On October 10, Ontarians had the chance to change this province’s electoral system for the first time in nearly 90 years. But the referendum on proportional representation failed, and Ontarians chose to keep the status quo that’s been in place since 1792. This referendum defeat shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, because from the outset its mismanagement meant it was bound to fail.
Too many Ontarians did not understand what the referendum was about, let alone the differences between the voting system proposed and the one we have now. Those who did realize that Ontario had to choose between two voting systems were unclear on the issue, such as how list members would be selected, if this process of selection would be transparent, for whom or what they would be accountable, and how coalition governments would be formed in legislature.
To address these complicated questions, Elections Ontario set up the “Referendum Ontario” web site (yourbigdecision.ca), but the site did not adequately address voters’ uncertainties about how government under a new system would work. The advertisements put together by Elections Ontario were terribly vague: they did not even make clear that Ontario was holding a referendum on electoral systems. The only message that came across was “Do not let others speak for you.” How were these ads ever going to inform the general public on what the referendum was about? On the whole, Elections Ontario didn’t do enough to educate the public. Out of the $93 million spent on this election, only $7 million was spent on education about the referendum, a scant portion given the historic importance of the vote.
The proposed Mixed Member Proportional system was far more complicated then the one Ontarians are familiar with. There should have been more information distributed about how the MMP system would work before commentary was given on the pros and cons of each system. Unfortunately, the province’s political parties were all too keen to voice their position on the referendum. The Conservatives encouraged Ontario to vote against the referendum, while Green Party leader Frank De Jong tried to whip up support for MMP. The October 1 issue of the Varsity carried an op-ed by federal NDP member Olivia Chow, arguing in favour of the referendum. While every citizen has a right to their opinion, decisions on electoral reform should not be infl uenced by political parties.
The irony of the failure of this electoral reform is that it sought to boost voter turnout. Under the current system, the votes of people living in ridings with high populations mean much less than those living in small ridings. MMP would have meant that every vote would have counted and Ontarians would have had more of a chance to be involved in the democratic process. But the referendum was so poorly publicized that voters didn’t realize the opportunity they were being presented with, and passivity reigned. As things turned out, only 52.6% of eligible voters cast a ballot, a record low for our province. If Ontarians didn’t endorse the new system because they didn’t want it, then that’s truly the public’s choice. It’s another thing if it failed because of ignorance and apathy.
