paw339

With the Liberal government promising voting reform I was wondering what the general consensus is on whether or not there should be voting reform. If in favour of reform what system do you support and do you believe any change should be put to a referendum?

My personnel view is there should be reform. It should be to a straight PR voting system and the reform should be approved by a referendum.

scrubbedexpat091

Suppose parliment should better reflect the % of votes received. First past the post doesnt seem all that great.

Pizzawheel

I quite like the idea of having PR for federal elections and constituencies /first past the post for provincial.

I only want to pay for one political representative in my area, and I think that should be the MPP.

Former Lancastrian

It depends on which party you vote for as to if you think FPTP or PR is the best way.
Using the last election the results using the FPTP were
Liberal party 184 seats in the House of Commons, a solid majority given only 170 seats are needed to form government — yet the Liberal party only earned 39.5 per cent of the national vote.
the Conservative party won 99 seats, the NDP 44, the Bloc Party 10 and the Green party one. If proportional representation were in effect, the results would have been drastically different.

Nationally, under proportional representation (presuming voting stayed the same, which would be unlikely), the election would have resulted in 135 seats for the Liberal party, 109 for the Conservatives, 68 for the NDP, 15 for the Bloc and 11 for the Greens.

That would mean the Liberals would need either the Conservatives or the NDP to pass a bill, and Justin Trudeau would be the Prime Minister with a minority government.

So yes based on those figures the PR route seems fairer but some die hard voters still want FPTP as if their party get a majority they can pass legislation based on their ideals as we saw in the Harper Govt. Now we have the Liberals with a majority what is to stop them doing the same?
Using the PR figures if how the last election would have gone then the Liberals would need either the Conservatives or the NDP to pass a bill, and Justin Trudeau would be the Prime Minister with a minority government.
Was This Canada's Last First-Past-The-Post Election? | DeSmog Canada

Almost Canadian

Clearly, PR is more "democratic" but completely removes the link between the voters and their representatives in a way that FPTP is supposed to avoid. However, as, in most western democracies that use FPTP, the "duty" to the party far outweighs the "duty" to their constituents, in reality, there is no link between the voters and their representatives anyway.

One could argue that PR results in "weaker" government, but I fail to see how that is a bad thing.

If PR is used, how do you all believe the MPs should be selected by their parties? Massive lists with the results meaning that the parties start at the top of their lists and continue on down until they reach the number that their proportionate share of the vote gives them? I can see that that would provide the parties and, by extension, the electorate with lots of issues.

I don't vote so I really don't care