey-Bruce-Huron-Perth 7:
Simcoe South 1.10
Barrie 1.06
Barrie-Midland 1.06
Muskoka—Simcoe North 1.05
Grey North—Owen Sound—Simcoe West 1.09
Bruce—Grey—Huron 1.04
Perth—Huron 1.10

Waterloo—Wellington—Dufferin 7:
Kitchener—Waterloo 1.09
Kitchener Centre 1.09
Kitchener-Wilmot-Wellesley 1.09
Cambridge 1.05 (still includes North Dumfries)
Guelph 1.10
Waterloo-Wellington (Fergus, Elmira, Hespeler, Puslinch, Rockwood) 0.93
Dufferin—Wellington (includes Erin & Mount Forest) 0.92

Windsor-Essex—Chatham-Kent--Lambton 6:
Windsor East 0.99
Windsor West 0.99
Essex Northwest 1.02
Essex—Kent 0.97
Chatham-Kent--Lambton 0.96
Sarnia—Lambton 0.91

Peterborough—Kawartha Lakes-Haliburton—Northumberland 3:
Peterborough 1.04
Northumberland—Peterborough 0.93
Kawartha Lakes-Haliburton 0.92

If Saskatchewan had a democratic voting system . . .

After the 2011 election, communities in all of Saskatchewan outside Regina, Saskatoon and the two northern ridings have no voice in the opposition. They have no local voice to question any government action or inaction. Their regions face one-party rule.

The 16 MLAs from the southwest (Moose Jaw - Swift Current - Estevan – Rosetown) are all from the Saskatchewan Party. Although 22% of those voters voted NDP, they have no voice in the opposition.

With a regional open-list Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system such as the Law Commission of Canada recommended, if Saskatchewan voters voted as they did in 2011 they would have elected 38 Saskatchewan Party MLAs and 20 New Democrats.

With MMP, we still elect the majority of MLAs locally. Voters unrepresented by the local results top them up by electing regional MLAs. The total MLAs 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 that won the 2016 referendum in PEI..  

See MMP Made Easy.

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

Problems with your Health Region in Prairie North, Prince Albert Parkland, Kelsey Trail, Sunrise, Sun Country, Five Hills, Cypress, or Heartland? Who're ya gonna call?

One interesting difference would be those 16 MLAs from Moose Jaw-Swift Current-Estevan-Rosetown: instead of a SP sweep, my spreadsheet projects four New Democrats, once NDP votes count equally with SP voters. That would be the four regional NDP candidates who got the most votes across the region. Maybe NDP voters would have elected Deb Higgins, Glenn Wright, Carol Morin, and Ken Kessler or Derek Hassen or Donald Jeworski.

The 16 MLAs in that region would be ten local, six regional. The SP would no doubt have won all ten local seats, so those SP voters would even elect two of the regional MLAs. Green Party voters just missed getting enough votes here to elect an MLA like William Caton or Norbert Kratchmer.

Another change would be the 18 MLAs from Prince Albert-Battlefords-Yorkton-Tisdale: instead of the SP winning all but two, we'd see six New Democrats. That would be the four regional NDP candidates who got the most votes across the region (maybe Darcy Furber, Len Taylor, Helen Ben and Bernadette Gopher or Ted Zurakowski or Jeanette Wicinski-Dunn). The 18 MLAs in that region would be 12 local, six regional.

Of course, this projection simplistically assumes voters would have cast the same ballots they did in 2011. The reality would be different. When every vote counts, we typically see around 8% higher turnout. And one recent study suggested 18% of voters might vote 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?

Different candidates: when the SP members from Moose Jaw-Swift Current-Estevan-Rosetown met in a regional nominating convention, they would have not only voted to put the ten local nominees on the regional ballot, but would have added several regional candidates. With only one woman from the ten local ridings, when they nominated several additional regional candidates, they would have naturally wanted to nominate a diverse group: more women. This year Saskatchewan elected ten women and 48 men. But 90% of Canadian voters say that, if parties would nominate more women, they'd vote for them.

Voters in the 11 Regina ridings would have elected five NDP MLAs, not just three. Perhaps Jaime Garcia and Yens Pedersen or Sandra Morin?

