Congratulations Eric Hoskins!

Queen's Park and St. Paul's are lucky to have him! Eric's final share of the vote at 47.6% stands at even better than Michael Bryant's from 2007 when Dalton McGuinty was returned to office with a larger majority. I understand some pundits argued that this was a referendum on the HST (which in combination with the off-setting PST rebates and income tax cuts actually leaves more money in the pockets of 90% of Ontarians) and was supposed to be an omen for the federal Liberals . Well I have to say I'm now inclined to agree with their analysis and I'd hope these same pundits would too! ;)

Maybe some of those skeptics out there can finally come to terms with the idea that Ontarians actually do happen to appreciate McGuinty's strong leadership on the environment and the economy. Either way, regardless of how you feel about the Ontario Liberal Government, I think we can all agree that Eric Hoskins will make a fabulous MPP for St. Paul's!

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Are Reforms You Call "Paltry" Really Worth the Price?

So apparently the NDP have decided to prop up Stephen Harper till March (as the EI reforms go through committee, 2nd, and 3rd readings) SOLELY in return to what NDP MP Pat Martin flatly calls “paltry improvements to EI.” Well the NDP seem to have quite a sense of priorities because by propping up Harper till March (when he pulls the plug himself and perhaps before these EI reforms even receive royal assent) that means:
- There will be NO MORE significant enhancements to benefits or fixing regional disparities for the hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers NOT covered by the Conservative reforms (the reforms are said to affect at best 60,000 people a year) (so much for helping the little guy)
- Canada will be sending Harper the obstructionist to the most important climate change negotiations in history this December who will go with the goal of torpedoing the whole thing (so much for the environment)
- Canadian citizens will continue to languish in foreign prisons with no help from their government (so much for human rights)
- Government stimulus funds will continue to go predominantly to Conservative held ridings that actually have lower relative unemployment rates (so much for fairness)
- Harper will bring in ever more right-wing legislation knowing you will pass whatever he wants until the EI reforms are passed into law as you are promising (so much for principles)
- Harper gets an election at his preferred time and you will be giving him what you in your own words called a "de facto majority" (so much for electoral strategy)
- Harper will give you no credit for these EI reforms he was already going to do, he will throw in some mockery and more humiliations here and there and you will have no real accomplishments to go to the electorate with in March (so much for pride)

And that's just a short list and it's all so Tom Mulcair can hold his seat a little longer and Jack Layton can hold the NDP leadership a little longer.

When the two of them lose them both as a result of the election Harper triggers post-Olympics, I somehow doubt their supporters will look back on it and think it was all worthwhile. Even though I think the Liberals still stand a good chance of winning then too, it will be after more damage was done to our reputation and finances that will have to be repaired thanks to NDP short-sightedness.

Now these EI reforms that Pat Martin calls paltry are worthwhile, but I'm sure they could have been applied retroactively after an election and are far from all the reforms that should be made or even that the NDP said must be made. And it should have been obvious to the NDP that leaves Harper in office for the next 6 months means NO MORE "results for people" beyond what their own MP said was paltry while having all the negative consequences above and more.

But I guess protecting Jack and Tom matters more. That's really some leadership the NDP have isn't it?

The irony is that by extending the government till March and giving us an election on Harper's terms, IF Harper actually won I wonder if the NDP would even survive to fight the election after that? First chance Harper would get post-election he will cut public financing of political parties, which no doubt will be a big thank you to Jack from Steve for the 6 months or so Jack helped HIM survive.

In the meantime, should the NDP grassroots just fall in line with Layton and Mulcair's wishes and not force them to back down, then we must just resign ourselves to six more months of spiraling deficits, more debt, more unemployment (without any new significant assistance), more division, and no leadership or vision at home or abroad. And then we can get an election exactly when Harper wants.

I think we can do better.

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Why the NDP Should Go Now

It seems the NDP is between a rock and a hard place. While I don't feel so much for Jack Layton who helped to put Harper in office in the first place, I do have some sympathy for many NDP supporters who's hearts are often in the right place. So let me just give 10 sincere reasons why it's not in the NDP's interest OR Canada's interest for the NDP to be propping up the Harper government. I hope they are taking these things into consideration before making up their mind.

