Canada’s electoral system — just leave it alone

Re: “Let’s get going on new voting system,” letter, May 5.

The current electoral method has strong advantages compared to the proportional representation method. It has given us long-term political stability in Canada, and the ability to judge a winning party’s performance and do something about it at the next election.

I feel it is the most responsible form of democracy. We know who is in charge, rather than the proportional-representation method that historically has spawned many parties and coalitions, a situation that has often led to political paralysis and instability.

For example, in the 70 years since 1945. Canada and Britain, using our current electoral method, have had 11 and 14 changes of prime minister respectively. In France and Italy, with the proportional-representation method, there have been 45 and 41 prime minister changes respectively. One year in France, they spent 88 parliamentary days wrangling over the composition of the cabinet. We don’t need that in Canada.

Our most recent election is a strong endorsement for the nature of Canadian voters and the system. Three parties were in contention to win at the beginning of the campaign. They all did their best to say what they stood for and Canada chose a majority Liberal government.

Our Liberal government should take sober second thoughts about changing a system that has worked so well for Canada.

Doug Blair Cobble Hill