What would the 2011 election results be if every vote counted?

How would the results of the 2011 election play out, by province and nationally, if a model of proportional representation were in place?

For a start, let’s use the 2008 votes.

This simulation is only if people voted as they did on October 14, 2008. In fact, if voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted -- often 6% or so more -- and some would have voted differently. We would have had different candidates - more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We could have different parties.

To prevent any concern that we voters might have no voice in choosing the individual that will represent us, let’s use the open-regional-list mixed member proportional (MMP) model recommended by the Law Commission of Canada in 2004. (More details below.)

You have two votes. The first is for your local MP, as today. The second is for your party’s regional candidate you like best. This model still leaves almost two-thirds of MPs elected from local ridings. The other one-third are elected from regions averaging 14 MPs (nine local, five regional). 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. The regional candidate with the most votes gets any regional seat needed to top-up the local results to make every vote count equally.

Winner-take-all gave Canada a House of Commons in 2008 of 143 Conservatives, 77 Liberals, 49 Bloc Quebecois, 37 New Democrats, no Greens and two independents.

Instead, the proportional results would have been 116 Conservatives, 86 Liberals, 55 New Democrats, 31 Bloc, 18 Greens, and two Independents. The majority of Canadians voted Liberal, NDP or Green. A Liberal-NDP-Green coalition government would have a clear majority. Or a Liberal-NDP government could rely on either the Greens or the Bloc for a majority. Either way, that's a strong, stable majority in Parliament elected by a majority of voters.

The provincial results are even more telling. They would be the end of the “regional silos” that Canada’s politics have fallen into. Our political diversity in each province is fully represented.

An exciting prospect: voters have new power to elect who they like. New voices from new forces in Parliament. No party rolls the dice and wins an artificial majority. Cooperation will have a higher value than vitriolic rhetoric. 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. 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.

Instead of Alberta Liberal voters electing no MPs, they would elect four Liberal MPs – two from Calgary, southern and central Alberta, two from Edmonton and northern Alberta. Alberta NDP voters would elect three NDP MPs (two north, one south), Greens two (one south, one north), and Conservatives 19.

Instead of Quebec having 49 Bloc MPs from only 38 percent of Quebec voters, it would have only 31. It would have 18 Liberal MPs, 15 Conservatives, nine New Democrats, a Green, and an independent.

In Ontario, instead of no Conservative MPs from the City of Toronto and 51 from outside Toronto, Toronto Conservative voters would have elected five MPs; outside Toronto, 35. Liberal voters, instead of electing 32 MPs from the Greater Toronto Area and only six from outside the GTA, would have elected 17 from outside the GTA and 22 from the GTA. NDP voters would have elected three more for a total of 20. Green voters would have elected seven MPs, one from each of six regions in southern Ontario and a second from their strongest region.

In BC, in the Lower Mainland Liberal voters would have elected five MPs rather than four, Green voters would have elected two MPs, and Conservative voters would have elected nine rather than 12. Similarly, in the rest of BC Liberal voters would have elected two MPs rather than only one, Green voters would have elected two MPs, while Conservative voters would have elected seven rather than ten.

In Saskatchewan, NDP voters would have elected three MPs rather than none, Liberal voters would have elected a second MP, and Green voters would have elected one, while Conservative voters would have elected eight MPs not 13.

In Manitoba, Liberal voters would have elected three MPs, not just one. Green voters would have elected an MP, while Conservative voters would have elected two fewer and over-represented NDP voters would have elected one fewer.

In summary, across the West that would mean 16 Liberal MPs, not just seven. For another example, the 28% of the voters in South Central Ontario (Hamilton-Waterloo-Niagara) who voted Liberal but elected no one would have elected four regional MPs.

In Nova Scotia, NDP voters would have elected a third MP, and Greens one, while over-represented Liberal voters would have elected three not five.

In New Brunswick, NDP voters would have elected a second MP and Greens one, while Conservative voters would have elected four not six.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, Conservative voters would have elected an MP, and NDP voters a second, while Liberal voters would have elected four not six.

In P.E.I. Conservative voters would have elected a second MP, while Liberals would have two MPs not three.

The models which failed referendums in Ontario and PEI had closed province-wide lists. This failure was no surprise to those who wrote the Jenkins Commission report in the United Kingdom. Jenkins said MPs locally anchored to small areas 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.”

MMP is used in Scotland, Wales, New Zealand and Germany. This model was described in more detail by Prof. Henry Milner at an electoral reform conference Feb. 21, 2009. A similar model is used in the German province of Bavaria and was proposed by Scotland's Arbuthnott Commission in 2006.

In this model, all MPs are locally accountable. Generally each group of three local ridings becomes two larger ones. Voters can go to their local MP or one of their competing regional MPs (about five regional MPs). Voters for all parties have representation in their region. A more detailed breakdown is available.

Note on Quebec Greens. In 2008 the Greens got only 3.5% of the votes in Quebec. Many MMP models would prevent them winning seats in a province where they got less than 5%, but the Law Commission did not say that. However, the region size in this model gives them no seats except one in the 21-MP region of Montreal/Laval where they got 4.3%.

Note: By having only 35% of MPs elected regionally, the results are not perfectly proportional, but very close. If we had used province-wide totals with perfect proportionality the results would have been: 118 Con (119 without the Quebec Greens), 81 Lib, 58 NDP, 28 BQ (30 without the Quebec Greens), 21 Green (18 without the Quebec Greens), and 2 Ind. If we had used regional totals with perfect proportionality the results would have been 117 Con, 82 Lib, 58 NDP, 28 BQ, 21 Green, and 2 Ind. In this simulation, after adjustments due to having 65% local seats, the results are: 116 Con, 86 Lib, 55 NDP, 31 BQ, 18 Green, and 2 Ind. The effect on balance in the House is the same. In return for slight deviations from perfect proportionality, all MPs are “locally anchored” and accountable. A very good trade-off.

"The Twelve Percent Solution"

Liberal MP Mauril Belanger likes the “12-per-cent solution,” an additional 42 MPs on a proportional basis. He spoke favourably of it in a House of Commons debate March 3, 2011.

Great timing, when Canada is about to add seats to the House after the 2011 census.

Belanger was Paul Martin’s Minister responsible for Democratic Reform after the 2004 election. This March 3 he said in the House “I remember the discussions I had with Ed Broadbent, who was the member for Ottawa Centre at the time. I said that I personally agreed that there may be a use in our system for an element of proportionality.”

Referring to a 2004 Globe and Mail article by John Bossons proposing 42 proportional seats, Belanger said “The reasoning then was that if we had greater regional representation within caucuses, for instance if the Liberals had more voices from Alberta and the Conservatives more voices from Quebec and the NDP more voices from other provinces, in other words, if we had more provincial voices speaking in the respective parties' national caucuses, the national perspective might win the day more often. I think that would be healthy for our country. Therefore, I do support, notionally, an element of proportional representation.”

Belanger went on “despite all of the concerns with the concept of proportional representation, an element of that, . . . perhaps not even as high as 50% or even 25%, but an element of that, might help our democracy. . . perhaps the way to go would be to create a committee of the House of Commons and to give it a mandate . . . to go out and sound this out in a rational, responsible, realistic manner and come back to Parliament with its conclusions. Then Parliament should take them up in debate and see where they would lead us. If we were to do that . . . I would certainly be willing to support it and would encourage my colleagues to support it and to see where it takes us.”

Adding 42 more MPs

The last House also debated the government’s Bill C-12, which would have added 33 more MPs to the House of Commons (18 for Ontario, eight for Alberta, seven for BC). The majority of MPs seemed to also support giving Quebec a few more MPs to maintain its weight or at least ensure that it had as many MPs per person as the Canadian average. That number might be five or eleven, but let’s take nine, so as to use the total 42 of John Bosson’s proposal.

What would this “12 percent solution” do for Canada?

