Democracy lives in Cambridge

Finally, here’s what a lot of Canadians have been waiting for — a government that’s open to giving voters the final say on electoral reform.

In fact, before scrapping the long-standing first-past-the-post system of counting ballots, this government is actually thinking of settling the matter with a referendum. Absolutely incredible.

The only trouble, for most Canadians at least, is this government is not the federal one sitting in Ottawa but the municipal one in Cambridge City Hall. Lucky citizens of Cambridge, is all we can say. We’re sorry if we raised any hopes out there, but the Justin Trudeau Liberals remain adamantly opposed to letting Canadians decide in a nationwide referendum how voters will choose future national governments.

Nothing has changed on this front. Despite repeated calls from many parts of the country to take this fundamental and far-reaching decision out of political hands and give it to the people, the Liberals’ pat answer is simply: No.

In welcome contrast, however, Cambridge city council is not the least averse to empowering its citizens when it comes to shoring up one of the pillars of our democracy. It’s considering the matter now.

This week, Cambridge council decided against replacing the first-past-the-post system of electing civic leaders with a ranked ballot system for the 2018 municipal election.

First-past-the-post awards victory to the candidate with the highest number of votes, even if that’s not a majority. In municipal elections when the mayor’s chair or a single council seat can be contested by many candidates, this can result in a winner who has only a small fraction of all the votes cast, and relatively little public support.

In contrast, a ranked ballot works like this: If a candidate receives 50 per cent of the votes plus one, that candidate wins.

If no one gets a majority of votes, the lowest ranked candidate is cut from the ballot and the second-choice votes are awarded to the remaining candidates. This process continues until one candidate gets a majority. And in theory, at least, that result gives the winner a legitimacy often lacking under first-past-thepost.

Cambridge council got two things right this week. First, it didn’t ram through a major change that would have huge implications for the 2018 election and all future ones. It would have been a change the public has had little time to consider and doesn’t necessarily support. In addition, a ranked ballot system would cost more money to administer, take up to a week to properly count and require public education and equipment testing to implement.

Second, council directed city staff to explore having a referendum question on the 2018 municipal ballot to see if voters want to use a ranked-ballot system in 2022.

One Cambridge citizen eloquently argued for the referendum. “It’s undemocratic for council to not even ask,” Ken Tuckey said. “It’s not council’s decision to decide how we vote.”

For his part, Mayor Doug Craig displayed an admirable receptiveness to a referendum.

“You have to ask,” he said. “I agree it’s the route we ought to go.”

Canadians can only hope similar discussions go on and similar open minds are heard in Ottawa before the federal Liberals once and for all reject a national referendum on electoral reform.