The 13 ridings of Saskatoon plus Martensville were less skewed. Instead of four NDP and nine SP we'd see five NDP: perhaps Andy Iwanchuk or Judy Junor?

The exact numbers might be different if Saskatchewan had five regions rather than four. 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."

Open list

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" or "open list with party option."

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.”

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.

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

Let’s see what the Ontario legislature would have looked like with a proportional voting system if voters voted as they did on October 6, 2011.

Here is the result with a legislature of 129 MPPs, the number recommended by the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly in 2007, 22 more than today. On the votes as cast, we would have seen 49 Liberals, 46 PCs, 31 New Democrats, and 3 Greens, using a nine-region version of the Citizens' model.

See MMP Made Easy.

Still a minority legislature. The big difference would have been better representation for each region. No longer would parties be hived into regional strongholds.

Regional strongholds

Canadians are, sadly, used to seeing exaggerated regional differences in our federal elections. Now Ontario has joined this parade of stronghold politics, after the recent provincial election. The 2011 Ontario election gave voters very unequal voices.

In the 35 ridings in southern Ontario outside the GTA, Ottawa, and Hamilton-Niagara, 631,465 PC voters elected 24 MPPs (26,311 votes per MPP), 469,291 Liberal voters elected 9 MPPs (52,143 votes per MPP), and 310,590 NDP voters elected 2 MPPs (155,295 votes per MPP).

In the other 72 ridings, 1,153,164 Liberal voters elected 44 MPPs (26,208 votes per MPP), while 896,487 PC voters elected 13 MPPs (68,961 votes per MPP) and 669,811 NDP votes elected 15 MPPs (44,654 votes per MPP).

In regions where Liberal voters are unrepresented, with this model they would elect four more MPPs, while electing fewer in Liberal strongholds. Similarly, unrepresented PC voters, such as those in Toronto, would elect 13 more MPPs, and fewer in PC strongholds. Unrepresented NDP voters, such as those in Eastern Ontario, would elect 14 more MPPs. Green Party voters would elect three MPPs.

This projection assumes voters voted as they did in 2011. In fact, if voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted -- typically at least 6% more. And some would have voted differently, perhaps 18% of them by one study. 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?

Regional lists.

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 he was President of the Ontario Municipal Association in 1986. 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 the right-hand part of this ballot.

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.

Gerretsen has not given up on regional MMP. On Sept. 21, 2011, at an all-candidates meeting in Kingston he expressed renewed support for proportional representation. He was eloquent about the benefits of coalitions and agreements. As he said in 2007 “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.”

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

Open list

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.

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.

In the 2007 Ontario referendum, 63.1% voted against MMP. About 31% were simply against proportional representation. Many more were voters who wanted all MPPs to be personally elected, not on closed lists. Many more were voters who wanted all MPPs to be anchored in their own region, not on province-wide lists. Another 7.5% were voters outside Toronto who disliked province-wide lists even more than Toronto voters did.

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 26, 17 local and 9 regional.

The other seven regions would have had 11 to 15 MPPs each, typically 9 local, 4 regional.

Unrepresented Liberal voters would have elected four more MPPs.

Central East Region Liberal voters would have elected four MPPs, not just two. Maybe Tweed's Leona Dombrowsky and Brighton's Lou Rinaldi or Kawartha Lakes' Rick Johnson, Barrie's Karl Walsh or Elmvale's Donna Kenwell.

Central West Region Liberal voters would have elected five MPPs, not just three. Maybe Stratford's John Wilkinson and Huron's Carol Mitchell or Waterloo's Leeanna Pendergast.

(However, Liberal voters would have elected eight fewer MPPs from regions where they are over-represented.)

Unrepresented Progressive Conservative voters would have elected 13 more MPPs.

Toronto PC voters would have elected six MPPs, not none. Maybe Michael Mostyn, Rocco Rossi, Vince Agovino, Mary Anne Demonte-Whelan, Liang Chen and Andrea Mandel-Campbell?

Peel-Halton PC voters would have elected four MPPs, not just two. Maybe Larry Scott and Pam Hundal or Geoff Janoscik?

Hamilton area PC voters would have elected four MPPs from Hamilton, Niagara and Burlington, not just two. Maybe St. Catharine's Sandie Bellows and Niagara-on-the-Lake's George Lepp or Hamilton's Donna Skelly. (However, Central West Region PC voters would have elected two fewer MPPs.)

