Government should be created by proportional representation

EDITOR:

Contrary to UPC-leader Danielle Smith’s criticism, minority governments like the confidence-and-supply agreement between the federal Liberals and NDP are probably the closest that Canadians will get to fully democratic governance, i.e. proportional representation. Sadly, many mainstream news-media consumers may never know it.

Minority governments, like the confidence-and-supply agreement between the federal Liberals and NDP, are probably the closest that Canadians will get to fully democratic proportional representative governance.

In federal-electorate popular-vote support, that received by the NDP and Liberal parties combined typically significantly outweighs that for the Conservative party. (In last September’s election, those parties garnered 17.80%, 32.60% and 33.70%, respectively.) To me, that’s definitely a more democratically representative governance than if, as with this case, the Conservatives rule with much less of the popular vote.

Following the 2021 election, there was abundant news-media commentary about the likely-otherwise-Tory electorate that defected to Maxime Bernier’s PPC camp thus potentially costing the Tories election-winning seats. Yet I heard nothing about the usual center-left vote-splitting between the Liberals and NDP, which, I believe, often enables the Tories to squeeze up the middle.

All of this, of course, is basically thanks to our first-past-the-post electoral system, which to me barely qualifies as democratic rule within the democracy spectrum and is least representative of the electorate as a whole. Additionally, I understand, such low-representation governments are therefore easier for lobbyists to manipulate, something the same said news-media typically don’t mention.

Frank Sterle Jr., White Rock B.C.