1) You prop up Harper now, he will pull the plug on himself right after the Olympics with a poll-tested budget with a poison pill or two (elimination of public financing perhaps) anyways. Don't believe me? Harper's strategists let that cat out of the bag months ago, and when Con House Leader Jay Hill's newsletter says: "History has demonstrated that voters are less likely to vote for change and against an incumbent government when feeling patriotic and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics in February will undoubtedly inflame a greater sense of patriotism and excitement across the country", you can rest assured they will do all they can to ensure that's when they get their election. Do you really want to go at the preferred time of the guy you voted against 79 times?

2) A six month reprieve is hardly much new time to fundraise and if opposing the Harper government constantly for almost 4 years didn't bring in new money, you really think propping up this guy your supporters hate will?

3) Playing into Harper's hands increases the risk your party will be killed by the end of public financing. The Liberals have shown they can survive without public financing. Your party clearly can't. If Harper wins the next election, public financing is gone. He'd rather go in March than now. The Liberals could still likely win then too, but why would you help Harper's chances even in the slightest when you know him winning would be the end of your party?

4) You've said yourself again and again, Harper can't be trusted. You will get nothing from him in return for your support he wasn't going to do anyway, because you know even moving an inch towards your real stated priorities would be toxic to his base. If he did give you something that looked like a past NDP priority, it's pretty likely it would die on the order paper when he pulls the plug in March. What would you run on then? "We tried to get results for people, but Stephen Harper fooled us and gave us nothing for the support we gave him." Not really a winner I'd say.

5) Copenhagen. The environment has been a major issue for the NDP for years now. Propping up Stephen Harper means HE will be OUR representative at the most important Climate Change Conference in history this December in Copenhagen. Michael Ignatieff has pledged his support for a REAL cap-and-trade system with absolute caps and a 1990 baseline for emissions targets. He will propose more of what I'm sure the NDP would agree with in the campaign. Isn't it obvious, Ignatieff would bring to Denmark a position that's much more in line with the interests of Canada, not to mention your party as well? The main obstructionists at Bali were Japan, the U.S. and Canada. The U.S. and Japan now take climate change seriously, so that leaves just one hold-out left. One can be enough to significantly undermine whatever consensus based agreement comes out of the conference. Wouldn't the NDP want to see Copenhagen succeed?

6) Putting Your BC Seats at risk. You know all those seats you hold in B.C. where the Conservatives have traditionally finished second? Well just where might Harper's Conservatives' see its greatest boost in support in a post-Olympics election?

7) You throw away your entire message of the last 4 years. So you were the "only party that can truly be counted on to oppose Stephen Harper" and now your message would be "we opposed Stephen Harper until that would actually have consequences and then we folded like a cheap suit". Not sure that would sell. You think after you called Liberals supporting a Conservative budget a "Liberal-Conservative coalition" (which it wasn't) wouldn't make it difficult for you to explain how you haven't just formed a "NDP-Conservative coalition"? Well I don't envy who would ever be left to do the explaining.

8) It doesn't pass the smell test for you to claim now all of a sudden you want to "make Parliament work." You've been voting constantly for new elections for the past 4 years. You think the public has that short of memories or that Stephen Harper won't mock you for it at every turn?

9) The proposed Con EI Reforms are nowhere near what you claimed would be essential needed EI Reforms. As Jeff and Steve note, they do not address eligibility, regional differences or access, and it's very hard to square why would you support these but so vehemently opposed the Conservative budget. You would take EI off the able entirely with a proposal that's nowhere near as comprehensive it should be and doesn't truly help the people you said you were fighting for. That's not the results for people you've been promising. By supporting these reforms WITHOUT asking for SIGNIFICANTLY MORE beyond them, you surrender all credibility on an issue you've fought on for years.

10) You know the only way to get real "results for people" is with a Liberal government. Facts are facts, Jack Layton has more in common with Michael Ignatieff in his views that he does Stephen Harper. You will NOT get a coalition with the Liberals, but at least you could have a government who actually listens to all parties and won't reject a good idea just because it came from a party who Stephen Harper's base calls "crazy socialists". On education, health care, the environment and foreign policy, the NDP can find far more common ground with Liberals than Conservatives.