Northern PC voters would have elected three MPPs, not one. Maybe Kenora's Rod McKay and Sudbury's Paula Peroni or Kapuskasing’s Al Spacek.

Ottawa - Cornwall PC voters would have elected four MPPs, not just three. Maybe Andrew Lister or Marilissa Gosselin? (However, Central East Region PC voters would have elected two fewer MPPs.)

NDP voters would have elected fourteen more MPPs.

Central West NDP voters would have elected three MPPs from the area from Norfolk to Owen Sound, not none. Maybe Cambridge's Atinuke Bankole, Brantford's Brian Van Tilborg and Guelph's James Gordon or Bruce County's Grant Robertson?

Central East region NDP voters would have elected two MPPs, not none. Maybe Peterborough’s Dave Nickle and Kingston’s Mary Rita Holland or Wasauksing First Nation's Alex Zyganiuk.

Ottawa - Cornwall NDP voters would have elected two MPPs, not none. Maybe Anil Naidoo and Cornwall's Elaine MacDonald?

York-Durham region NDP voters would have elected two MPPs, not none. Maybe Oshawa’s Mike Shields and York Region's Megan Tay?

Toronto NDP voters would have elected seven MPPs, not just five. Maybe Paul Ferreira and Cathy Crowe or Neethan Shan?

Peel-Halton NDP voters would have elected two MPPs, not just one. Maybe Michelle Bilek or Dalbir Singh Kathuria?

Southwestern NDP voters would have elected four MPPs, not just two. Maybe Windsor's Andrew McAvoy and Leamington's Aleksandra Navarro or Windsor's Helmi Charif or Sarnia's Brian White or Ingersoll's Dorothy Eisen (a member of the Wabigoon Lake First Nation)?

Green Party voters would have elected three MPPs.

Central East Region Green voters would have elected one: leader Mike Schreiner?

Toronto Green voters would have elected one: maybe Women's Issues critic Judyth Van Veldhuysen or Transport critic Tim Grant?

Peel-Halton Green voters would have elected one: maybe Deputy Leader Rob Strang?

90 local ridings

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

Because the Citizens’ model had only 30% “top-up” MPPs, results are not guaranteed to be perfectly proportional, but this year 30% was enough. The perfect result would be 49 Liberals, 46 PCs, 30 NDP and 4 Green, but rounding anomalies from using nine regions produced 49, 46, 31 and 3. That's very close indeed.

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?

Not enough time

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.

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 had 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.

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. But he thought the basic model would have stayed the same: 129 MPPs, 90 local, 39 top-up.

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.

Ontarians rejected province-wide lists in the 2007 referendum.

Did Ontarians reject province-wide lists in 2007, in the referendum on the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system recommended by the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly?

The main criticisms of MMP were:

1. That "party bosses" would control who gets on their parties' list. In the majority of Ontario (outside Toronto), this criticism was that "party bosses in Toronto" would have control.

2. That List MPPs would not be elected by voters and accountable to voters, because the MMP model had closed lists.

On the second point, this was a problem everywhere in Ontario. The Law Commission of Canada in its 2004 report said “Based on the feedback received during our consultation process, many Canadian voters would also most likely desire the flexibility of open lists in a mixed member proportional system. Allowing voters to choose a candidate from the list provides voters with the ability to select a specific individual and hold them accountable for their actions should they be elected.”

On both points, the open regional list method was 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.”

Voters outside Toronto rejected the model

On the first point, voters outside Toronto rejected the model. The further they were from Toronto, the more they rejected it. It is easy to see the correlation between distance from Toronto and rejection of the model.

Region,. . . . . . . . percent against MMP
Toronto:. . . . . . . . . . . . 55.6%
Peel Region: . . . . . . . . . 61.5%
York Region: . . . . . . . . . 61.7%
Central West:. . . . . . . . . 62.6%
Hamilton-Halton-Niagara: . 64.0%
Central East (Barrie to Brockville): 65.1%
Southwest: . . . . . . . . . . 65.4%
East:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67.3%
North: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71.3%

Is this just because Toronto voters are more progressive? But compare York Region’s six ridings with Ottawa’s seven ridings. York Region voted 8.1% NDP and 6.7% Green. Ottawa voted 12.3% NDP and 8.7% Green. Yet York Region voted 38.3% for MMP, while Ottawa voted only 34.9% for MMP. And look at Northern Ontario, which voted 36.7% NDP and 4.1% Green – the two parties that supported MMP – yet only 28.7% for MMP.

