The Ontario Citizens’ Assembly

The referendum ballot we will be asked to mark here in Onatrio, Canada on October 10th, is not so much about Party power, as it is about people power. Last week, my local paper carried two articles about it.

One was by by Mr. Tony McQuail, a prominent Huron County organic farmer and member of the New Democratic Party. Mr. Mcquail favours the referendum because he believes it will provide more equitable representation in our parliament.

The other article was by Mr. Murray Gaunt, who favors the status quo.

Murray was born on a farm but became a farm broadcaster at CKNX in Wingam and for a time was the Liberal member of the provincial parliament for our riding here.

Both articles were long on theory about the referendum, but short on practical examples for their respective viewpoints.

MR. Gaunt frets that the system proposed by the Citizens Assembly will result in political parties choosing 39 members of parliament from party ranks. My question is this: what do they do now? Answer…all of their candidates are chosen from party ranks!

The Citizens Assembly For Electoral Reform, which is recommending this new way of electing representatives to the provincial parliament, was entirely independent of government. (In fact the big parties, including Mr. Gaunt’s own Liberal Party don’t really want this change to take place, because it will place more power in the hands of the public).

The Assembly was not a “government commission” as stated by Mr. Gaunt. It was approved by parliament and was made up of randomly selected citizens from all parties from all across the province. They were chosen in much the same way as courtroom juries are chosen.

My own interest is not with any political group. My interest is simply in seeing a bit more democracy in our electoral system.

Mr. Gaunt also frets that we will have minority governments under proportional representation. Fact: some of the best governments we’ve had in this province and in this country of ours, have been minority governments. That just means that the leader in power has to take into account other points of view before ramming through whatever laws he or she might like.

Since I’ve been retired and living full time in the country – in Huron County, I do a lot of my shopping in Lucknow, which happens to be in Bruce County. I also went to high school in Lucknow, so I see lots of people I’ve known all my life.

This morning I was in Mac’s Milk and a very nice gentleman came up to me and said…”I like your writing.” (I think it’s nice when people do that). And I confess to being vain enough to be flattered. This is a man who works very hard for his living and we didn’t have much time to talk. But the subject of Ontario’s election came up.

I asked him if he was going to vote “yes” on the referendum question. (If we vote YES, we would have the proportional representation I mentioned).

Anyway, he was quick to answer, “No way…we’ll lose all our influence to places like Toronto where there’s 4 million people”. His answer reflects the thinking of many of us who just don’t like the idea of change. It also reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of the referendum itself…the same misunderstanding I myself had when I first heard about it. I didn’t understand it and so I was against it.

But as a retiree, I have the luxury, working people don’t have, to do a little extra reading and research and I am now convinced that we must vote yes.

Proportional representation is not about numbers as much as it is about percentages.

Take the Ontario election of 1995 for example.

The Conservative Party, under the leadership of Mr. Mike Harris, won 82 seats and thus gained total control over government. The Liberals took 30 seats and The New Democratic Party won 17 seats. The other parties which ran candidates- the Family Coalition, the Green Party, the Freedom Party and the Natural Law Party, got no seats at all.

But here’s the kicker: The Conservatives took 100% of government power, with only about 44% of all the votes cast. That means that approximately 56% of the people in Ontario were represented by a government they didn’t vote for.

If we pass the referendum on October 10th, that couldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen because, under proportional representation, the Conservatives would have been entitled to about 44 seats in parliament instead of the 82 seats they got under our present antiquated system.

The Conservative leader would still have been asked to form a government, but in order to make his government work…he would have to cooperate with at least one of the other parties. Under our present system, a minority of voters can elect a majority government and that government can do just about anything it wants.

Under proportional representation, we would have a more democratic parliament. We wouldn’t have one group that doesn’t represent the majority, ramming through whatever laws it wanted to. We would have more democracy and more accountability.

My friend at Macs Milk said he was afraid of Toronto taking all the power. But – in that election of 1995, a majority of people in Toronto voted for parties other than the Conservatives, but the Conservatives still won.

In the riding of Bruce, where I live, the Conservative candidate won the seat that year with 13,680 votes. The 18,356 people, who voted for somebody else, were completely shut out of parliament.

I have nothing against Conservatives; in fact, I worked for Mike Harris in 1995. But I’m older and wiser now and I’d like a little more democracy.

As another friend of mine said recently, “You can never have too much of that stuff”.

email me at jimreed@rogers.com

About ten days from now, the people of my province will go to the polls to elect a provincial government. At the same time, we have an historic opportunity to vote in a referendum for a new electoral system. One that will provide for proportional representation, thus giving a voice to all who take the trouble to vote. Passing this referendum means more democracy and more participation in government.

I’ve decided that, for now, at least, it is more important to write about our own democratic aspirations than about the Middle East or world politics. (There’ll be time for that later on. Also -  it’s nerve-wracking to write about America)…so…for the time-being I am going to write about my own country, my own experiences and the things that interest me closer to home.

Especially this election. It’s so important for us to vote, regardless of what party or candidate you support.

Recently I attempted to explain the Canadian electoral system to one of my sons. It was an excruciatingly painful experience. We both ended up in complete frustration because it didn’t make any sense to either of us.

So now I am taking the time to read and think more about it…and I hope that if you have questions or opinions or advice to offer you will email me at jimreed@rogers.com.

Above all, this time around, please vote yes on the referendum question

, about 50 kilometers north of here.It’s sunny and the forecast is for a high of 27 degrees celsius…so it promises to be a good day.

Although I’m retired now, or maybe because of that, I try to keep active, by writing in my blogs, doing a monthly editorial and column for MarketPlace Magazine
in Kincardine and staying in touch with friends and family.

This year though, I’m doing something a little different from anything I’ve ever done before. Recently, I got a call from Elections Ontario…the people who are organizing our provincial election on October 10th. My job will be to help make sure everything goes smoothly in my little area.

This is a special election too. There’ll be two ballots. One will be for the regular election and there’ll be a second one, which will let us vote in a referendum. The referendum result will decide whether or not we should change our voting system. On October 10th, we’ll be able to vote for a new system – called "Mixed Member Proportional" MMP), which, in my own opinion will be a lot more democratic. Actually, a heckuva lot more democratic…and as an old buddy of mine said…"Hey – you can never have too much democracy".

There are 3 main parties in Ontario…the NDP -

The Conservative -

And the Liberal -

There are smaller parties too, like The Greens and one or two independent candidates.

So I’m off to a meeting to try to learn more about my election duties. In future I’ll be attempting to explain MMP

(I’ve sworn to be non-partisan).