The winter holidays are here and with them comes the opportunity of a new year to advocate for electoral reform! As we celebrate the festivities with our loved ones, it’s worth taking the time to reflect on what the movement for Proportional Representation achieved this past year.
With a growing team of volunteers leading the charge on improving Canada’s democracy, Fair Vote Canada went full swing into webinars, door hangers, flyers, workshops, festivals and more!
We successfully pushed back on winner-take-all ranked ballots (aka the Alternative Vote) in Ontario’s provincial election, elected a slew of new members to Fair Vote Canada’s board of directors, hosted volunteer meet-ups, and promoted PR at Pride festivals across the country.
Throughout all of this, our community’s support and commitment to the cause has been integral to keeping us in the fight for PR. Thank you to each and every one of you – we hope you’ll continue reading our Toronto newsletters and supporting Fair Vote Canada in 2022!
Globe and Mail calls out Canada’s premiers and first past the post
The Globe and Mail editorial board wrote a piece earlier this month linking the undemocratic power grabs by provincial governments, and the dangers of populism, to our winner-take-all electoral system.
This article is bang on. First-past-the-post – and any nonproportional system – will just keep this going.
Divide voters. Crank up the “us vs them” rhetoric. Target swing ridings. Win “majorities” with little more than a third of the vote. Then – concentrate the power at the top even more.
If we want more democratic governments, if we want more cooperative politics, we must make the voting system fair with proportional representation.
Yukon to take the next step towards a Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform
Yukon’s Special Committee on Electoral Reform has announced that they will consult Yukoners on the creation of a Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform!
Watch: Dennis Pilon – Myths, damn myths and voting system change
Canadian electoral reform expert Dennis Pilon has just released a new paper: Myths, damn myths, and voting system change: How Canadian political scientists misrepresent democratic reform.
Dennis’s new work takes a deep dive into what’s really at stake in the fight for a stronger, fairer democracy in Canada. He tackles head on how academics and pundits have perpetuated myths about proportional representation and how we can reframe the debate.
Watch this webinar with Dennis Pilon co-sponsored by Fair Vote Canada and the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.
Democratic Reform in the News
Electoral reform continues to make the news across Canada and around the world. Here is a sample of what is being said:
- Ford bulldozes democratic safeguards and consolidates power
- Thank you, Doug Ford, for exposing the lie at the heart of Canada’s modern democracy
- What if…Palestine, Egypt, Hungary…and the US…used a modern electoral system?
The ballot for the Mississauga–Lakeshore federal by-election held this month featured a higher-than-usual number of candidates — 40 this year in fact!
This was in part due to an initiative from the Longest Ballot Project which assists individuals with running in elections to bring attention to Justin Trudeau’s broken electoral reform promise.