So you want to actually make a real difference in the lives of Canadians? Let's help give Canadians the government they deserve now. You may worry about losing seats now, but you'd be likely to lose more in March, at least now you can hold on to your credibility and still have a good expectation of influencing policy with a Liberal minority government (something that really boosted your profile the last time).

The NDP deludes itself if they think they'd ever have any clout with a Conservative government.
I and so many others have already stated why it is in Canada's interests to have an election. I know in their heart of hearts, many NDP supporters agree with those same reasons. It's narrow considerations that are getting in the way - the party is broke, Jack Layton wants to keep his leadership position awhile longer, Tom Mulcair wants to keep his seat awhile longer, maybe some others want to save their pensions.

Well that's not good enough for Canadians and I would hope that's not good enough for the grassroots of the NDP either.

Now NDP supporters could flood this post with comments talking about how Liberals were propping up the Conservatives in the past (which I've said before was justifiable) as if that somehow absolves the NDP, but really how does that discussion help us forward?

Let's focus on the future now before any decisions are made: what is in the best long-term interests of your party and your country NDP?

Here's hoping they come to realize that theirs and the country's interests lie with ending Stephen Harper's reign in power now.

UPDATE 10:55 PM: If there was ever any doubt that Harper doesn't intend to embarrass the NDP with each new confidence measure, the actual wording of Friday's Ways and Means Motion should make his intentions pretty clear. You still think you can trust this man NDP? This is your ticket to filling your coffers? To vote for things you've given fiery speeches opposing before? Well get ready, Stephen Harper is just getting started with you.

UPDATE 2 Sept. 15 @ 1:45 PM: "the NDP says an email sent last week to Mr. Giorno by NDP Leader Jack Layton's chief of staff, Anne McGrath, has so far been ignored.
'It is telling. It is their modus operandi,' NDP spokesman Karl Belanger said. 'They don't want to work with other parties and they're trying to minimize the contact with other parties. That's been the case with the Prime Minister and his team since they got into power.' "
But yet seems like you will be supporting them anyway. I'm guessing at this point, Harper could come out and say "I will not speak to the NDP and I will offer them no concessions" and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

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A Dollar a Day Until the Conservative Ads Go Away

Stephen Harper's complete failure to read the mood of Canadians in these trying times will be his undoing. Canadians won't buy his latest attempt to distract from his failings and they will demand better. And Liberals aren't sitting idly by as Steve V noted, donations have flooded in since the Cons desperate ad buy hit the air. But I think we can do one better in making sure that the only purpose these ads serve is to fill our coffers. I'm reminded of a donation campaign started awhile ago in the U.S. to create an incentive for Republicans to give up their futile endless court challenges (which are still ongoing) in the race for the Minnesota Senate seat which Al Franken has won. The campaign is called Normdollar.com: A Dollar A Day to Make Norm Go Away. The idea is you can sign up to make donations of $1 a day that end the minute Norm Coleman finally concedes. The Democratic Party establishment didn't exactly take on this campaign themselves, but that's no reason the Liberal Party can't launch a similar campaign here.

Surely we can set up a recurring donation system equivalent to donating $1 a day (even if that's $30 a month) that ends the month after the Conservative ads go off the air.

What do you think, would you donate a dollar a day until the Conservative ads go away?

In the meantime, you know where to go.

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Instant Run-Off Voting Must the Choice of Electoral Reform Advocates

STV and MMP have been dealt essentially lethal blows in BC and Ontario - I think when it boils down to it people felt they were either too complicated, weren't sure how their vote would translate into who got elected, and/or that the system lacked riding level accountability. Canadians for the most part favour incremental change, and moving from First-the-Post to a PR based system may have been too much for electoral reform advocates to ask. It's unfortunate that electoral reform advocates pegged their hopes to provincial referendums when the case for changing the electoral system in any province is not nearly as persuasive as at the national level. In no province where a referendum took place does their provincial electoral system badly inflate regional divides, is leading to perpetual minorities (and elections every two years), and benefits a separatist party more than any other party. Voters like stability and elections every 4 years and the provincial systems have provided that, while the national system no longer does. But optics being what they are, with STV and MMP systems being dealt such overwhelming defeats at the provincial level they are clearly off the table for any national referendum on this issue. The sooner the electoral reform advocates (including Fair Vote) come to this conclusion the better and I say that as someone who would have voted for STV if I lived in BC.

