Why leftists should thank the Liberals.
To the outrage of leftleaning Canadians, the federal Liberals appear to be reneging on replacing Canada’s winnertake- all electoral system with one based on proportional representation. The left should thank its lucky stars. Proportional representation would be left- leaning Canadians’ worst nightmare.
The high- sounding argument in favour of proportional representation is its inclusiveness — typically, any group garnering just five per cent of the vote enters Parliament. Canadian leftists like proportional representation for giving smaller parties like the NDP and the Greens a good shot at wielding power.
But proportional representation also empowers other political parties — many of them anathema to leftists. Courtesy of proportional representation’s very design in letting the fringe get its foot in the door, the western world is awash in hard-right political parties that the left both fears and loathes.
Greece’s New Dawn — known for its stiff- arm salutes, black- clad paramilitary- style squads and violent attacks on immigrants — is now a potent force in Greek politics, having entered parliament with only eight per cent of the vote.
Hungary’s Jobbik party — known for its now- banned black- cl ad paramilitar y wing which specialized in intimidating Roma neighbourhoods — received 20 per cent of the vote in elections two years ago, enabling it to block reforms by the less-farright governing party.
Belgium’s Flemish Interest party — formerly called the Flemish Block, it changed its name after a conviction for racism — has become the country’s most popular party.
Austria’s anti- immigrant Freedom Party received over 49 per cent of the vote earlier this year in the presidential election and as of this writing, was leading in the polls for a rematch on Sunday.
Germany’s anti- i mmigrant Alternative for Germany party in September surged ahead of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in elections in her own home state.
The Netherlands’ Party for Freedom is now the country’s most popular political party. Its leader may be voted in as the next prime minister while in jail — he is awaiting a court verdict after being charged with inciting racial hatred. The Swedish Democrats, which had less than three per cent of the vote a mere 10 years ago, today is Sweden’s most popular party.
And in Australia the antiimmigrant, global- warming denier One Nation holds the balance of power after winning just four seats in July elections. Since July, it has tripled its popular support.
Some of these right- wing parties are tolerated, even welcomed by the moderate right; none are acceptable to the left. All of these political parties owe their phenomenal rise to their ability to get a toehold in parliament under proportional representation, then leverage that toehold into an ever larger base, to the point where they’ve become major players. It has always been so. France’s National Front and its racist leader Jean- Marie Le Pen, entered parliament and rose to prominence in the 1980s when France briefly adopted proportional representation. The fascist parties of Europe — Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal among them — rose to power in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s under systems of proportional representation.
Advocates of electoral reform wave away proportional representation’s history then and now, claiming the rise of extremists to be flukes of various kinds. But it’s in the winner- take- all countries, such as the U. K., the U. S. and Canada, where extremism has been the exception, not the rule, over the decades, even centuries.
The U. K., where the Conservative party won a majority government, does have a right- wing political party that the left reviles — the UK Independence Party (UKIP). But UKIP holds only one seat in parliament and in the last election the electorate threw out its divisive leader, Nigel Farage. Under proportional representation UKIP would have won 82 seats, Farage would have been re-elected, UKIP would likely have become part of a governing coalition with the Conservatives and Farage would have secured a highprofile cabinet seat.
The U. S. has also had fringe parties — George Wallace’s segregation party in the 1960s is an example — but under winner- take- all rules, these flash-in-the-pans soon disappear. Those who fear the Trump presidency need to take a deep breath. The Republican Party he successfully hijacked is not racist and even if Trump proves a racist rather than a savvy opportunist ( a question much debated) the winner-take-all system in Congress would soon neuter him.
In Canada, we have no shortage of racists, Islamophobes, anti- Semites and xenophobes. Yet we have not a single political party that could fairly be described as extremist in any way. Our many fringe parties since our founding — like those in the U.S. and the U.K. — were soon washed away by our winnertake-all electoral system.
The Liberals would be foolish to abandon Canada’s winner-take-all system, which has made it the dominant party over the last century. And the left would be foolish to seek a political system — proportional representation — that is guaranteed to give voice, and power, to the right-wing views they so detest. By backing away from their election vow to replace our winner-take-all electoral system, the Liberals have done themselves, and the left, a great service.
UNDER WINNER-TAKE-ALL RULES FLASH-INTHE-PANS DISAPPEAR. — SOLOMON