A Call to Reform the Canadian Electoral System

July-August 1997

by David T. Koyzis

ANCASTER, Ontario—The Canadian electoral system is based on territorial constituencies, known as ridings, each of which elects a single member to parliament. The elected victor is the one who draws the greatest number of votes (a plurality) among all contenders in the riding. Winner takes all. In a closely contested four-way race, for example, the winning candidate could achieve victory with as little as 26 percent of the vote. The net effect is that most votes are lost. A party receiving less than a majority of the popular votes can govern the country by itself if it wins a majority of seats, while smaller parties with many votes may end up with few or no seats in parliament.

This system is unrepresentative and undemocratic according to Nick Loenen, a politician in the western province of British Columbia, whose book Citizenship and Democracy has just been published (Dundurn Press, 2181 Queen St. East, Suite 301, Toronto, Ontario M4E 1E5).

Loenen is convinced that Canada and his home province ought to adopt some form of proportional representation (PR) for four reasons: 1) to ensure fairer representation of the real diversity of Canadians, 2) to legitimize government authority, 3) to lessen excessive executive dominance in the country's parliamentary system, and 4) to encourage a more vital and "enlarged sense of citizenship" (p. 24).

Loenen argues that the best form of PR for Canada would be the Single Transferable Vote (STV), which allows voters to rank several candidates in order of preference in multimember rather than single-member ridings. In this way, no vote is wasted and second and third preferences are taken into account. The power of voters is enhanced even against organized political parties. STV would produce a parliament better reflecting voter preferences for candidates, though it would not do so as accurately as the Party List system, which is used in countries such as Israel and The Netherlands. In those countries, voters choose parties rather than individual candidates, a practice which, in Loenen's view, unduly empowers party organizations at the expense of individual voters.

The few flaws in Loenen's book are to be found in the philosophical foundation on which he constructs his argument. On the one hand, he correctly discerns the sterility of liberal individualism for a proper understanding of politics and citizenship. He recognizes that persons are intrinsically communal beings embedded in a web of relationships, some freely chosen and some not. On the other hand, the author often seems to display an almost romantic view of participatory democracy, with its promises of self-determination and self-actualization. Of course, Loenen is not addressing a primarily Christian audience. Nevertheless, one might have expected a more critical appraisal of democracy which, in Winston Churchill's words, is the worst form of government except for all others.

In Loenen's understandable reaction against Canada's overly disciplined single-party governments, his expressed preference for STV appears to betray a certain anti-organization bias. Although there is some truth to the assertion that "organized collectivities shield the human conscience and negate personal responsibility" (p. 145), this should not blind us to the merits of disciplined party organizations for effective government. The chief problem with the Canadian system is not that its political parties are too disciplined but that it does not allow adequate representation of the real diversity in the country This is precisely what PR is meant to correct.

Citizenship and Democracy deserves a wide readership even among U.S. citizens for whom PR has not yet become an issue. Although the United States is not experiencing a Canadian-style national unity crisis, it has, over the past generation, suffered a decline in public support for its central political institutions, particularly the two major political parties. While PR should not be seen as a panacea for this decline, it could open up the political system and effectively encourage the recovery of a vital sense of democratic citizenship.