So I would hope that anyone who wants to change our first-past-the-post system nationally (where the need is greatest) can now come behind the idea of holding a referendum on instant run-off voting. This system is extremely simple to explain and would dramatically empower the value of every vote cast in an election. We would still have 308 MPs, everything would be the same, except you would rank your choices for your riding. If someone doesn't have 50% of the vote, then the bottom candidate drops off and the 2nd, 3rd choices are re-distributed and so on until a candidate can legitimately be said to have 50% support in the riding. No more would someone who is the first choice of 35% of voters and the LAST choice of the other 65% be elected (like a good number of Conservative MPs).

PR advocates should realize that would be a major improvement and that were IRV adopted and Canadians liked it, it would at least open the door to national STV one day, but trying to move directly to a PR system would be doomed to failure.

This should also be easy for supporters of all the major parties to get behind. Liberals just overwhelming approved Instant-Run Off voting for our leadership races and the NDP and Conservatives have the same system in place for electing theirs. This is because it would be deemed unacceptable for a leader (and in the Liberal/Conservative case, potential PM) to win with only 35% of the support in a multi-candidate race. So why would we accept less for the election of each of our MPs?

It's also easily applied to the Westminister model of Parliament. Australia has the political system most similar to us and use Instant-Run Off voting to elect their lower house MPs, so why can't we?

The arguments against MMP and STV simply don't apply - it's not complicated whatsoever, it wouldn't lead to Parliamentary instability (Liberal majorities would actually be FAR MORE likely under IRV), and doesn't affect the riding level accountability we have now.

It will also carry many of the same benefits of STV such as enhancing the power of each person's vote (if you really dislike your MP but really like their party, you could register that view through your rankings), giving a voice to those who support smaller parties or independent candidates (no longer would your vote be irrelevant - a Green MP would have likely been elected in Guelph if we had IRV in place), enhancing accountability to constituent's in close ridings (35% will no longer suffice to win), and forcing candidate's to campaign beyond "getting out their base" and avoid negative campaigning so as to ensure they maximize their second choice votes. Just as importantly, no longer would parties come to power with little representation from some regions of the country. It should also increase voter turnout which become more and more abysmal with each national election.

Everyone knows our national electoral system is the source of major national unity problems (regional divides and being the lifeblood of the Bloc Quebecois) and is giving us unstable minorities as far as the eye can see, so the solution isn't to pretend these problems don't exist, it's to do something about it.

Just because provinces where the need for electoral reform wasn't that pressing rejected the idea, is no reason to ignore the problems our national system creates. What exactly are the counter-arguments against IRV other than using the provincial votes as an excuse not to act?

Want to increase the number of western Liberal MPs in future Liberal governments while simultaneously wiping the Bloc Québecois off the political map? Instant-run-off voting would be guaranteed to make it happen.

As the party of national unity here's hoping Michael Ignatieff the Liberals take the lead on this issue. We have to trust the intelligence of Canadians that they can see for themselves that the need for eletoral reform at the national level was always greater than it was at the provincial level.

The next election is very likely to give us a Liberal minority and so might the election after that. That would be 5(!) minorities in a row, something that has never even remotely happened provincially. I of course will be hoping and working for two Liberal majorities, but the math to get there is incredibly difficult so we have to consider what our response be to two more minorities.

We can lead in calling for a national referendum ourselves or have Canadians call for it because they have grown tired of the instability created by the current system. I prefer to see us lead.

Pushing for a national referendum on Intant-Run-Off voting is one clear case where the national interest and Liberal partisan interests are one and the same.