It wouldn’t give us full proportional representation as recommended by the Law Commission of Canada, where every vote would count equally.

Limited MMP

It would give us a taste of proportionality, limited proportionality, with only 42 proportional MPs to "top-up" the disproportional results from the local ridings.

But at least there would have been a couple of Liberal MPs from Alberta. And we would have three Conservative MPs from metropolitan Montreal, a couple more Liberals from BC, a couple of Conservatives from Toronto, a couple more NDP MPs from the West and four more from Quebec, maybe 13 Greens here and there, and so on.

However, how would these MPs be elected?

Locally anchored proportional MPs, elected not appointed

As Lord Jenkins’ Commission in the United Kingdom wrote, additional MPs locally anchored to small areas 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.”

So let’s assume medium-sized regions, each electing one, two or three “top-up” MPs to give representation to voters now unrepresented or under-represented.

Using the Law Commission’s method, the party’s regional candidates with the most votes win those seats. That’s why it’s called “open list.”

Or using the “best runners-up” method, they would be the party’s local candidates in the region who got the highest percent of the votes.

Either way, they would be personally elected, not appointed.

What would the House of Commons look like?

Based on the votes cast in 2008, let’s see what the House of Commons would look like.

Note: this is only if people voted as they did on October 14, 2008. In fact, if voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted -- typically 6% or so more -- and some would have voted differently. We would have had different candidates - more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We could have different parties.

Overall, a simulation of the 350 MPs shows 153 Conservatives, 87 Liberals, 48 Bloc, 47 NDP, 13 Greens, and 2 independents. (Note that, unlike full proportional representation where the majority of voters -- who voted Liberal, NDP or Green – would elect a majority of MPs, this would still leave the Bloc holding the balance of power on the 2008 votes.)

The “top-up” regions would average 16 or 17 MPs each (14 or 15 local, 2 regional). With larger provinces getting more MPs, most local ridings would be no larger. Elsewhere, every group of seven or eight ridings becomes six or seven larger ridings, but a candidate can also run for one of the regional MP positions, with two regional MPs in each 15-riding region.

Ontario could have 15 regional MPs: two Conservatives and a Green from Toronto, a Liberal and a Green from Hamilton-Niagara-Waterloo, a Liberal and a Green from Southwest (London - Windsor), a Liberal from Northern Ontario, an NDP and a Green from Eastern Ontario, an NDP and a Green from Peel-Halton, and two NDP and a Green from York-Durham-Barrie-Peterborough. (Note that Ontario would also have 109 local MPs, up from the present 106.)

BC could have five regional MPs: a Liberal and two Greens from the Lower Mainland, and a Liberal and a Green from the rest of BC.

Alberta could have four regional MPs: a Liberal and a Green from Edmonton and northern Alberta, and another Liberal and Green from Calgary, south and central Alberta.

Quebec could have 10 regional MPs: two Conservatives and an NDP from Montreal/Laval, a Conservative and an NDP from Montérégie, a Liberal and an NDP from Laurentides—Lanaudière -Western Quebec, a Liberal from Estrie-Centre-du-Québec-Mauricie, and a Liberal and an NDP from Quebec City and Eastern Quebec. (Note: this assumes a party has to reach a 5% threshold in a province to qualify for a regional MP, but the Greens were below that level in Quebec.)

Saskatchewan could have two provincial NDP MPs. Manitoba could have a Liberal and a Green provincial MP. Nova Scotia could have a provincial Green MP. New Brunswick could have a provincial NDP MP. Newfoundland and Labrador could have a provincial Conservative MP. P.E.I. could have a provincial Conservative MP.

Regions and sizes

The 42 regional MPs would include some in each province, so the six smaller provinces would lose some local MPs. Manitoba and Saskatchewan would have 12 local MPs not 14, and in return would have two provincial MPs. Each Atlantic province would have one less local MP, and one provincial MP. BC would have 38 local MPs and five regional MPs. Alberta would have 32 local MPs and four regional MPs. Ontario would have 109 local MPs and 15 regional MPs. Quebec would have 74 local MPs and 10 regional MPs.

With six small regions having only one regional MP (four Atlantic provinces, northern Ontario, and Estrie-Centre-du-Québec-Mauricie), four regions could have three regional MPs each: the BC Lower Mainland with 25 MPs, the City of Toronto’s 25, Montreal/Laval’s 25, and Central East Ontario (York-Durham-Barrie-Peterborough) with 24. The other 12 regions would have two regional MPs each.

Canadians supported the coalition in January 2009.

Polls two years ago showed Canadians actually supported the coalition, once the hysteria died down.

Yet some reporters say things like "The last time a coalition was attempted Canadians spoke out against it in such strong numbers that had an election been called Stephen Harper would have gained a huge majority."

The hysteria against the coalition largely vanished after Christmas, 2008.

On Jan. 3-7 Nanos found 33% would vote Conservative, 34% Liberal, 19% NDP.

By January 12th to 14th, 2009, the Strategic Counsel found the parties were back to more or less 2006 levels: CPC - 36%, Libs 29%, NDP 18% and it also shows the public now almost evenly split in terms of their attitude towards coalition. It appeared that the short term bump the Tories got after they prorogued had vanished. The coalition had 44% support, another election 49%, yet only 36% would vote Conservative.

On Jan. 15 - 17 EKOS found 50% support for the Coalition, while 43% would prefer the Conservative government to the Coalition, and 6% were undecided, although only 36% would vote Conservative. Yet 49% wanted a new election, showing some confusion remained.

Even after the federal budget Jan. 27, which 62% liked (on Jan. 28-29) and 67% said the opposition should support, Strategic Counsel found Conservative support had dropped to 34%. While this poll did not mention the word coalition, the attitudes against Harper had dropped even further than on Jan. 12-14. It found 51% agreed "The Harper government has failed Canada on the economy, and another government should be given a chance” while 49% disagreed; 63% agreed "Stephen Harper hasn't changed at all and this Budget is all about politics and buying time for his government" while 69% agreed "Regardless of this budget, I still blame Stephen Harper for causing an unnecessary political crisis two months ago when he should have been focusing on the economy," and 72% agreed "The Harper government would not have introduced a budget like this if it had not been for the pressure from the opposition parties."

And in late April 2011 only 17% of Liberal voters did not like the idea of a coalition with the NDP.

The Bloc supports proportional representation; the Liberals are interested

In the run-up to the current election, was anyone watching March 3 when the House of Commons debated the NDP motion on proportional representation (and Senate abolition), and the Bloc supported it?

There's a common belief that the Bloc would never vote for proportional representation, since it would cost them close to half their seats in Parliament. But this is not true. There is a consensus among most Quebecois, especially progressives, in favour of the principle of proportional representation. The Bloc does not have a definitive position on PR, but is not opposed.

The motion called for the House to 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. (It also, unfortunately, called for a referendum on abolishing the Senate, an issue worth debating, but giving the Liberals an easy reason to vote against the motion.) The NDP's call for a mixed member system has been party policy since 2003. See MMP made easy.

The Bloc moved an amendment that the recommendations "in no way reduce the current weight of the Quebec nation in the House of Commons.” The NDP had already taken the same position, so it accepted the Bloc amendment. The Bloc then supported the amended motion. However, after their amendment was defeated by a vote of 77 to 214, they could not vote for the original motion.

The NDP caucus was vocal in support of proportional representation, with statements from David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre), Libby Davies (Vancouver East), Claude Gravelle (Nickel Belt), Jean Crowder (Nanaimo-Cowichan), Jack Harris (St. John's East), Fin Donnelly (New Westminster - Coquitlam), Jim Maloway (Elmwood - Transcona), Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior), Peter Julian (Burnaby - New Westminster), Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway), Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre), Yvon Godin (Acadie - Bathurst), and Linda Duncan (Edmonton Strathcona).

