Collaborative Proposal Creation
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Proposal text
The Green Party of Canada will consider a Single Member Party Proportional Voting system alongside other Proportional Representation systems, and that a nation-wide Citizen’s Assembly will be held on democratic reform and will include presentations on all Proportional Representation systems.
Type of Proposal
Public policy that the party would represent
Objective / Benefit
The objective is to implement proportional representation in the voting system.
If your proposal replaces an existing policy or policies, which one does it replace?
N/A
List any supporting evidence for your proposal
N/A
Does this proposal affect any particular group and what efforts have been made to consult with the group or groups?
N/A
Jurisdiction: Is this proposal under federal jurisdiction?
Yes
Please indicate the language the proposal is being submitted in.
English
This proposal is being evaluated
Posted on the Continuous Motion Development Vote tab for member review prior to the all-member vote.
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Conversation with Sami Baaj
Hello Colin,
First, I wanted to let you know that I am a big supporter of Proportional Representation and I do appreciate your proposal. However, I am personally against our party specifically endorsing Single Member Party Proportional Voting as party policy, simply because I believe that there are better proportional systems out there that should be party policy instead. In my opinion, Single Member Party Proportional Voting can unfortunately still lead to many local perspectives that don't align with the elected MP to be silenced ideologically. Furthermore, it could lead to parties with significant support but who did not elect any local MP to receive no representation in the House of Commons, and for possibly a significant share of voters not having ideological representation. Therefore, I believe that if we decide to endorse a specific proportional system (which is a good idea), our party should endorse PR systems that ensure there is ideological diversity in each area, such as the Single Transferable Vote, or perhaps even the version of the Open List PR system used in Norway (which would have multi-member ridings and 1 top-up seat allocated to each riding based on the province-wide vote - and this would allow us to have small ridings in rural areas while still having proportional results). However, I do believe that Single Member Party Proportional Voting is a good alternative to FPTP and I do believe that it can be a good system if there was no time or opportunity to merge ridings.
Hi, Sami,
We are not suggesting that SMPP be the only PR system that should be adopted by the GPC. As I have said to various others who have commented this way, SMPP is meant to be another system for consideration by a Citizens Advisory Council. There are a number of systems out there that I personally do not like, however, it is not up to the GPC, in my view, to endorse any PR system, but rather present this as an alternative. SMPP does not require any electoral boundary changes, nor voting for a second person. you have one vote for the person that you want to represent you, and a second, national, vote for the Party that you support. It is that second vote that determines how much power each Party has, which is directly proportional to how many votes it gets. We feel that PR is not well understood by the general public, and that we need a system that is easy to understand, and does not require any major change to what is being done at this time.
To address your comment about Parties that do not elect any MPP's, but have considerable support, this is the only time under SMPP where appointments would need to be made. If a Party got, say, 8% support, but didn't elect anybody, then somebody from that Party would have to be appointed to represent that 8%. That is the only situation under SMPP where appointments would be necessary.
So, to sum up, we believe that GPC should not be endorsing any single system, but rather present all of the options that we have discussed to a Citizens Assembly, for them to choose one. We support PR, and that should be enough. We don't need to get into the weeds regarding which system one is best. That isn't up to us, but to the Citizens Assembly. SMPP, because of its simplicity, could be better understood generally, and could be used just to get the general public aligned with PR. We could change the system that we use after a trial period, and try another if whatever is chosen didn't work out. SMPP is totally democratic, inasmuch as every person who voted is being represented in Parliament. The only change would be creating a computer program to work out if a proposal has passed, as each Party member will be representing their Party's share of the national vote. If, say, one Party got 20% of the vote, and elected 10 members, then each members vote is worth 2%. I see no reason not to endorse SMPP, or add it to the list to send to a Citizens Assembly.
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