UPDATE: Scott Tribe has similar thoughts, Steve V takes an opposing view to mine

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Stephen Harper Doesn't Get It, Never Will

If Stephen Harper really wanted to be as "Mr. Hope" or a Canadian Obama imitation, perhaps he should have actually looked at Obama's most famous speeches. He might then have realized that Obama's best speeches resonated because they were unifying, not divisive, and were considered post-partisan, rather than partisan speeches.

If Stephen Harper really wants to reach out to supporters of other parties, perhaps he could just actually act like a Prime Minister for once and stand above the fray, rather than give yet another completely partisan speech, especially when his partisan arguments are so incredibly flimsy (as David Akin so easily points out - h/t to Jeff).

Mr. Harper, Canadians didn't give you a blank cheque in the last election, they gave you a minority. In case you don't yet understand our system that means Canadians wanted you to work with other parties to get things done.

Canadians want Parliamentarians to work together, but instead confrontation is what Harper has on his mind. He's the only one talking about causing an election over his unwillingness to have even a shred of accountability for $3 billion in new spending.

Mr. Harper likes to talk about other parties "not heeding the lessons of the last election," well look in the mirror Mr. Harper or break out a calculator because a clear majority of Canadians voted against you and the last thing they want is to give you unfettered spending power with no strings attached. And you talk about Canada coming out of this recession stronger than before but your budget did nothing to achieve that goal.

The irony is that if Stephen Harper actually acted like a Prime Minister and reached out his hand to the members of the opposition and ran his government in a more collaborative fashion, he'd actually be more popular with Canadians (I fail to see how his flimsy partisan attacks win over Liberal voters to his side), but he just can't help himself. The fact that he personally wrote today's speech really says it all.

It's just so clear now beyond a shadow of a doubt that Stephen Harper doesn't get it.

He didn't get that a recession was coming, so instead encouraged everyone to buy stocks just before they monumentally crashed.

He didn't realize he had a minority, so instead his first order of business after the election was to try to destroy the opposition while doing nothing about the economy and then delaying a budget by two months he now says must be passed immediately.

And now he doesn't realize that Canadians want more than anything to see politicians put partisan squabbles aside to address the economic crisis, so instead his "defining speech" about the recession is more about scoring partisan points than actually helping Canadians.

Stephen Harper is a Conservative partisan first and a Prime Minister second and in this economic climate that combination is toxic (especially when compared with the President across the border) and it's only a matter of time before it ends his career one way or another.

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The Daunting Prospects of a Liberal Majority Under First Past the Post: Why Liberals Should Prefer a Preferential Balloting System

Last post in this little mini-series (which is also the most comprehensive): So let's say in the next election (or the one after that after some time in govt) the Liberals get the following results:
Ontario: We equal Dalton McGuinty's seat count of 71 out of 106 (+33)
Quebec: We pick up 20 seats in Quebec and win 34 of 75. For context, Jean Chretien's high water mark was 36 seats with 44.2% of the vote (21.5% more than our 2008 numbers) and with the Alliance, PCs and NDP scoring a combined 13% of the vote at the same time (Conservatives, Greens, and NDP had 37.3% combined in 2008)
Newfoundland: We keep our seat count of 6 of 7 seats (NC)
PEI: We win back the 4th seat for 4 of 4 (+1)
Nova Scotia: Win 7 of 11 seats (+2)
New Brunswick: Win 7 of 10 seats (+4)
Manitoba: Win 5 of 14 seats (+4)
Saskatchewan: Win 3 of 14 seats (+2)
Alberta: Win 2 of 28 seats (+2)
BC: Win 12 of 36 seats (+7)
NWT: Win back the seat (+1)
Nunavut: Win back the seat (+1)
Yukon: Hold the seat (NC)
TOTAL: 154 out of 308

That's STILL shy of a majority (the other parties would ensure we would get speaker so our real number would be 153).