The Bloc MPs stated, in regard to "the undemocratic nature of the current form of representation in Parliament, specifically the House of Commons, we quite agree with the NDP." Pierre Paquette (Joliette) said "We are comfortable with this motion, but on two conditions. . . I want to point out right now that we will support the NDP motion . . . We also agree with abolishing the Senate and with looking at a new voting system that would include elements of the proportional voting system. . . Most countries with such a voting system have elements of both representation based on ridings and representation based either on regions or on lists presented by political parties. There are a number of possible models. In Quebec during the time of René Lévesque, Robert Burns did some very important work that led to proposed reforms that, unfortunately, were never implemented. . . In the debates that were held in Quebec, we discussed at length the difference between members who would be elected on the basis of their ridings and those who would be elected on the basis of the lists suggested by the political parties. There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. What would be best is a combination of the systems in which proportional representation would be used but the regions and ridings would also have a say in the choice of members. . . The Bloc Québécois has proven time and time again that it is not here to reform Canadian institutions or to prevent reform. However, we want it to be understood that our priority is certainly not to work toward the abolition of the Senate or toward a system of proportional representation across Canada but rather to work toward Quebec sovereignty."

The Liberals said interesting things.

Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's), their democratic renewal critic, said "As for electoral reform, the issue is in need of serious and comprehensive dialogue with Canadians about whether the current system is, for all its faults, working, and if not, what needs to be fixed or what is to replace it. We believe there is lots of support for various approaches to electoral reform.

"Last week in Alberta it was very clear. Many Liberals in Alberta are very keen that their votes count in the House of Commons. Green Party members across the country care about this. I think the federalists in Quebec have been often worried that more people there can vote for a federalist party and they can end up with a separatist majority. This kind of distortion in result is worrying to people and although we welcome that dialogue, I believe it would be premature to start prescribing alternate systems at this time.

"On October 23, 2003, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the creation of the Democratic Renewal Secretariat, which mandated a citizens’ assembly to examine the electoral system. In May 2007, the citizens' assembly recommended a mixed member proportional system. Under this system, a person votes for a local member and for a party, which is elected by means of the first past the post system. The local member represents an electoral riding, while the votes for the parties, in conjunction with the number of local members elected from each party, determine how many list members each party will receive in addition to its local members. In October 2007, this reform received only 36.9% of the vote, far less than the 60% required to make the referendum result binding.

"Commentators said that the result reflected the electorate's skepticism about political parties. The lack of transparency and democracy in every political party deterred people from voting in favour of the referendum question.

" . . . in the world there are only three countries with pure first past the post systems left, the U.K. which is moving to change it a bit, the United States and ourselves, and that there are systems around the world that work and ones that do not. I agree with the member that the ones where it is purely proportional and no one really knows who their member of Parliament is would not work in this huge country. People do need to know their members' address, where they come from and know the regional issues. We would, I assume, in any electoral reform keep individual riding members.

"The debate that we would have with Canadians is about the lack of proportionality and the lack of Liberal members from Alberta when they can get up to 20% of the vote, and the fact that in 1993 the Conservative Party had 20-plus per cent of the vote and only two seats. People understand that there is a distortion and that we need to have a proper conversation with Canadians as to what might work to fix that.

"The Green Party put forward an interesting idea which would be that there would be a best losers list, where they would have had to have been a candidate in the last election, knocking on doors and listening to people, that if we were going to get three members from Alberta, they would be three of our candidates as opposed to a predetermined party list, as was the proposal in Ontario. I have to admit that until we move on party reform, we are not going to get the kind of support for electoral reform."

Liberal MP Mauril Belanger (the former Minister) said "I really rather agree with where the rest of the motion (on PR) is going.

"I was at one point the minister for democratic renewal, and I remember the discussions I had with Ed Broadbent, who was the member for Ottawa Centre at the time. I said that I personally agreed that there may be a use in our system for an element of proportionality. I tried to define that element.

"I recall an op-ed in the Globe and Mail a few years ago calling for a “12-per-cent solution”, which apportioned a reduced number of seats on a proportional basis, but regionally. The reasoning then was that if we had greater regional representation within caucuses, for instance if the Liberals had more voices from Alberta and the Conservatives more voices from Quebec and the NDP more voices from other provinces, in other words, if we had more provincial voices speaking in the respective parties' national caucuses, the national perspective might win the day more often.

"I think that would be healthy for our country. Therefore, I do support, notionally, an element of proportional representation."

Liberal MP Scott Simms said "the mixed member proportional representation that the member talks about has some merit."

That's as close as we have gotten to a Liberal position, at this point. The Liberals need the Law Commission's recommendation, but they haven't said so, yet.

A modest element of proportionality for Canada’s parliament: the parallel system? Or MMP-lite?

It may be useful to consider electoral reforms with less than full proportionality, as a compromise or step in the right direction.

For example, the “MMP-lite” (or “Limited MMP”) model designed by the Jenkins Commission in the UK was specifically intended to increase the odds on stable governments, while getting many of the benefits of a mixed member proportional model.

Another option is the parallel system, once used in Russia, still used in Japan.

The Pépin-Robarts Task Force on Canadian Unity in 1979 recommended:
i. The number of members in the House of Commons should be increased by about 60.
ii. These members should be selected from provincial lists of candidates prepared by the federal parties in advance of a general election, with the seats being distributed between parties on the basis of percentages of popular votes.

That's the parallel model, because those extra 60 MPs do not compensate for disproportionate local results. Rather than the "top-up" Mixed Member Proportional model, they are a separate, parallel, election.

On the votes cast in 2008, the additional 60 MPs would have been 21 Conservatives, 18 Liberals, 12 NDP, 6 Bloc, and 3 Greens.

This model would have addressed regional divisiveness slightly by electing 22 more MPs from provinces where their party’s voters were underrepresented: 1 Liberal MP from Alberta, 1 more from BC, 1 more from Manitoba, and 4 more from Quebec; 3 more Conservative MPs from Quebec; 4 more NDP MPs from Ontario, 2 more from Quebec, 1 from Saskatchewan, 1 more from Alberta, and 1 more from Nova Scotia; and 2 Green Party MPs from Ontario and 1 from BC.

But it would also have elected 35 more MPs from provinces where their party’s voters were already over-represented: 8 more Conservative MPs from Ontario, 3 more from Alberta, 3 more from BC, 2 more from Saskatchewan, 1 more from Manitoba, and 1 more from New Brunswick; 7 more Liberal MPs from Ontario, 1 more from Newfoundland, 1 more from Nova Scotia, and 1 more from PEI; 6 more Bloc MPs from Quebec; and 1 more NDP MP from Manitoba. Along with one more Liberal MP from New Brunswick where Liberal voters were already fairly represented, and two more NDP MPs from BC where NDP voters were already fairly represented.

I doubt the public would want 60 more MPs when more than half of them would just add to a party’s over-represented strongholds. But if we cut the local MPs to 248, so each riding is 25% bigger than today, doesn’t the loss outweigh the gain?

And the Pepin-Robarts model used closed province-wide lists, not the open regional lists that Canadian voters are likely to require. As Jenkins said, additional members locally anchored to small areas 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.”

No, if you want a compromise with 247 local MPs and only 61 regional MPs, go to a Limited Mixed Member Proportional model.

That model is a compromise toward the model recommended by the Law Commission of Canada.

Poll results on Canadian public support for proportional representation

For many years, it was well-known that polls showed a strong majority of Canadians (around 70%) believe that the portion of seats a party wins in the House of Commons should reflect the portion of the votes they receive.

For example, polls showed this in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2012 and 2013.

2012 & 2013

A Forum Research poll October 27, 2012 showed this is still true: 70% of decided voters approved of proportional representation.

An Environics Survey conducted in March, 2013, found 70% support, 18% oppose, "depends" 6%, don’t know 6%. Environics asked “Some people favor bringing in a form of proportional representation. This means that the total number of seats held by each party in Parliament would be roughly equivalent to their percentage of the national popular vote. Would you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose moving towards a system of proportional representation in Canadian elections?”