Across Ontario, 63.1% voted against MMP. About 31% were simply against proportional representation. Many more were voters who wanted all MPPs to be personally elected, not on closed lists. Many more were voters who wanted all MPPs to be anchored in their own region, not on province-wide lists. Another 7.5% were voters outside Toronto who disliked province-wide lists even more than Toronto voters did.

As Prof. Henry Milner wrote just after the referendum "opponents hammered away on the claim that there would be 39 MPPs beholden to party headquarters instead of voters. . . in a short campaign, this image of unrepresentative party hacks from Toronto getting in through the back door was fatal. Had the assembly proposed the alternative MMP method – of having the 39 places filled through regional lists – the proposal would have been less vulnerable to this sort of attack."

This should not have been a surprise. P.E.I. had a referendum on an MMP system with province-wide lists. Again, support dropped in direct proportion to the distance from the capital, Charlottetown.

If those 103 Citizens' Assembly members had had another six or eight weeks to deliberate, some elements might have been different, like regional lists and open lists. What would their model have looked like, with mid-sized regions? How would regional MPPs serve constituents? What would the 2011 election results have been on such a model? And the 2014 results?

The coalition Canada almost had

A democratic voting system would have let NDP, Liberal and Green voters elect a majority in Parliament. They would have elected 97 New Democrat MPs, 56 Liberals and 11 Greens in the House of Commons. Just as a fair voting system would have given them in the elections of 2008, 2006 and 2004. That's assuming the MMP model recommended by the Law Commission of Canada.

But we almost got that on May 2, 2011. If 2.3% of the Liberal voters (blue Liberals) had not switched to the Conservatives in the final days before May 2, the Liberals would have held another 15 seats. Also, vote splits would have let the NDP take another five from the Conservatives while letting the Liberals hold on to one. Result: Conservatives 147, NDP 107, Liberal 49, Bloc 4, Green 1.

Would the Liberals have joined a coalition, or would they have supported Harper on the first confidence vote? We will never know for sure, but we do know what their voters wanted. On April 28 and 29, 2011, after the Liberals had slipped to third place in the polls, Angus Reid asked how voters would feel about various scenarios. On “The Conservatives win more seats than any other single party, but the Liberals and the NDP have more combined seats than the Conservatives. The Liberals and the NDP form a coalition government” they found 78% of Liberal voters liked it, 17% did not, and 5% were not sure. On “The Conservatives win more seats than any other single party, and form a minority government’ they found only 20% of Liberals liked it, while 76% did not. Of all voters planning to vote Liberal, only 13% said they would never consider voting NDP.

Would Ignatieff have accepted his voters’ wishes? He had spent the campaign saying “you’re looking at the guy who turned down the last coalition. I could be standing here as prime minister of Canada. I turned it down.” (Did this help scare the 17% of his voters away from a coalition with the NDP?) However, on this scenario he would have lost his own seat, and the Liberals would have dropped from 77 seats (so low that Dion resigned) to only 49 seats. So Ignatieff would have resigned.

By the time the House convened, the Liberals would have had an interim leader who would, let’s assume, have agreed to a coalition with the NDP.

It's not surprising that Liberal voters supported a coalition with the NDP. Even in January 2009 the initial hysteria against the Coalition had largely vanished, even though that earlier Coalition would have needed Bloc support.

Who might the cabinet have been? (Assuming 28 ministers (9 Liberals) and 11 ministers of state (3 Liberals).)

