The case for sensible democratic reform

As anyone who currently lives in Newfoundland and Labrador will tell you, the province is in dire straits.

The province’s population is shrinking, and the government is borrowing millions of dollars a day to stay afloat.

Meanwhile, unemployment is running rampant and multiple local businesses are going under.

In these trying times, people have begun wondering what can be done to help fix this situation and help prevent another economic downturn.

One area that local politicians have started looking into as a source of our problems is our democracy itself.

Democratic reforms such as recall legislation and political honesty legislation have been proposed to help fix our political system.

While these political promises sound appealing in theory, they do present real risks which can do more harm than good for our province.

Recall legislation, if enacted,

will allow for voters to force a snap byelection in their district by obtaining enough signatures on a petition.

Proponents for this kind of legislation like to assert that it will allow for voters to voice their concerns between elections.

This is a nice sentiment, but it can have disastrous consequences because it makes politicians reluctant to make difficult decisions for the good of the province.

In politics, the right decision is not always popular with the public at the time.

Spending cuts and new taxes are never really welcomed by

the people but are sometimes needed.

Yet, the fear of being recalled might deter an MHA from making that tough but necessary decision.

Under recall legislation, the politicians willing to do or say anything to hold their seats are rewarded, instead of the politicians who are trying to actively better the province.

At the same time, political honesty laws are just as problematic despite the perceived good intention.

The aim of these laws is to hold politicians legally accountable for their promises and impose sanctions on politicians and parties that are dishonest.

Allegedly, these legal proceedings would only cost the politicians themselves and not the government.

The problem with this type of law is the absurd difficulty of enforcing it.

What counts as a bona fide political promise?

How does one determine

exactly if a promise was broken?

What happens if it is not the politician’s fault the promise could not be kept?

Also, this bill would still cost the government money because they would still need to pay a judge to oversee the case and possibly the prosecutor.

Furthermore, it serves as a distraction for MHAS who should be focused on governance rather than being legally prosecuted.

So instead of these two possibly problematic reforms, I wish to instead propose a more sensible democratic reform.

I propose we adopt a voting initiative called compulsory voting for our provincial elections.

The province already offers early-voting stations and mailin ballot options for people who cannot make it to polling stations on election day. Nonetheless, voter turnout for the last provincial election was at a

historic low.

In order to ensure that democracy functions properly, all citizens must have their voices heard.

Several places around the world already utilize a compulsory voting system to increase voter turnout and a smaller-scale variation can easily be implemented in Newfoundland.

All that would be needed is a bill that: 1) creates a small monetary fine ($50, for example) for people who do not vote in a provincial election and 2) adds a “none off the above” option on all ballots for people who object to voting on religious or moral reasons.

This new system would be respectful of the rights laid out in the Charter, ensure that politicians are held to a higher standard of accountability, and bring in enough revenue to offset the administration of the fines.

This is a nice sentiment, but it can have disastrous consequences because it makes politicians reluctant to make difficult decisions for the good of the province.