February 2010:

A poll on proportional representation was conducted by Environics Research between February 22 and 24, 2010. It found that 68 per cent of Canadians support "moving towards a system of proportional representation (PR) in Canadian elections" (as a percent of decided respondents.)

Question #1 asked in the Environics Research poll was:

There has been some discussion about reforming the electoral system in Canada. Some people favour bringing in a form of proportional representation, which means that seats in parliament would be apportioned according to the popular vote won by each party, instead of the current system of electing MPs from single-member ridings. Would you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose moving towards a system of proportional representation in Canadian elections?

Strongly support: 23 per cent
Somewhat support: 38 per cent
Somewhat oppose: 15 per cent
Strongly oppose: 13 per cent
Don't know: 10 per cent

The results represent the findings of a telephone survey conducted among a national random sample of 1,001 adults comprising 501 males and 500 females 18 years of age and older, living in Canada. The margin of error for a sample of this size is +/- 3.10 percent, 19 times out of 20.

February 2004

A Vector Research poll found 64 per cent support changing to a PR system.

2003

The 2003 Portraits of Canada, from the Centre for Research and Information on Canada, reported that 71% of Canadians support distributing legislative seats proportionally according to the share of votes received in an election. Quebecers (76%) show greater support levels than Canadians in the rest of Canada (69%) when it comes to distributing legislative seats according to the overall proportion of votes received by each party in an election. Albertans (65%) are least supportive of this potential option for change.

Also, 74% favoured allowing smaller parties to win representation in legislatures.

April 2002

Decima Research polled 1,920 voters. Leaving aside 10% undecided, 71.4% supported PR, while 28.7% opposed it.

February 2001

Ipsos-Reid interviewed a representative national sample of 1,000 adult Canadians by telephone. 64 per cent of Canadians believe that Canada’s electoral system should award seats in Parliament in proportion to the popular vote received by each party, which is of course the definition of PR.

When asked to choose between a system which produces strong majority governments and a system which gives each party a number of seats in proportion to its popular vote, Canadians choose the latter system by a margin of 60 per cent to 36 per cent.

When asked directly whether Canada’s electoral system should be changed to provide PR in the House of Commons, the majority of Canadians (59 per cent) say yes. Thirty-eight per cent say no.

In BC, 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.

How would PR work? See the Law Commission of Canada Report.

A New Brunswick proportional legislature

What would the New Brunswick legislature look like under a fair voting system?

We don't have to invent one. It's been professionally done by New Brunswick's Commission on Legislative Democracy, appointed by the Progressive Conservative government of Bernard Lord in 2003.

It is clear to the Commission that the current single member plurality electoral system is not meeting the democratic values and needs of New Brunswickers. Fairness and equality of the vote, which are central to democratic satisfaction, must be given more weight when votes are translated into seats. Fortunately, it is not necessary to discard the values of effectiveness and accountability - key benefits of our current system - when making a change. The Commission’s made-in-New Brunswick, regional mixedmember proportional representation system would continue to produce effective single party majority governments while maintaining the direct link between voters and their riding MLA - a link that helps keep them accountable to voters.

Why change?

Simply put, it is not equitable that 60 per cent of the voters in 1987 elected 100 per cent of the MLAs. The votes cast by the other 40 per cent of New Brunswickers had absolutely no effect on the election results. The outcome would have been identical had these 161,814 New Brunswickers simply stayed home. And while this result is somewhat extreme, the three elections that followed illustrate that it is not anomalous. In each of these three elections, about half of the voters elected 80 per cent of the MLAs while the other half elected just 20 per cent. . . There are often too few opposition members to effectively hold the government accountable - a key function of the Legislative Assembly.

Bernard Lord said he supported proportional representation, and if he had been re-elected in 2006 he would hold a referendum on the new system, with 50% of voters required to pass it, not the 60% threshold used in BC and Ontario. Ironically, although Lord's PCs got more votes than the Liberals, it was a "wrong-winner" election, and Lord was out of office.

In the 2010 election it has taken 4,328 New Brunswickers to elect one Progressive Conservative member; 9,854 to elect one Liberal; and 38,737 to elect not a single candidate from the New Democratic Party despite those voters' explicit desire to do so.

Commission's model

The Commission recommended MLAs elected from local ridings and from four regions. Each region would have nine local MLAs, elected as today, and five regional MLAs. To "top-up" the disproportional local results we know all too well, the voters for an under-represented party elect some regional MLAs.

See MMP Made Easy.

Power to the voters

An exciting prospect: voters have new power to elect who they like. You can vote for what you want, not against what you don't want. 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.

Competing MLAs

Every voter has competing MLAs. Instead of having only a local MLA -- whom you quite likely didn’t vote for -- you can go to your local MLA or one of your diverse regional MLAs, as you choose.

Each voter has two votes. Your local vote is used to elect an MLA to represent your riding, as today, but you don't need to vote for the local candidate of your party. You can vote for who you prefer, since the party make-up of the legislature is determined by your second vote.

Your second vote -- your regional vote or party vote -- is used to elect several regional MLAs from your region. The regional votes are counted to give the level of support for each party in the region.

What would the legislature look like?

For an example, let’s see what the New Brunswick legislature would have looked like under this model if voters voted as they did in 2010.

This projection assumes voters voted as they did in 2010. 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 2010 for 55 MLAs, the overall result is 28 Progressive Conservatives, 18 Liberals, 6 New Democrats, and 3 Greens.

New Brunswick's Liberal government shelved the Commission’s report in 2006, yet their voters in the Saint John and Fredericton regions are the ones who got shafted worst in this year’s election. A lesson for Liberals everywhere?

Liberals:

Liberal voters in South West and Central New Brunswick are badly under-represented today. South West Region voters would have elected 13 MLAs (8 local, 5 regional), including three more Liberal MLAs: maybe Mary Schryer, new candidates Dan Joyce and Kevin McCarville, or Ed Doherty or Abel LeBlanc or new candidate Victoria Clarke? Central region voters would have elected 14 MLAs (9 local, 5 regional) including three more Liberal MLAs: maybe Greg Byrne, T. J. Burke and Kelly Lamrock or Larry Kennedy or new candidate Kit Hickey?

New Democrats

New Democrat voters would be fairly represented. From the Northern region they would have elected two MLAs: no doubt leader Roger Duguay, and maybe Ray Godin or Claudia Julien or Maureen Michaud. From the South East they would have elected two MLAs: maybe Susan Levi-Peters and Bill Evans or Leta Both or Cyprien Okana or Agathe Lapointe? From the South West they would have elected one MLA such as Wayne Dryer, Sandy Harding, Julie Drummond or Jesse Travis. From the Central region they would have elected one MLA such as Tony Myatt, Sharon Scott-Levesque or Jason Purdy.

Greens

Green Party voters would be fairly represented. From the Central region they would have elected one MLA: their leader Jack MacDougall or Jim Wolstenholme? From the South East they would have elected one MLA such as Margaret Tusz-King, Bethany Thorne-Dykstra, Mike Milligan or Paul LeBreton. From the South West they would have elected one MLA such as Janice Harvey or Sharon Murphy-Flatt.

The Law Commission of Canada Report

The Law Commission of Canada recommended a similar system for Canada in 2004: a mixed member proportional system, like Scotland's and Germany's, with the majority of MPs elected locally, and additional MPs to represent under-represented voters and "top-up" the local results. 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.

What would a proportional House of Commons look like?

While Stephen Harper once favoured proportional representation (as did the PC Party in 2002 just before they decided to merge instead), Ottawa’s present Conservatives (other than Senator Hugh Segal, Rick Anderson and Walter Robinson) seem have lost interest. Conservatives once courted the young, bilingual Bernard Lord for federal leader, and he’s still only 45. Might he yet play a role in the evolution of Canadian democracy?

