Best Way To Elect A Government

Instead of adopting PR, we should keep the current system and reform Canada's archaic customs of party discipline (by allowing more free votes in the Commons and so forth) in order that the concerns of the electorate can be better represented. Proportional representation is a European notion that is foreign to our Parliamentary traditions and has a distinct number of disadvantages:

-it would require Constitutional reform- always an inherently dangerous proposition in Canada

-local interests would go unaddressed

-it undermines the authority of MPs. Under the current system, an MP of whatever party represents an entire community of people. Under PR, he represents only those who happen to agree with him. This increases skepticism and encourages polarization, factionalism, and social disunity

-it is totalitarian. An MP under the current system represents a real live community with a definite existence outside of government. Under PR, this local and community component evaporates; the MP represents a mass of disconnected individuals who have no social unity outside of the Parliamentary machine. The idea of government as the sole unifying force in society inherently lends itself to elitist, overly centralized, intrusive, and authoritarian styles of government.

bbking said:

Good reply TRU but I have to wonder how much local interest is involved with the current system. Free votes would only work in a PR system since the MP would be answering to a larger group who agrees with them.

Anyways we do have to fix our system because we really have gone away with the purpose of a parliment, that is countering the influence of a king which is what we get (a king) every time we elect a majority government. Perhaps the answer is not with the Commons but PR in the Senate which would have veto power over the Commons. We can always allow a super majority to over turn the Senate, but having a truly independent Senate which represents the population, maybe we would get better and scandal free Government ( I'm talking about both Liberal and Conservative)


bbk

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Small provinces will only accept an effective Senate if it is based on regional representation and not population (as you seem to be suggesting with proportional representation). If you want to combine the benefits of proportion representation and the current riding based system, a more realist alternative would be the MMP system used by Germany and New Zealand. It also has disadvantages as do all voting systems.

bbking said:

Anyways we do have to fix our system because we really have gone away with the purpose of a parliment, that is countering the influence of a king which is what we get (a king) every time we elect a majority government.

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Good point. It's funny how that worked out that way over the years. In the USA, the first thing they did was to create an elected Presidency with about the same, limited, powers the Crown had at the time they rebelled. In Canada, we just slowly whittled away at the royal power until there was nothing left of it. Now we have a PM with pretty much absolute political power.

I would be in favour not only of reforming the Senate, but of taking the executive power out of Parliament and putting it in the hands of an elected President- if only there were some way to open up the Constitution without Quebec making some wacky demands and threatening to break up the country when it doesn't get them.