Sore Winners

The message that the Toronto Star has today for Fair Vote Ontario is essentially this: Electoral reform was handily defeated this time, the No forces are untouchable, now don't you dare bring this up again!!!

Those against electoral reform might feel vindicated in their victory, but I think deep down they know that some sort of proportional representation will come up for a vote in jurisdictions again and again - and once it passes in one place in Canada the floodgates will open. The supporters of first-past-the-post know this, so instead of saying "bring it on, we'll beat you again," they try desperately to make the idea go away for ever.

If only this situation was occuring a few weeks earlier!

One of the principle benefits of first-past-the-post in eyes of its supporters is that there is local control over local candidates in a way that they claim there could not be with list candidates. And yet today we have the controversy over Bill Casey and the Conservatives. His local riding association wants him as their candidate but the central party apparatus isn't buying it. On the radio this morning they pointed out that Harper could simply refuse to sign Casey's nomination papers and that would be that. Casey's situation is high-profile enough that there is at least a chance the party apparatus might blink, but given Harper's penchant for control, I doubt it.

One can only imagine how party bosses can manipulate the situation in the hundreds of lesser-publicized nominations all across the country.

MMP: Where did it all go wrong?

A couple theories:

It was overwhelmed by the election
Holding the referendum at the same time as the provincial election meant that it was overshadowed from the get-go. Most news coverage over the course of the election had a package on what each leader did on that day and then maybe - maybe - there would be a little bit tacked on about there being a referendum. We were too busy worrying about Tory's faith-based schools to really have a conversation about this.

It could have been explained much better
Most of the official government material was scrupulously neutral as well as vague. There were big full page ads saying things like "Make sure you understand your choice" or something like that. Of course it didn't explain very much what the choice was. I wonder how many people thought that it was just a reminder about there being a general election. When they proposed electoral reform in BC, every household got a copy of the report. We got a few vague full-page ads.

The MSM
Yes the pro-MMP forces blogged up a fury, yes we killed in the Facebook group race, but even in this new media age, more people probably based their decision on the Toronto Star's fearmongering editorials. The MSM still dominates political debate for most people.

Ontario's Political Culture
It seems that we are inherently cautious in this province. Most of the major political protest movements (CCF/NDP, Social Credit, The Progressive Party, Reform) came out of the West. We elected the Progressive Conservatives continuously for some 40 years. The first province to give the vote to women was Manitoba. When some form of PR breaks through in Canada, my prediction is that it will take place in the West.

Electoral Reform Will Have to Wait

Right now it does not look good for MMP this time around. What went wrong? I have some theories that I hope to post on tomorrow. This is not over though, there is still a good prospect for MMP or some other form of PR to break through somewhere in Canada.

CBC calls it for Dalton McGuinty

This comes as no surprise - at least not to me. What remains to be seen:
Will John Tory have a seat?
and
What of MMP?

Vote MMP - So Your Vote Will Always Count

I can't think of anything else to say about MMP that I haven't said over the past month or so. Every critique offered up against MMP been answered by a whole a host of pro-MMP bloggers. It's been tiring because it seems to have been the same one or two scare tactics (Unstable governments! Small parties holding the balance of power!) that were tossed out repeatedly.

MMP is simple, every vote counts. I'm going to go and vote in a riding where one candidate is absolutely expected to annihilate the competition. If I vote for this candidate, it will only add to a huge majority, if I vote against it won't matter. Why even vote? With MMP my vote will still count. Chances are you may well be in the same position. If you want your vote, and every other citizen's vote to count every time, choose MMP.

MMP: Get your ass out and vote tomorrow

Some final links on the topic of MMP:

• Everything that I've blogged about MMP is here.
• If staggering prose doesn't convince you, here's the official Vote for MMP site.
• Dr. Dawg's ten lies about MMP are here.
• Liberals for MMP.
• Conservatives for MMP.
• Andrew Coyne had written on this topic a great deal.

And finally, MMP is endorsed by Stompin' Tom Connors! How can you say no to the man that wrote this song:

A particularly bad (but probably not uncommon) reason not to support MMP

Heard the other night:
"If this thing passes then we'll be the only province doing this you know."
Yes, that was the argument against MMP. It may seem silly to a political junkie, but that may be a fairly common sentiment to those unfamiliar with the topic. Talk to everyone you know if you support MMP, people may hold to reasoning like this. Once you take the time to explain the benefits of MMP though, they often come around.