Why Liberals needed the Law Commission of Canada’s recommended electoral reform, in 2010.

As Chantal Hebert wrote on May 28, 2010: “If the Liberals are serious about restoring their status as a national institution, it is time for them to abandon their faith in short-term electoral short cuts and rethink their approach to a more proportional voting system.”

Across Canada, people ask “why do three-quarters of Western voters vote Conservative?”

But they don’t. In 2011 54.7% voters in the four western provinces voted Conservative, but they elected 78% of their MPs. In 2008, 52.5% of them voted Conservative, but they elected 77% of their MPs. In 2006 only 48.6% of them voted Conservative, yet they elected 71% of their MPs.

And they used to ask “why do the majority of Quebecois keep voting for the Bloc?”

But they didn’t. In six elections from 1993 to 2008 the Bloc never won the majority of votes in Quebec, yet they always elected the majority of Quebec MPs.

Proportional representation cannot be left to the NDP and the Green Party.

Liberal voters have practical reasons to need it. And Canadian unity requires it.

The answer was authoritatively recommended in 2004 by the Law Commission of Canada: Voting Counts: Electoral Reform for Canada.

In 2006 the Harper government disbanded the Law Commission of Canada, one of the country’s most respected and productive federal commissions.

Launched in 1971 by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau as the Law Reform Commission of Canada, and resurrected by Prime Minister Jean Chretien in 1997 as the Law Commission of Canada, this independent body conducted research, facilitated dialogue and produced innovative policy recommendations on a wide range of issues related to the role of law in society.

In 2002, under the leadership of President Nathalie Des Rosiers (currently General Counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association) and Vice President (later Liberal MP) Stephen Owen, the Law Commission of Canada launched a comprehensive review of Canada’s electoral system. In 2004, the Commission recommended to Parliament the adoption of a mixed member proportional voting system.

1. Update on the Law Commission’s 2004 report.

Events since early 2004 make this report more relevant than ever.

First, the Commission’s approach to designing an MMP system differed from the MMP models presented to voters in the Ontario and PEI referendums. Its model has been proven correct. Voters did not accept closed province-wide lists where voters would be forced to accept a party slate of at-large candidates, as presented, rather have the option to vote for individual candidates on those lists. In the last B.C. referendum voters did not accept the Irish STV system.

Second, after Quebec’s first draft model was not well received in 2006, Quebec’s Chief Electoral Officer described a model like the Law Commission’s.

Third, polls continue to show strong support for adopting a more proportional voting system. On April 15, 2010, the Council of Canadians released a major poll conducted by Environics showing that 62 per cent of Canadians support "moving towards a system of proportional representation (PR) in Canadian elections."

Fourth, the elections of 2004, 2006 and 2008 repeated the pattern of the previous three elections in Quebec, but with even worse under-representation of federalist voters. And even worse under-representation of Western Liberal voters.

The model: two-thirds of MPs from local ridings, one-third from open regional lists

The Law Commission recommended “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.”

It recommended “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.” This open list method means every MP has faced the voters and been personally elected.

Voters have TWO votes: one local, for a constituency representative, and one regional.

Scotland and Wales have 16-MP regions (9 local MPs, 7 regional MPs) and 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. This would mean eight regions in Ontario, five or six in Quebec, two in BC, and two in Alberta.

This 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.”

Similarly, the latest Quebec model described by their Chief Electoral Officer in December 2007 has a typical MNA elected from a 15-MNA region, with nine local MNAs, and six regional MNAs elected by the flexible open list model, which it said would balance voter choice with better representation of women and minorities.

See "Why the Liberal Party of Canada should lead on electoral reform."

Bloc Québécois Bonus

In 2004 Bloc Québécois voters cast 48.9% of the votes in Québec, so they deserved 37 MPs. But they got 54, a bonus of 46%.

In 2006 they cast 42.1% of the votes in Québec, so they deserved 31 of the 74 MPs won by parties. But they got 51, a bonus of 65%.

In 2008 they cast only 38.1% of the votes in Québec, so they deserved only 28 of the 74 MPs won by parties. But they got 49, a bonus of 75%.

In 2008 it took 86,203 federalist voters to elect one Quebec MP, but only 28,163 Bloc voters.

To quote Lord Jenkins’ Commission about this effect of first-past-the-post systems on regionalism “This is perverse, for a party's breadth of appeal is surely a favourable factor from the point of view of national cohesion, and its discouragement a count against an electoral system which heavily under-rewards it.”

2. A long-standing need

Liberals have known the problem for decades.

The Law Commission noted that first-past-the-post has been criticized as:

• "Disregarding a large number of votes in that voters who do not vote for the winning candidate have no connection to the elected representative, nor to the eventual make-up of the House of Commons." About half the votes cast elect no one. Many voters live in safe ridings dominated by one party and have no hope of electing an MP.

• "Being overly generous to the party that wins a plurality of the vote, rewarding it with a legislative majority disproportionate to its share of the vote." The partisan beneficiaries and victims may change from time to time, but skewed results are routine.

• "Promoting parties formed along regional lines, thus exacerbating Canada’s regional divisions.

• Leaving large areas of the country without adequate representatives in the governing party caucus."

• "Allowing the governing party, with its artificially swollen legislative majority, to dominate the political agenda." A party with far less than majority support can gain majority control of Parliament and introduce programs and laws that most Canadians oppose.

• "Contributing to the under-representation of women, minority groups, and Aboriginal peoples.

• Preventing a diversity of ideas from entering the House of Commons.

• Favouring an adversarial style of politics."

When most votes have no effect, incentive to vote is reduced. Voter turnout is declining, with turnout in 2008 dropping to 59%, an historic low. Lord Roy Jenkins, who chaired the U.K.’s Jenkins commission on electoral reform, had this to say about safe seats and ineffective votes in his 1998 report: “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.” When he wrote that, turnout in the prior election had been 71%. In the subsequent election turnout dropped to 59%.

In 1979, first-past-the-post produced a "wrong-winner" election. Pierre Trudeau's Liberals won 40.1% of the vote, but only 114 seats. Joe Clark's Progressive Conservatives received only 35.9% of the vote, but elected 136 MPs and formed the government with support from six Créditiste MPs.

Trudeau’s 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 1980 Trudeau's problem with western underrepresentation in his government was extreme: he had only two MPs from the four western provinces, both from Manitoba. Trudeau would have had sixteen more western MPs with proportional representation. In the 1980 Speech from the Throne, the newly re-elected Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau promised to appoint a committee to study the electoral system.

3. No more Bloc blockage, no more Conservative bonus

With this Law Commission model, if voters voted as they did in 2008, they would have elected 118 Conservative MPs and only 32 Bloc MPs.

4. Would the Alternative Vote be better for Liberals?

In the UK, the Liberal Democrats have postponed their claim for proportional representation, settling for the Alternative Vote (AV) which they thought would help them somewhat in the UK. Since no one really wanted it, it was no surpriose when AV was rejected by UK voters.

They don’t have our problem of exaggerated regional differences. AV would do nothing for Alberta Liberal voters, or most other western Liberal voters.

Would AV have helped Quebec federalists? In three-way or four-way races, who can say? To quote Lord Jenkins and his Commissioners, “its effects are disturbingly unpredictable.” It depends who voters want to vote against on voting day.

5. Unheard Liberal voices

A study released in 2006 by Fair Vote Canada showed that in the seven federal elections between 1980 and 2004 an average of 43.3% of Liberal voters cast ineffective votes, electing no one.

In the 2008 election, the percentage of Liberal voters electing no one was stunning in a number of provinces: Alberta (100%), Manitoba (82%), Saskatchewan (73%), British Columbia (72%), and Quebec (69%). In 2011 it was even worse.