I don't worry at all about our ability to win a minority government in the next election, but I don't think many would disagree that the above would be an absolute ideal scenario in each province for quite some time and if we are really honest I would say those Quebec numbers will be extremely tough to obtain now that the NDP, Greens and Conservatives (Alliance/PCs in those days) don't score a combined 13% in Quebec like in 2000. In Ontario the McGuinty results were with 42.2% Lib, 31.6% Con, 16.7% NDP, and 8% Greens which compares with 39.2% Con, 33.8% Lib, 18.2% NDP, and 8% Greens in Ontario in the last election so that would require a pretty big turnaround (which I don't at all rule out) just to match that seat count but I would say McGuinty's result is probably the best we can hope for in the province for the foreseeable future. As well, the number of seats out West where the Conservatives won with over 50% of the vote is also huge and the NDP poll better than us in may parts of the West so the possibility of doing better in the Western provinces than those totals is very unlikely for quite awhile (though I'd LOVE to be proven wrong). In fact the province by province results above are probably out of reach for many more elections and yet they are still not quite at majority levels.

We won majorities with the help a divided right in Ontario that allowed to take almost every seat there. That reality no longer exists. In fact if you look at the 1993, 1997, and 2000 election results and knocked our Ontario seats down to the McGuinty count of 71 in those elections and left everything else the same, we would have had a bare majority in 1993 (150/295 seats) and minorities in the other two elections (1997: 125/301 seats and 2000: 143/301 seats).

At a minimum just to get 154 seats now would almost certainly require higher national popular vote totals than we ever received under Chretien in 1993 (41.2%), 1997 (38.5%), and 2000 (40.9%) since those majorities were obtained with a divided right, the NDP never scoring above 12% and the Greens being a complete non-factor (and even under those conditions in 1997 we only won 51.5% of the seats).

So given this reality, if we as Liberals believe that a Liberal majority is the best form of government for this country isn't it time we admit that an electoral system that benefits the Bloc Quebecois more than any other party (note how even in 2000 we beat them by 4% in the popular vote and they still won more seats in Quebec than us) and gives the Conservatives drastically more representation out West than they deserve (based on the popular vote) is no longer in our partisan interests (not to mention the national interest)?

Isn't it time we had a SERIOUS discussion about supporting electoral reform?

I wrote my thoughts making the case for electoral reform back in October (though only posted yesterday), but that was more from why this was the right thing to do from a fairness/good governance perspective and the last post was about why it is right thing from a national unity perspective. Here is why it's the right thing for Liberals to support from a partisan perspective.

The Liberals Would Win More Seats Under Preferential Balloting than First Past the Post and Conservatives Would Become the Permanent Opposition

Just as an example under IRV (STV is obviously more complicated to do the math to lay out), ANY riding (in STV it would be a designated region) where the winning party won with say less than 45% of the vote and we finished second would become easily in play for us. Strict partisans could still just cast their first choice for their party of choice and not make any other rankings while others could at least give their 2nd or 3rd choice a better chance of winning - so if you are a progressive NDP supporter you would rank Liberals 2nd (or perhaps 3rd to the Greens) and help them beat the Conservative (if you wouldn't rank Liberals ahead of Cons what were you doing supporting the coalition then?).

This way of electing MPs would work towards ensuring that every Liberal government had greater representation from rural areas, Francophone Quebec and the West than we've ever had in a Liberal government in over 40 years.

The alternative is hard feelings in the West each time a Liberal government comes to power because the Western representation in government gets cut by more than 1/2 and Conservatives continuing to win ridings with less than 40% of the vote (e.g., as David Graham noted, in Guelph Conservative Gloria Kovach came within a few percent of winning and she would have been the last choice of Liberal, NDP and Greens voters so she'd have no chance under IRV).

To be honest a Liberal majority would still be difficult under a new system and sometimes we may fare worse than under FPTP (though I think it would be rare) but if you believe that the current system makes it easier for the Liberals to obtain a majority than one based on preferential balloting I would say that belief is very difficult to justify. FPTP may have served us well from a partisan perspective when the right was divided and our opponents on the left could never gather more than a combined 10% but those glory days are well behind us now.

At least under a new system such as IRV or STV, while neither is truly proportional representation, the popular vote would take on more significance and coalitions would be more acceptable in order to provide greater stability when any one party failed to achieve a majority and the coalition would always be led by Liberals.

Conservatives would spend decades out of office unless they completely dropped all their right wing ideas (there is after all a progressive majority in this country who would never rank the current Conservatives as their 2nd choice).

