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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
September 30, 2007
Rep by props
To my mind (and what other do we consult in this column?) there are two questions that are easy to dispose of in the current provincial election. Both require that we vote negatively. Today I deal only with the referendum question.Without any exceptionally malicious intention, nor by a process that was conspicuously biased or corrupt (perhaps I am naive), the government has found itself sponsoring a proposal to change the way we elect the Ontario Legislature. The proposed alternative is now abbreviated “MMP,” for “mixed-member proportional.” The citizen would get two votes, one for a local candidate, and one for a political party. Some 90 seats would be filled in the old, first-past-the-post way. Another 39 would be by party list. The advocates believe this system will fill the Legislature more “fairly” (a word that should always cause alarm to the citizen), for it will more closely represent the voters' party preferences overall. In particular, small parties such as the Greens, or the Family Coalition, would have more chance of electing at least a single member, by collecting 3 percent of the overall party-preference vote. This is where the new system starts to go wrong: from the beginning. For the genius of first-past-the-post, over the centuries, has been its ability to eliminate sectarian, fringe, and fruitcake parties. By contrast it favours large, broad parties within which the interests of diverse constituencies have had to be hashed out. This is the citizen's best guarantee against tails wagging dogs. Or would be, if the source of all public legislation were still the democratic, parliamentary institutions that were designed for this purpose. Unfortunately, over the past couple of generations, the ability to write new law, and to prescribe public policy, has been transferred progressively to the law courts, and thus to judges and law-school elites, answerable only to themselves. This is the key constitutional issue, today, and any attempt to fiddle with the way we elect members to our diminished legislatures simply throws red herrings about. But that is another issue, not on any foreseeable ballot, so we must return to the issue on the ballot before us. The best argument against “proportional representation,” in any form including “MMP,” is to look very carefully at what it has achieved. For across Europe, in Israel and beyond, wherever it has been introduced, governments have become less accountable to the public. We in Canada do not need Belgian-style solutions for problems we haven't created yet. Proportional representation is disastrous because: It creates nearly-inevitable minority government, with the consequent need for coalitions. This means, in practice, every special interest party can hope for a direct place at the public trough, usually as a trade-off for shutting up about what is most important to it. It guarantees a place in the Legislature for exactly the politicians the public most want to get rid of, for the larger parties can put such characters right at the top of their party list, where they'll be elected automatically. It makes it practically impossible for the voters to throw out a corrupt government entirely, parts of which will always return in the next coalition. This in turn is a powerful encouragement to corruption, as we've seen across Europe. It saves each party from having to allow its most repulsive members to publicly campaign for their seats, and lets them highlight instead the shallow charmers who will have no influence once the government is formed. It allows not only single-issue "boutique" parties, but divisive, sectarian ones to get easy representation -- to the advantage of just those parties that can play the game of intimidation and "political correctness" most effectively and profitably. Yet reciprocally, it isolates the most reasonable minorities, by sparing the larger mainstream parties the trouble of arguing with them internally. It will create unforeseeable constitutional and bureaucratic headaches, by pouring a fresh tub of molasses into the working of the existing constitutional machinery; and this in turn will lead, quite inevitably, to further proposals and innovations down the road, distracting us from the serious political issues. No system of proportional representation is, or can be, "pure." Whereas, first-past-the-post is as plain as day, and everyone understands it. Those with axes to grind are ever seeking the easy way: the quick constitutional fiddle. Our job as citizens is to make them choose the hard way: of changing public opinion. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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