In summary, many Liberal voters live in areas where they will seldom, if ever, elect a Liberal MP. The elected Liberal caucus simply does not represent the breadth of Liberal support across the country.

With the Law Commission’s model, Liberal voters in 2011 would have elected 25 more MPs from regions where they are unrepresented or underrepresented, minus four where they were over-represented. For example, in the GTA Liberal voters deserved to elect at least 13 MPs in 2011, but elected only seven.

Prime Minister Paul Martin spoke frequently and eloquently about the urgent need to address Canada’s democratic deficit, but was unable to take corrective action during his tenure. The solution is overdue and new Liberal voices are needed to carry the torch. Stéphane Dion has now done so.

“Limited MMP” (Canada’s electoral Plan B)

The Liberal Party, like the British Labour Party, is more likely to accept a “more proportional system” than a fully proportional system. That’s what Lord Jenkins’ Commission in the UK aimed at, to balance broad proportionality with the need for stable Government: “limited MMP.”

As a compromise, it’s not as bad as I thought.

The essence of the MMP system, as Lord Jenkins wrote, is that the voter has the opportunity to cast two votes, the first for his or her choice of local riding MP, and the second for an additional or Top-up MP who would be elected for the purpose of correcting the disproportionality left by the riding outcomes.

See MMP Made Easy.

“Limited MMP” in Canada would have only 20% “top-up” MPs. A group of five present ridings would become four larger ridings. We could have small “top-up” regions averaging only ten each. The regional “top-up” MPs would be personally elected and be very accountable.

Jenkins proposed an open list system in small regions, in the interests of local accountability and providing the regional MPs with a broad constituency link. As Jenkins said, additional members locally anchored to small areas 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.” He wanted regions ranging from six to 12 MPs.

Take New Brunswick. On the 2008 votes, if the eight local ridings elected four Conservatives, three Liberals and one New Democrat, the two provincial MPs would be one New Democrat and one Green, making the overall result proportional to the votes cast. Who fills those two seats? The voter has two votes: one for local MP, one for their favourite of their party's provincial candidates. The top vote getter is elected to that provincial seat. All MPs are personally accountable. Maybe Rob Muir or Alice Finnamore would be the provincial NDP MP, and Mary Lou Babineau or Alison Ménard the Green. In larger provinces, the additional MPs are accountable at a regional level.

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

Lord Jenkins’ model needs some tweaking for Canada. He had no region with more than two regional MPs, but that’s punitive to smaller parties. “Limited MMP” could have small regions but ranging from four MPs to 16, averaging 10. The number of regional MPs from each region would be one, two or three. My simulation has only eight regions large enough for three regional MPs, seven with only one regional MP, and 15 with two regional MPs each.

Lord Jenkins called for 15% or 20% of regional “top-up” MPs, but at least 35% is needed for full proportionality. That’s the intent: more chance of stable government. Still, every point below 20% distorts the result still more.

“Limited MMP” would work rather fairly in Ontario and BC, so long as the calculation method is “highest remainder.” However, in the extreme strongholds -- Saskatchewan, Alberta and Quebec -- it would have a more limited effect. On the votes cast in 2008, the Bloc would keep almost half of its Quebec bonus. Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC Conservative voters would have seven more MPs than they deserve. Green Party voters would elect 14 MPs, not 18 or 21. Most importantly, due to under-representation of Green and NDP voters, the Liberal-NDP-Green majority of voters would elect only 146 MPs rather than 157 or 160 as a full MMP model would. But that’s what you get with a compromise model. Although “Limited MMP” doesn’t give the Liberals any national bonus seats on the 2008 votes, it would if they were the largest party; and meanwhile it gives them five more MPs in the GTA than full MMP would.

To use Limited MMP in Canada our 305 MPs in the provinces might be in 30 regions, with 61 regional MPs, 244 local MPs. That’s what I used for my spreadsheet projections. (I left the three territories unchanged.)

The result Canada-wide would have been 123 Conservatives, 81 Liberals, 51 NDP, 37 Bloc, 14 Greens, and two Independents.

Note: this is only if people voted as they did on October 14, 2008. In fact, if voters knew every vote would count, more would have voted -- typically 6% or so more -- and some would have voted differently. We would have had different candidates - more women, and more diversity of all kinds. We could have different parties.

The benefit of this system is to voters who are now unrepresented, and the 7 benefits listed below. However, to repeat, incumbent MPs would find it a moderate and acceptable model: every group of five ridings becomes four larger ridings, but a candidate can also run for one of the regional MP positions, with two regional MPs in each ten-riding region.

The Liberal caucus would not be just the GTA plus the Montreal area and the Atlantic Provinces. Currently only 15 of the 77 Liberal MPs are outside those regions. Liberal voters would have elected 15 more MPs from regions where they are now unrepresented or under-represented: six more from the West, six more from Ontario outside the GTA, and three more from Quebec outside Montreal. With the open-list system, those regional MPs would be the regional candidates who get the most votes on the regional ballot.

Today, 71 of the west's 92 MPs are Conservatives, 21 others. With “Limited MMP” that would be 56 Conservatives, 36 others (15 more than today).

Today, 49 of Quebec’s MPs are Bloc members, and only 26 are federalists (14 Liberals, 10 Conservatives, 1 NDP, and 1 independent). (It took 86,203 federalist voters to elect one Quebec MP last year, but only 28,163 Bloc voters.) With “Limited MMP” that would be 12 more federalists: 37 Bloc MPs and 38 federalists (16 Liberals, 13 Conservatives, 8 NDP, 1 independent.)

Today, 27% of the voters in South Central Ontario (Hamilton-Niagara-Brant) voted Liberal but elected no one. Limited MMP would let those voters elect two Liberal MPs.

Why would Liberals want electoral reform? Let’s look at the points made by Lord Jenkins in a similar context in the UK:

“Under-representation of a relatively strong minority party is very much a function of that party's appeal across geographical areas and occupational groups. When a party has a narrow but more intense beam“ (like the Bloc in Canada) “its representation, although by no means perfect under the present system, approximates more to its strength. This is perverse, for a party's breadth of appeal is surely a favourable factor from the point of view of national cohesion, and its discouragement a count against an electoral system which heavily under-rewards it.”

1. Canadian Liberals want a system that favours Canadian unity, not one which gives a big bonus to sovereignists.

“The same properties of FPTP tend to make it geographically divisive between the two leading parties, even though each of them can from time to time be rewarded by it with a vast jackpot.”

2. Canadian Liberals want a system that gives them a foothold in their regions of weakness like Alberta and eastern Quebec.

“There is also not merely the regular divergence from a majority but occasionally from a plurality in the country as a whole. . . Systemic bias . . .essentially arises when a given number of votes translates into significantly more seats for one party than for the other.”

3. Many Liberals remember that Joe Clark won more seats than Pierre Trudeau in 1979 with fewer votes, just as the PQ won the Quebec election in 1998 with fewer votes than the Liberals. This was largely a consequence of Liberals piling up large unneeded majorities in their heartland seats.

“The semi-corollary of a high proportion of the constituencies being in 'safe-seat' territory is not merely that many voters pass their entire adult lives without ever voting for a winning candidate but that they also do so without any realistic hope of influencing a result. In these circumstances it is perhaps remarkable that general election turnouts remain at a respectable level.”

4. Voter turnouts in Canada have fallen well below a respectable level. Liberals see the danger in this.

“The next criticism of FPTP is that it narrows the terrain over which the political battle is fought, and also, in an associated although not an identical point, excludes many voters from ever helping to elect a winning candidate. The essential contest between the two main parties is fought over about a hundred or at most 150 (out of 659) swingable constituencies. Outside the chosen arena voters were deprived of (or spared from) the visits of party leaders, saw few canvassers, and were generally treated (by both sides) as either irrevocably damned or sufficiently saved as to qualify for being taken for granted.”