We Elect Our Party Leaders (and Potential PM's) This Way, Why Not Our MPs?

The NDP and Conservatives may oppose IRV or STV for partisan reasons (the Liberals are the second choice of more voters than their parties' are), but if I'm not mistaken both of those parties elected their leader by IRV so if they are ok with electing their party leader (and in the Conservative case, the potential PM) that way, why not our MPs?

The same question could be asked of Liberals who support one-member one vote for our leadership selection since surely an IRV vote by all the membership (hopefully at least weighted by riding though) will be what will be proposed for the constitutional amendment on the convention floor.

What About Failed Provincial Referendums?

As well, using failed provincial referendums as a reason for not having a national debate fails to take into account that the reasons for electoral reform nationally are FAR different than those provincially. In fact the case is much less convincing provincially. For instance, in Ontario we don't have problems of Ontario unity (at least nowhere near the national scale), we don't have perpetual unstable minority governments, and we don't have a system that overly benefits a separatist party.

The Status Quo Doesn't Leave Partisan Liberals Great Options

If we don't hold a national referendum on changing the current electoral system (and if the referendum fails so be it) then I would say the only options left are:
A) Seriously considering another Liberal-led formal coalition down the line (though not necessarily right after the next election) as the only way to actually have a stable governing majority under First Past the Post that lasts more than 2 years
B) Simply just getting used to unstable minorities as far as the eye can see: having national elections every 1.5-2 years and always being on election alert.

Those who opposed the coalition probably don't like A, but B isn't exactly too appetizing in my view. So let's look for another way.

I see this as one clear issue where the interests of the country and our party are best served with another system where individuals are allowed to rank their preferences (e.g., IRV or STV) so that their vote counts no matter where they live. I don't like it that my party is resented in several corners of the country and I think the best way to remedy that is, as Michael Ignatieff has said, to gain more representation from those communities in government.

Any preferential electoral system would accomplish that much better than First Past the Post.

Canada deserves a truly nationally representative government and electoral reform is the best way to make it happen.

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Final Notes: Yes I'm sounding like a broken record, but this should be my last post on this for some time. Since only a small number of Liberal bloggers discuss this issue I just thought I would do a little blog bursting of my own. And if you wonder why I don't take a clear stand for IRV over STV it's because I think either are a major improvement over FPTP and I believe the ultimate system on the ballot should be decided by broad consultations so I'm not going to wed myself to one approach over another at this point in time.

People first have to be convinced of the need to replace our current system before we move towards a consideration of the alternatives. They may reject the alternatives but I believe our current system is the source of enough problems it warrants an extensive debate on whether we want to keep the one we have.

I would hope no one argue that the people of this country should have the final say on the matter.

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Electoral Reform Is a National Unity Issue

The last post was written back in October - now for a post that better reflects my current thinking: Here's some unfortunate stats on Liberal results out West and in Quebec from the last 3 elections. Notice how not once in any of these regions has our proportion of seats been as high as our percentage of the popular vote, in many cases not even close. Meanwhile the Bloc and Conservatives get the opposite results.

2004 Election

Party	BC			Alberta			Saskatchewan			Manitoba			Quebec
	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff
LIB	28.6	22.2	-6.4	22	7	-15.0	27.2	7.1	-20.1	33.2	21.4	-11.8	33.9	28.0	-5.9
CON	36.3	61.1	+24.8	61.7	92.9	+31.2	41.8	92.9	+51.1	39.1	50.0	+10.9	8.8	0	-8.8
NDP	26.6	13.9	-12.7	9.5	0	-9.5	23.4	0	-23.4	28.6	23.5	-5.1	4.6	0	-4.6
BQ	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	48.9	72.0	+23.1

2006 Election

Party	BC			Alberta			Saskatchewan			Manitoba			Quebec
	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff
LIB	27.6	25.0	-2.6	15.3	0	-15.3	22.4	14.3	-8.1	26.0	21.4	-4.6	20.8	17.3	-3.5
CON	37.3	47.2	+9.9	65.0	100	+35.0	49.0	85.7	+36.7	42.8	57.1	+14.3	24.6	13.3	-11.3
NDP	28.5	27.8	-0.7	11.7	0	-11.7	24.1	0	-24.1	25.4	21.4	-4.0	7.5	0	-7.5
BQ	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	42.1	68.0	+25.9