MMP is, I think at least, fairly simple, but it is new and perhaps unfamiliar to many in Ontario. If people have the "it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude (perhaps not realizing how FPTP is broken since it gives majorities to parties that have lost the popular vote), then they may not be interested in changing the current system for something that is new.

MMP is simple and effective, let's let people know.

MMP Will Cause Nazis?!

Yes, the Toronto Star is just that desperate to vilify MMP that it allowed Brian Henry to make essentially that assertion today (second column). After Henry repeats the tired nostrums about unstable governments he raises the spectre of hate groups trying to organize a party and then being allowed into a coalition government:

"According to an Association for Canadian Studies survey released Sept. 11, 12 per cent of Canadians don't like Jews. This is better than most places in the world, especially as only 4 per cent have a 'very unfavourable' opinion of Jews. But even 4 per cent is over the threshold a party would need to gain seats under the MMP system."

His preferred alternative would be a one party state, really:

"It might be more fair – that is, it might better reflect the will of the large majority – if we could have a blend of the two centre parties. But that won't happen."

After weeks of poorly-researched fear-mongering the Star has had to resort to someone who prefers one-party rule threatening us with neo-Nazis at the government table if we vote MMP!

The Tories After Tory(?)

I suppose it's not quite time to speculate about things like this, but what the hell. Suppose the numbers we are seeing now, in the very last days of the campaign hold until October 10th. In his first outing, John Tory will have had his ass handed to him. Sometimes a leader can shake this kind of thing off and have a second go at it - witness Dalton McGuinty. In John Tory's case though there is the additional prospect of him not winning a seat for himself in the legislature, if this came to pass it is hard to picture him continuing as leader of the PC Party.

Now assuming those two events come to pass, where do the Tories go from there. This is significant because in the past couple of decades provided you don't really make a mess of things, Ontario voters are prepared to give you a second term. No one party has pulled off more than two terms in government since the long reign of the big blue machine from the 1940s to the 1980s. What I'm getting at is that I always felt that Dalton's prospects were pretty good for a second term. Other than the health tax, he hasn't really done anything to piss off the voters. Getting third term though may be more difficult. Because of that reality, it's worth considering what kind of leader could replace Tory.

Right now I'm wondering if the mentality of the PCs will be that a moderate (Tory) didn't work nearly as well as a hardliner (Harris) and in light of that, they may go hunting for another deep blue type of leader. It may not be that way, hell, everything I said here is complete speculation. But it is worth considering what the progressive voters of this province may be up against in 2011.

Of course with MMP, the likelihood of this hypothetical hardliner getting a majority would be significantly reduced... But you knew I'd say that, didn't you?

MMP Will Clean Up Nominations

Here's a quote from Andrew Coyne this morning (HT) on the worries about list MPPs under MMP:

"Have you had a look at how candidates are chosen now? Where they are not appointed by the leader, they are typically chosen by busloads of instant members."

If anything, the selection of list members on a province-wide level would open up this process. A really crooked nomination process at the riding level usually does not merit attention in major media. Party hacks and friends of the leadership currently have little or no trouble getting riding nominations I suspect. An open nomination process such those proposed by all the major parties in Ontario would remove a great deal of that backroom influence.

More Observations on MMP

I'd posted about conversations I'd had regarding MMP with some friends of mine. One opinion that I thought indicative was "I vote for the party anyway." While politics junkies are more attuned to the particular candidates and are aware how Randy Hillier is a different kind of PC candidate than David Shiner, I suspect that a great many voters just pick the party they prefer anyway. If more people are just voting for the party anyway (anyone have stats on that? Greg?) MMP allows them to what they'd rather do anyway. In addition it may cause them to pay a bit more attention to the local candidates - since they can vote for their party and then see who might best represent their riding.

My vote in this election probably won't count

Not because of electoral fraud, or because my hand is too shaky to make an "x" or anything else like that. But rather, my riding is a enough of an NDP stronghold that nothing I do will make a difference. Rosario Marchese is, according to local wisdom as well as my unscientific observation of signs in the riding just going to kill in Trinity-Spadina. If I chose to support the NDP, my vote would just add to a landslide (so it appears), if I chose the Liberals or the Greens or even *gasp* the Tories, it wouldn't matter. You see, it's a smallish cadre of voters in key swing ridings that are going to matter on October 10th.