5. Liberals in weak areas are tired of being written off. Liberals in strongholds are tired of being taken for granted.

“One thing that FPTP assuredly does not do is to allow the elector to exercise a free choice in both the selection of a constituency representative and the determination of the government of the country. It forces the voter to give priority to one or the other, and the evidence is that in the great majority of cases he or she deems it more important who is Prime Minister than who is member for their local constituency. As a result the choice of which individual is MP effectively rests not with the electorate but with the selecting body of whichever party is dominant in the area. Unless the electorate is grossly and rarely affronted, individual popularity in any broad sense hardly enters into the process at all. This is not an inbred deficiency in all voting systems. Both the Additional Member System (as in Germany) with its two votes, and the Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies (as practised in the Republic of Ireland) allow the voter to combine influencing the choice of government and expressing a preference between individuals as local representative.”

6. Liberals have often wanted to be elected on their own merits, whether or not their party has run into bad times.

“A party which has the will to increase female or minority representation might find it easier to do so under a system involving lists or slates of candidates than it would with a system which makes use exclusively of single-member constituencies.”

7. Liberals do wish to elect more women and minority MPs.

What would the House of Commons look like?

On the 2008 votes, Liberal voters would have elected 15 more MPs, starting with six more from the West:

In the Vancouver region one more: maybe Raymond Chan or Don Bell?
One in the BC Interior: maybe Diana Cabott from Kelowna?
One in Calgary and Southern Alberta: maybe Jennifer Pollock?
One in Edmonton and Northern Alberta: maybe Jim Wachowich, Donna Lynn Smith or Indira Saroya?
In Manitoba three MPs, not just one. Maybe Raymond Simard and John Loewen or Tina Keeper or Bob Friesen?
In South Central Ontario (Hamilton-Niagara-Brant) two MPs, not none. Maybe Paddy Torsney and Lloyd St. Amand or Larry Di Ianni or Arlene MacFarlaneVanderBeek or Joyce Morocco?
In Central Ontario one MP, not none. Maybe Jamie McGarvey from Parry Sound?
In Southwestern Ontario (London - Windsor) two MPs, not just one. Maybe Susan Whelan?
In the Ottawa region three MPs, not just two. Maybe Marc Godbout or Dan Boudria or Penny Collenette?
In Northern Ontario two MPs, not just one. Maybe Ken Boshcoff from Thunder Bay or Louise Portelance or Diane Marleau from Sudbury?
In the Quebec City region one MP, not none. Maybe Jean Beaupré or Pauline Côté?
In Eastern Quebec one MP, not none: Nancy Charest from Matane?
In Estrie--Centre-du-Québec--Mauricie one MP, not none. Maybe Denis Paradis from Brome--Missisquoi or Nathalie Goguen from Sherbrooke?

On the other hand, Liberal voters would have elected 11 fewer MPs from regions where they are now over-represented: seven from the GTA, one from Montreal, one from Nova Scotia, one from Newfoundland and Labrador, and one from PEI. So they would have a net gain of only four MPs, but their caucus would be far more representative.

Conservative voters would have elected 11 more MPs from regions where they were unrepresented or under-represented, starting with five from Quebec:
From the Montreal region two MPs, not none. Maybe Michael Fortier and Hubert Pichet or Andrea Paine or Rafael Tzoubari?
From Laval--Laurentides--Lanaudière two MPs, not none. Maybe Claude Carignan from Saint-Eustache and Jean-Pierre Bélisle from Laval or Sylvie Lavallée from Joliette?
In Montérégie one MP, not none. Maybe René Vincelette or Marie-Josée Mercier?
From East Toronto two MPs, not none. Maybe John Carmichael and Dr. Benson Lau or Roxanne James?
From West Toronto one MP, not none. Maybe Joe Oliver or Rochelle Wilner or Axel Kuhn or Patrick Boyer?
From Northern Ontario two MPs, not just one. Maybe Gerry Labelle from Sudbury, Cameron Ross from Sault Ste. Marie, or Dianne Musgrove from Manitoulin?
From Newfoundland and Labrador one MP, not none. Maybe Fabian Manning?
From PEI two MPs, not just one. Maybe Mary Crane?

However, Conservative voters would have elected 31 fewer MPs from regions where they are now over-represented: three from Edmonton and Northern Alberta, three from Calgary and Southern Alberta, three from Saskatchewan, two from the BC Lower Mainland, two from the BC Interior, two from Manitoba, two from the Ottawa region, two from York-Durham, two from Central West Ontario (Kitchener-Grey-Bruce), two from Southwest Ontario, one from South Central Ontario, one from Central Ontario, one from Lake Ontario (Kingston--Peterborough), two from the Quebec City region, two from New Brunswick, and one from Nova Scotia. So they would have a net loss of 20 MPs, yet their caucus would be more representative of the whole country.

New Democrat voters would have elected 19 more MPs from regions where those voters are unrepresented or under-represented.
In Saskatchewan two MPs, not none. Maybe Nettie Wiebe and Don Mitchell or Valerie Mushinski or Janice Bernier?
In Edmonton and Northern Alberta two MPs, not just one. Maybe Ray Martin or Mark Voyageur or Adele Boucher Rymhs?
In Calgary and South Alberta one MP, not none. Maybe John Chan?
In Surrey--Fraser Valley one MP, not none. Maybe Rachid Arab?
In Montreal two MPs, not just one. Maybe Alexandre Boulerice or Anne Lagacé Dowson?
In Laval--Laurentides--Lanaudière one MP, not none. Maybe Réjean Bellemare?
In Montérégie one MP, not none. Maybe Richard Marois or Sonia Jurado?
In Outaouais--Abitibi--Nord-du-Quebec one MP, not none. Françoise Boivin?
In Estrie--Centre-du-Québec--Mauricie one MP, not none. Maybe Annick Corriveau from Drummond, or their young star Geneviève Boivin from Trois-Rivières, or TV host Yves Mondoux from Sherbrooke?
In the Quebec City region one MP, not none. Maybe Anne-Marie Day or Raymond Côté?
In Eastern Quebec one MP, not none. Maybe Guy Caron from Rimouski?
In Ontario in York-Durham one MP, not none. Maybe Mike Shields from Oshawa?
From West Toronto one MP, not none. Maybe Peggy Nash?
From Peel--Halton one MP, not none. Maybe Jagtar Shergill or Jash Puniya?
From Central West Ontario (Waterloo-Guelph-Grey-Bruce) one MP, not none. Maybe Tom King or Cindy Jacobsen or Max Lombardi or Kerry McManus?
In Lake Ontario region (Kingston-Peterborough) one MP, not none. Rick Downes from Kingston?
From Nova Scotia three MPs, not just two. Maybe Gordon Earle or Tamara Lorincz?
In New Brunswick two MPs, not just one. Maybe Rob Moir or Alice Finnamore?

However, New Democrat voters would have elected five fewer MPs from regions where they are now over-represented: two from Northern Ontario, one from Central South Ontario, one from Manitoba, and one from Vancouver region. So they would have a net gain of 14 MPs.

Green voters would have elected 14 MPs from regions where those voters are unrepresented:
One from Nova Scotia: no doubt Elizabeth May.
One from the Vancouver region: maybe Adriane Carr?
One from the BC Interior: maybe Huguette Allen from North Okanagan or Angela Reid from Kelowna?
One from Edmonton and Northern Alberta: maybe Will Munsey from Vegreville-Wainwright or Monika Schaefer from Yellowhead or Les Parsons from Wetaskiwin?
One from Calgary and South Alberta: maybe Eric Donovan or Lisa Fox or Natalie Odd?
One from Saskatchewan: maybe young star Amber Jones, or Tobi-Dawne Smith?
One from Manitoba: maybe Kate Storey from Dauphin or Dave Barnes from Brandon?
One from East Toronto: maybe Sharon Howarth or Stephen LaFrenie?
One from York-Durham: maybe John Dewar from Keswick or Glenn Hubbers from Newmarket?
One from Ottawa region: maybe Jen Hunter or Lori Gadzala from Ottawa?
One from Central West Ontario: maybe Mike Nagy from Guelph, Dick Hibma from Owen Sound, or Cathy MacLellan from Kitchener-Waterloo?
One from Peel-Halton: maybe Ard Van Leeuwen from Dufferin-Caledon, or Dr. Blake Poland from Oakville?
One from Southwestern Ontario: maybe Mary Ann Hodge from London?
One from New Brunswick: maybe Mary Lou Babineau from Fredericton or Alison Ménard from Moncton?

