Four years ago last week, the Liberals announced they were breaking their promise to give Canadians a new federal voting system.
In the months leading up to the announcement, hopes had been raised. An all-party committee was set up to study alternative ways for Canadians to vote. But after the committee recommended that any new voting system should be a form of proportional representation, Trudeau terminated the process and left the current system in place.
The broken promise was a major news story when it was announced. It returned to the spotlight two years later, after the results of the 2019 election raised eyebrows. More recently, COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and the US presidential election have commanded a lot more of our attention, but the issue of democratic reform will surface again. The inadequacies of our current voting system guarantee it.
The fact is, Canada uses a non-proportional voting system. It is normal for this type of system to over-represent some people’s views and dramatically under-represent others. But this normal aspect of our voting system gives us abnormal election results. And so the idea of changing the system keeps coming back.
Consider the most recent federal election. In 2019, more Canadians voted Conservative than Liberal, but the Liberals got more seats. Twice as many Canadians voted for the NDP than for the Bloc Québécois, but the Bloc got more seats. Five times as many Canadians voted Liberal than Green, and of course the Liberals did get more seats. But instead of getting five times as many seats as the Greens, the system awarded them 50 times as many.
Again, abnormal results are normal for our system. In the 1993 federal election, the ratio of Liberal to Progressive Conservative voters was 5-to-2. The ratio of seats was 177-to-2. In the same election, the Bloc Québécois became the official opposition of Canada. They were the fourth place party in terms of votes, but the system awarded them the second most seats.
There are, of course, those who defend the current system; influential people have been defending it at least as far back as 1921, when the first all-party committee examined the issue. Yet public demand for a new voting system is considerably higher now than it was 100 years ago. And this demand will only increase over time.
Why are more and more Canadians demanding a new voting system? The bottom line is that going from a non-proportional system to a proportional system is considered a step forward for democracy. Proportional systems give people more freedom when they vote, they allow people to exert more influence on parties using their votes and they ensure the diversity of views in Parliament more closely reflects the diversity of views of the people.
Based on the 2020 Democracy Index, 8 of the top 10 democracies in the world use a proportional voting system. Of the top 10, only 5th-ranked Canada and 10th-ranked Australia use a non-proportional system at the federal level. And in Australia, that’s only for the House of Representatives; Australians elect their Senate using proportional representation.
Now, I won’t pretend that improving democracy is the only factor at play. People naturally consider how well their own political views might be represented under the current voting system or a proportional alternative. But although there is political self-interest on both sides, the democratic arguments are entirely on one side. The more we learn about the issue, the more likely we are to end up on the democratic side of the debate.
Voting system reform is an enduring issue, but it’s also a solvable one. If Canada were to adopt a proportional voting system, attention would shift away from voting system reform and toward other areas where democracy could be improved.
New Zealand adopted proportional representation in 1996. At first, there were some politicians who wanted the old system back. But those discussions eventually faded. The people of New Zealand now enjoy a much healthier democracy than they had before the transition. It’s unthinkable they would go back to using a non-proportional voting system.
Our experience would undoubtedly be similar to New Zealand’s. Most Canadians would be happy with a proportional voting system. Some would be disappointed, however, but going back would be unthinkable. Democracy must always move forward.