Democracy Here & There

I know that most of my blogging energies these days have been devoted to the referendum in Ontario and my support for MMP. I feel remiss though in not having said anything about what's been going on in Burma. We're trying to better elect our representatives, they're trying to get out from under the jackboots of a band of military thugs.

Part of this silence on Burma is my aversion to getting my hopes up when it's students vs. soldiers. Part of it is my uncertainty about what exactly I can say or do to materially aide the Burmese students. I don't know that having noble feelings about a worthy cause whilst ensconced in the trappings of Western comfort makes much difference. I joined the Facebook group, but since the junta seems to have cut the internet I wonder if the Burmese are even aware of our attempts to express support for them.

This is what I have for now, a quote from Aung San Suu Kyi the context of which I am uncertain but which seems apt for these days:

"This is not the end. There's a long way to go and the way might be very, very hard; so please, stand by."

And so we should.

What have we found? The same old fear(mongering)

Apologies to Pink Floyd, but that was my impression reading the Star's editorial on the electoral reform referendum. Once again, there's the old canard about "unstable" minorities under MMP. Too bad that the numbers don't bear that out. They also rehash the bit about how the "party bosses" can appoint the list MPPs, forgetting of course that party bosses can do the very same thing with MPPs in ridings.

Oddly they credit John Tory as a courageous for speaking out against a system that would have offered his party "marginal gain" in the Star's opinion. I say it's odd because another FPTP proponent predicted that the PCs would suffer as a permanent opposition under MMP. Those against MMP can't even decide who would win or lose because of it. There is of course no way to know that in terms of parties. The thing we do know is that voters would win, what with no more wasted votes.

There are the other usual fear-mongering bits in this article too. Things like the old scenario trotted out where a major party would form a coalition with a fringe group of radicals and impose some idiotic policy to satisfy the smaller partner. The idea that any party would do something so politically suicidal and stupid makes me doubtful. The German government has not lurched from one radical policy to another in order to satisfy minority partners. This scenario is one of the more obvious red herrings tossed out by the FPTPers. I know this because they never cite any examples.

I'm convinced that MMP is the right direction for this province. I'd like it if the biggest daily in Toronto would come around and see the light. In other words, wish you were here.

MMP: Hope on the ground

I was out with a few friends last night and when the topic of the election came up (I swear that it wasn't me who brought it up) those that were aware of the referendum question were very much in favour of MMP. It seems to be the case that once people are aware of the referendum as well as the two choices they come around to MMP. The problem though is getting that information out. I have not really bothered looking at the government information sent out, but apparently if you aren't a politics junkie it seems obscure.

I still feel as though ignorance is the greatest threat to MMP, but with the election ever more appearing to be another Liberal win with the only question being whether Dalton gets a majority or a minority, more attention will shift to the referendum. The relatively uncompetitive of campaign of John Tory thus far may, in an odd way, work in the favour of MMP.

Don't vote for MMP because it can't stop another Mike Harris?!

This seems to be Ian Urquhart's assessment of the matter in his column. He starts by misrepresenting support for MMP as being entirely driven by anti-Harris sentiment:

"The motivation springs from the election of the Mike Harris government in 1995. Harris's Conservatives won a majority in the Legislature with less than half the popular vote (45 per cent, to be exact)."

Nice. Start the column by impugning the motives of MMP supporters. No one cares about democratic reform in and of itself, they all just fueled their fears about another Common Sense Revolution into electoral reform. Odd that the 103 people chosen for the citizens assembly that proposed this change were all alike in their fear of Mike Harris.

Urquhart goes on to compare us to New Zealand:

"Take New Zealand, for example. It used to have an electoral system just like ours, with two parties (Labour and National) trading places at the top and a third party occasionally winning a seat or two.

But in 1993 New Zealand switched to a new system – mixed-member proportional, or MMP, which is the same system on the referendum ballot in Ontario.

Now New Zealand has eight different parties in its parliament, including a Maori party, one that opposes more Asian immigration, and another that wants a hard cap on government spending."

Oh no! Now New Zealand has several additional political parties! Never mind that the two main parties in the old system probably had elements that were supportive of Maori rights, stopping Asian immigration, and capping government spending, now these groups have their own parties! I suspect in Ontario that if you replace "Maori" with "Aboriginal Canadians" you'd probably have the exact same interest groups within the major parties.