In summary, the Liberal caucus today would be 65 local MPs and 16 regional MPs. The Conservative caucus would be 112 local MPs and 11 regional MPs (five in Quebec, three in Toronto, one in Northern Ontario, one in Newfoundland, and one in PEI.) The NDP caucus would be 31 local MPs and 20 regional MPs. The Bloc caucus would be 37 local MPs. The Green Party caucus would be 14 regional MPs.

Caveat: any MMP-lite model is vulnerable to the "decoy list" trick invented by Silvio Berlusconi to sabotage Italy's voting systenm. In that trick, a party would run only regional candidates, while running its local candidates under another name, so that the MMP system works like the parallel system. It is also vulnerable to a softer version where a small party runs no local candidates, but appeals to a large party's supporters whose second vote will likely not be needed to "give us your second vote" for its regional candidate. Two counter-measures would be advisable. First, give the Chief Electoral Officer power and broad discretion to deem two associated parties to be a single party. Second, prevent a party running a regional candidate unless it runs local candidates in at least half the seats in the region.

The practical case against the Instant Run-off Vote (the Alternative Vote)

Fair Vote Canada has produced a carefully documented explanation of why the Alternative Vote, used in Australian lower house elections, is no solution for Canada’s democratic deficit.

I won’t attempt to summarize it, since its four pages are concise already.

But I’ll sound a practical note on why IRV, or AV, doesn’t suit our situation. Three points.

One: Fair Vote Canada asks:

“Would AV fix the problem of single party domination in particular regions?

“No. Under the current system, large parties and parties with support concentrated in particular regions of the country win many more seats than their popular support warrants while supporters of other parties gain little or no representation. For example, Liberals in the West and Conservatives in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are almost always underrepresented in Parliament.

These distortions in representation exacerbate regional tensions in Canada, but AV could make them even worse. A study looking at the possible effects of a wide variety of voting systems on federal election results in 1980 and 2000 found “for almost all parties regional imbalances would have been worsened if we adopted AV even (though slightly) more than under SMP [single-member plurality, or first-past-the-post].”

In the 2008 election, 144,646 Alberta Liberal voters got no representation in Parliament. They deserved three or four of those 28 MPs.

IRV would have done nothing for those voters. Conservative voters would still have elected 27 of those MPs, when they deserved only 18 or 19.

Similarly, in the BC Interior, the Conservatives would still have elected seven of the nine MPs when they deserved five, unless perhaps the “anyone but Conservative“ vote elected an NDP member in Kamloops. Moreover, I doubt the Conservative bonus of seven MPs in Saskatchewan and Manitoba would have been dented much, if at all.

And in the 32 Quebec ridings east of Greater Montreal, IRV might have elected a couple of Liberal MPs if they were lucky, but not the five or six those voters deserved. Actually, predicting how IRV would work in four-party races in Quebec is a roll of the dice. As the Jenkins Commission in the UK concluded "its effects are disturbingly unpredictable." See the discussion at the end of this blog post: the Bloc would pick up more than another 11% of the vote on second choices, putting them just over 50%.

Two: Fair Vote Canada also asks:

“Would AV help small parties get established and win seats?

“Not at all. AV would make it easy for voters to give smaller parties their first choice vote and their second choice to a larger party with a better chance of winning a seat. It is formalized strategic voting. But actual AV election results show that supporters of small parties are no more likely to gain representation with AV than with the current system. AV exaggerates the tendency of the current system to direct all voters into a choice between two big-tent political parties.

The Jenkins Commission, a blue ribbon panel on electoral reform in the UK, set up by the Labour government in 1997, concluded that AV outcomes would be even less proportional than first-past-the-post.”

Why should Liberals care about this? Because Liberals need to get NDP and Green voters to vote “anyone but Conservative” in swing ridings. But you can’t attract those votes by promising a phoney voting reform that does nothing for them.

In fact, there are enough Blue Liberal voters in Ontario and elsewhere that half a dozen NDP seats would have gone Conservative under IRV. (Maybe more. In strong NDP seats, centre-left Liberal voters will often be voting NDP already. The remaining diehard Liberals don't like the NDP, and would mostly give their second choice to the Conservatives.)

Three: Fair Vote Canada notes:

“Neither the BC Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, nor any of the recent federal and provincial commissions examining voting system alternatives in Canada, have recommended AV for parliamentary elections.”

Now, that Ontario case is interesting.

In 2001 Dalton McGuinty put forward a Democratic Charter promising “A referendum on how we vote.“ He said “There is a lot of discontent with our first-past-the-post system. It often elects people to the Legislature, even though more than half the people in that riding wanted someone else. It gives one party all of the power, when that party failed to capture a majority of the votes.”

He noted “the two alternatives that would be on the table would be on the table would be preferential balloting, which requires only modest changes to the system that we have in place, and proportional representation, which has various forms found throughout the world.” One suspects he preferred the first option, IRV.

However, when the newly elected government set up the Democratic Renewal Secretariat, they said “Many have lost faith in a system that, for too long, has been cynically manipulated to promote the interests of the government in power.” The Liberals were experts in elections. They knew that, in 2003, IRV would likely have meant the Liberals were everyone’s second choice. The result would likely have been both the NDP and PCs electing so few MPPs as to lose official party status.

They must have been tempted to stack the Citizens’ Assembly’s staff with IRV advocates. However, that would have been “cynical manipulation to promote the interests of the government in power.” They didn’t do it.

After an honest process, the result was clear: of 103 Citizens’ Assembly members, only three made IRV their first choice.

Honest Liberals will still think twice before promoting a partisan-advantage system. Electoral reform will never succeed if it's a partisan project.

Instead of IRV, let's consider what Liberals really need.

With a proportional voting system, the Liberal caucus would not be just the GTA plus the Montreal area and the Atlantic Provinces. Currently only 15 of the 77 Liberal MPs are outside those regions. On the votes cast in 2008, Liberal voters would have elected 26 more MPs from regions where they are now unrepresented or under-represented: nine more from the West, ten more from Ontario outside the GTA, and seven more from Quebec outside Montreal.

Pierre Trudeau decided this in 1980. With proportional representation, he would have had sixteen more western MPs.

Alberta was the worst. Trudeau's Alberta problem actually began back in 1972, when Alberta Liberal voters deserved to elect five MPs but got none. Even in his 1974 comeback, Alberta Liberal voters again deserved five MPs but got none.

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. As in 1980, Trudeau’s big problem was the West.

Liberal voters in Alberta in 1979 again deserved to elect five MPs but got none. In 1980 Liberal voters in Alberta again deserved five and got none.

In its 1980 Speech from the Throne, Trudeau’s newly re-elected government promised to appoint a committee to study the electoral system; you can see why. And in every election since, large numbers of Albertans again voted Liberal but only a handful of Liberals were elected. Which IRV would not help.

As detailed here, the Law Commission proposed a regional open list system for MMP. You have two votes. With your local vote, you elect a local MP as today. With your regional vote, you also choose one specific candidate from the regional candidates on the list nominated in a medium-sized region. That vote would count for the party first. If a party's voters were not fairly represented by the local MPs, those voters would then elect the top vote getting regional candidates for each party as regional "top-up" MPs. Result: each party would receive a proportional share of the seats in the region. See MMP made easy.