Jack Layton, Prime Minister
Tom Mulcair, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Bob Rae, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Libby Davies, Health
Nycole Turmel, Public Works and Government Services
Ralph Goodale, Minister of Finance
Joe Comartin, Minister of Justice
Yvon Godin, Minister of Labour
Marc Garneau, Minister of Public Safety
Peter Stoffer, Veterans’ Affairs and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
Peter Julian, Minister of Industry
Dominic Leblanc, Minister of National Defence
Jack Harris, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway
Dave Christopherson, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities
Joyce Murray, Minister of National Revenue
Peggy Nash, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism
Charlie Angus, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario
John McCallum, Minister of Natural Resources
Linda Duncan, Minister of the Environment
Paul Dewar, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform and the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
Stephane Dion, President of the Treasury Board
Françoise Boivin, Minister for Status of Women
Pat Martin, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development
Claudette Tardif, Leader of the Government in the Senate
Romeo Saganash, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development
Nettie Wiebe, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board
Carolyn Bennett, Minister of International Cooperation
Alexandre Boulerice, Associate Minister of National Defence
Chris Charlton, Minister of State and Chief Government Whip
Jean Crowder, Minister of State (Finance)
Justin Trudeau, Minister of State (Sport)
Raymond Cote, Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism, and La Francophonie)
Don Davies, Minister of State (Asia-Pacific Gateway, Western Economic Diversification)
Anita Neville, Minister of State (Status of Women)
Dennis Bevington, Minister of State (Transport) and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency
Brian Masse, Minister of State (International Trade)
Martha Hall Findlay, Minister of State (Science and Technology)
Guy Caron, Minister of State (Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec)
Irene Mathyssen, Minister of State (Seniors)

Would Elizabeth May also have been in cabinet? Why not?

In this what-if universe, let’s see what Jack Layton going on leave to fight cancer would have done. Who would have been interim Prime Minister?

Nycole Turmel still looks like the logical choice (although in hindsight, since Joe Comartin did not run for the leadership, he might also have been a good choice). Of all the potential NDP ministers, Turmel’s the veteran: the oldest (67), and with the longest history in federal politics of any New Democrat. She was Associate President (Labour) of the federal party almost 20 years ago. Turmel says “I’ve been at this for decades. In the 1990s, I chaired cross-country NDP panels that consulted Canadians on their ideas about progressive government. I moderated the leadership process that saw Jack Layton elected (in 2003).” She co-chaired, with Dick Proctor, the Social Democratic Forum on Canada’s Future, a panel of "nine distinguished Canadians" which held broad cross-country consultations between March 1998 and January 1999 "to create a vision for the future of the federation" and canvass Canadians' ideas about progressive government.

Active in PSAC (Public Service Alliance of Canada) since 1979, she served as vice president of a PSAC component in the late 1980s. She became PSAC Fourth Executive Vice-President from 1991 to 1994, First Executive Vice-President from 1994 to 1997, and National Executive Vice-President from 1997 to 2000. She became the first female PSAC President in 2000, retiring in 2006 when she was about to turn 63. She was also a member of the CLC Executive Committee. On leaving PSAC office she represented workers on the Management Committee of Financial Assets of the QFL Solidarity Fund, and served on many other boards.

Her term as PSAC President was marked by a major shift toward social activism for the union. She was a key player in the union's $3.6-billion pay equity settlement. Under her leadership, in 2003, PSAC created the Social Justice Fund to advance work in five priority areas including anti-poverty initiatives in Canada and humanitarian relief in Canada and around the world. During her presidency PSAC created its National Aboriginal, Inuit and Metis Network.

She had been so active at all levels of the party and the labour movement that Jack Layton drafted her from semi-retirement on Feb. 3, 2011, to be the NDP’s star candidate in Hull-Aylmer, one of the small handful of Quebec ridings that looked winnable at that time.

As the President of PSAC, Turmel had encouraged members of the union to vote for candidates - Liberal, NDP, and Bloc Québécois - that had been endorsed by the union for their progressive values and for being considered electable in their riding. In December 2006 Turmel made a political donation to the riding association of her friend, Carole Lavallée, who was the Bloc's labour critic; and also accepted a Bloc membership card in that riding. Turmel says that she refused to transfer her membership to her own riding when asked. Turmel, however, was never a separatist: she voted “no” in both the 1980 sovereignty referendum and in the 1995 sovereignty referendum, and has never voted for the Bloc. By voting NDP even in 2000, when the NDP got only 1.8% of the vote in Quebec, she showed herself as a hardcore federalist. This dual membership put Turmel in violation of the NDP constitution which prohibits being a member of more than one federal political party at the same time. In January 2011, Turmel cancelled her membership in the Bloc Québécois and agreed to run as a New Democrat candidate.