Urquhart raises the spectre of regional separatist parties (for the North and Toronto) gaining a foothold too. What strikes about me about this comment is that the Bloc always got way more seats than their share of the popular vote suggested. I find it hard to believe that you would get anywhere near enough votes to send a Toronto separatist to Queen's Park - or a northern one for that matter.

Urquhart concludes with an even more bizarre MMP doomsday scenario:

"So we might end up with another Mike Harris who becomes premier with the support of a pro-life party and/or a northern party that is against gun control and for logging in provincial parks."

Considering that the Family Coalition Party would need to double its vote share to get any seats and the fact that no northern party has been elected in recent memory makes me suspicious of this scenario. If this was the prospect, why on earth does Urquhart think that more progressive parties wouldn't work together to counteract this. In this scenario, the Liberals, NDP, and Greens would have to be devastated for this to happen. And what prevents this massive electoral meltdowns? That's right, it's MMP!

I was worried that Ian Urquhart would rehash some of the standard issue anti-MMP talking points. Instead though he has worked up a set of improbable and bizarre scenarios and tried to scare us with the prospect of more than three parties in the legislature.

This better be something original, Ian

Ian Urquhart wrote yesterday on the possibility that the referendum for MMP might succeed. He concluded his column with a preview of what he intends to write on Friday:

"A footnote: In my next column, on Friday, I will look at why we should be worried about adopting MMP as our electoral system."

Oh really, Ian? I hope you aren't going to repeat some of the old, shopworn myths that getting trotted out to frighten voters. I hope you aren't going to tell the people that they are getting what they want when they are stuck with a majority elected by a minority. This had better be some really new, earth-shattering discovery of a new, heretofore unknown threat posed by MMP. Your Friday column better be as revolutionary as The Communist Manifesto or On the Origin of Species or else you'll be wasting your time and ours. Otherwise the Star is doing nothing but giving you a higher platform from which to hurl down the same bucket of anti-MMP crap on the voters of this province.

MMP: Good for ideas, bad for the power-hungry

In terms of outcomes for MMP, we've all blogged a great deal about how it is a fairer system in terms of representation and how it lets more diverse voices (Green Party et cetera) into our parliamentary system. I think we are correct and I think these are good reasons to support MMP. The problem is that those against MMP see these things as the dangers of MMP. We the electorate don't do a very good job of giving more than 50% of the vote to any one party, and that makes it difficult for parties to unilaterally implement their agendas for the 35-45% of the electorate that support them.

I like these kinds of checks - the FPTP crowd would rather we give over our government to an elected dictatorship for four years at a time. It's expedient that way. The idea here is that the vast bulk of the electorate ought to be putting its faith in one of two large brokerage parties. As Andrew Coyne pointed out (am I actually agreeing this guy?!) this leaves these parties acting very cautiously:

"...the consequences of losing a few points makes them excessively, almost neurotically cautious, unwilling to take the slightest risk or advocate the mildest change, but each hugging as close as it can to the median voter, the status quo and each other. Hence the dominance of the two brokerage parties, indistinguishable in philosophy -- alike, that is, in the lack of it."

Actually I don't fully agree with Coyne, the brokerage parties will sometimes offer up radical solutions (John Tory's faith-based funding and private clinics). But this is usually only done with a great degree of calculation.

There are those in both the Liberals and the Conservatives who are prepared to take an all-or-nothing approach to power (and there are those who are more principled in both parties). These all-or-nothing types want a majority and they are prepared to risk giving one to the other guys, in each election they go "all-in" as it were. It strikes them as inconvenient to have to condescend to make a deal with some other parties to govern the province. They will scare you with socially-conservative parties (if you're on the left) and environmentalists (if you're on the right).

Why should fear those with whom with we disagree, most of Ontario is fairly moderate and unlikely to lurch one way or the other at the behest of one or two MPPs whose views may not be in the mainstream. FPTPers always present this as a scenario, but if the MPPs of a minor party were being totally unreasonable, I'm sure that the big guys could shake hands and work together for a while. Either way though, it would be because of ideas, not a power-grab.

In terms of outcomes then, there is something else that we can say and that is that MMP is good for ideas and bad for the power-hungry

This is still McGuinty's to lose

When you have both the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun agreeing that McGuinty at least survived, it seems to bode well for the Liberals. There would need to be a severe gaffe/crisis/surprise for Tory, let alone Hampton, to have a shot at this election.

Perhaps if the campaign is somewhat dull as it lurches to an increasingly foregone conclusion, more attention will shift to the referendum?