2008 Election

Party	BC			Alberta			Saskatchewan			Manitoba			Quebec
	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff	% vote	% seats	% Diff
LIB	19.3	13.9	-5.4	11.4	0	-11.4	14.9	7.1	-7.8	19.1	7.1	-12.0	23.7	18.7	-5.0
CON	44.4	61.1	+16.7	64.6	96.4	+31.8	53.7	92.9	+39.2	64.3	48.8	+15.5	21.7	13.3	-8.4
NDP	26.1	25.0	-1.1	12.7	3.6	-9.1	25.6	0	-25.6	24.0	21.4	-2.6	12.1	1.3	-10.8
BQ	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	---	38.1	65.3	+27.2

The argument that electoral reform would promote national unity is even stronger now than it was before the last election: If we had a system that more closely resembled the popular vote, the last election would have seen the Liberals, Greens and NDP have the majority of seats in House with solid representation from each province, the Liberals would have had more seats than they do now and the Bloc and Conservatives considerably less. The response to a coalition in a House of Commons that actually reflected more closely the popular vote would have been markedly different: no Bloc and much stronger Western representation. I think it’s pretty clear that it was the regional divides and presence of the Bloc that made the largest contributions to the Liberal-NDP coalition’s unpopularity. That’s why Paul Wells, once a major skeptic now has now recently come on board with the idea of electoral reform at the national level and I’m sure he’s not alone (The Globe and Mail , who opposed MMP in Ontario, is another such example). But we won’t see a referendum on electoral reform unless the Liberals support the idea and I think it’s now past time they do.

Michael Ignatieff makes many decisions with respect to how it will affect national unity and is particularly sensitive to the issue of Western alienation, so I hope he does no less when thinking about electoral reform. It should be clear to everyone that our current electoral system greatly exacerbates regional and urban/rural divides in this country.

I fully realize that our MPs are elected to represent their riding, not their province, and that obviously Liberals need to do much more (regardless of what system we have) to truly earn higher popular vote numbers out West and in Francophone Quebec, but our electoral system makes the regional representation issue much worse (particularly when so many Conservatives are elected solely because of a divided left that allows them to run up the middle) and it's a vicious circle - the system encourages us to write off more than 100 seats as unwinnable before each election - that in my view hurts national unity.

Whether Liberals like it or not, if we win the next election the West and rural areas will have far less representation in government than they do now and will likely be unhappy about that and even if we beat the Bloc in the popular vote in Quebec (which is a daunting task in itself) they could still easily have more seats than us there (we beat them by almost 5% in Quebec in 2000 and yet they still won 2 more seats than us and that was when all the other federalist parties scored a paltry 13% combined in Quebec).

But it doesn’t have stay that way at all.

If we are willing to hold a referendum on changing our system and it’s successful we would better ensure that EVERY government, no matter the stripe has significant representation from all regions and communities.

For those who dismiss the possibility of a successful referendum based on the results of MMP in Ontario you should realize that the justifications for electoral reform are FAR different than those in favour of it provincially - see the last post where 3 of the 4 reasons given only apply to the national context - and MMP is surely the least likely option to be put on a national ballot as it is.

As an added benefit, the promise of holding a referendum on electoral reform (following public consultations on the system to be put on the ballot) provides an excellent path to persuading NDP and Green leaning voters to support electing a Liberal government in the next election (remember where the bulk of our votes came from the last time we went from opposition to government) as we know a united right Conservative Party likes the current system fine the way it is and would oppose a referendum every step of the way. Interestingly, before Stephen Harper helped "unite the right" he supported proportional representation (see that last line of the article), now he's got no problems with our current system, I wonder why? Could it be that our current electoral system is the only reason his party holds together?

A Liberal government is the ONLY way we would ever change the system, and I hope that as Prime Minister Michael Ignatieff would allow people to have a say on this issue so we may choose between a system that would bring Canadians closer together and the current one that drives us further apart.

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