The Liberals’ electoral reform quagmire
Oh, dear. The federal Liberals have t i ed themselves in a bit of a knot on electoral reform, haven’t they? Their 2015 election platform contained a grandiose promise to ensure — that’s the exact verb — that this “will be the last federal election conducted under the first- past- the- post voting system.” Unfortunately, they did not get around to specifying exactly what will replace first-past-the-post (FPTP).
In this form, the platform promise could be met in many ways, one of which would be abolishing elections altogether. The Liberals committed themselves only to a negation of the status quo. Now they have to find a way to guarantee that whatever they cook up is at least somewhat palatable.
The problem, and the history of election reform ought to have served as a warning here, is that while FPTP may not be particularly popular, there are loads of potential alternatives. None of these may be more popular individually than FPTP. Or FPTP may be relatively popular as a second choice. Which is to say that, despite not having much visible and enthusiastic support, it might actually win a contest amongst electoral systems if a nationwide referendum with a transferrable ballot were held.
Let t he i r ony s i nk i n. Choosing an electoral system is, structurally, a bit like choosing a Parliament. And our collective choice might, if formalized, depend quite heavily on the particular method of expressing it.
Wel l , it now l ooks as though that won’t happen. On Sunday Liberal House Leader Dominic LeBlanc ruled out an explicit referendum on replacing first- past- the- post in federal elections. This makes his problem harder. A referendum would have given the Liberals a relatively attractive way to evade their campaign promise, especially since exotic alternatives to first- pastthe-post almost always lose to it in referendums.
One can easily i magine LeBlanc saying something like, “After further reflection, we’ve decided that Canadians are likely to be uncomfortable with us just whamming a reform plan through the House on the back of our majority, which is, after all, based solely on the hateful first- past- thepost principle. Our plan will therefore be submitted to Canadians for approval in a separate vote.”
That opportunity is out the window now. The Liberals have committed to the scheme outlined in the platform: “convene an all- party Parliamentary committee to review a wide variety of reforms,” have the committee report and “introduce legislation to enact electoral reform” within 18 months of the election. They do not, let us note, guarantee that the committee’s report is what will be incarnated in the legislation. Indeed, there can be no way to guarantee, unless the committee is stacked with Liber- als, that the committee will agree on a single report.
LeBlanc told John Geddes of Maclean’s a few weeks ago that “changing the electoral system, in a perfect world, should be done by consensus, or with broad support in Parliament.” It raises the question of how the promise to eliminate first- past- the- post will be kept if the world turns out to be even slightly imperfect.
And would the Liberals resort to the party whip to enforce the leader’s choice of reforms? Eliminating FPTP is in the Liberal platform, which means the prime minister has reserved the right to wield the whip. But if he needs to apply it, that won’t look much like “consensus,” or even an honest consultation of the Commons of the sort LeBlanc is suggesting. It will look like the imposition of the leader’s will.
The New Democrats favour a more proportional House; leader- for- now Tom Mulcair spoke on behalf of a “mixedmember” system combining geographically elected MPs with others thrown in as necessary from a national party list. Proportional- representation (PR) ultras argue that the wording in the Liberal platform — “We will make every vote count” — implies explicit proportionality.
But the Liberals have hinted they are leaning toward
Unfortunately, they did not get around to specifying exactly what will replace first past the post
some sort of transferrable ballot, which might lead to less proportionality, or different degrees thereof for different parties. Transferrable- vote systems are subject to inherent paradoxes and difficulties, and designs that address these pitfalls get pretty complicated. ( You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a bar fight over the Hare- Clark method.) After the votes are counted and reshuffled, the results pop out of what is effectively a black box.
If we adopted transferrable ballots but kept single- member ridings, the national-scale effects of down-ballot choices would be hard to predict or understand. If we brought in multi- member ridings, we would probably get more macro- level proportionality, but we would sacrifice the voter’s sense of having an individual MP responsible to him.
German-style mixedmember PR has the same general problems of outcome incomprehensibility and impaired accountability, only worse — and with the odiousness of party lists added to the bargain. Yet the PR supporters, probably including most of the New Democratic caucus, won’t swallow anything less than 100 per cent Germanism. They may be happier to live with first- past- the- post than with half- baked proportionality. Or perhaps the angel of consensus will settle upon their shoulders, and they will willingly help the Liberals out of their predicament.