This past August the Green Party of Canada met in Toronto for their annual party convention. Once again, the Green Party endorsed proportional representation, specifically proportional representation for the election of the Senate.
Under our current “first-past-the-post” system Canada is divided into ridings and inhabitants of each riding elect a member of the House of Commons. The candidate with the most votes wins and represents the district in Parliament. This means that if a Conservative candidate gets 34 per cent of the vote and the Liberal and NDP candidates split the remaining 64 per cent of the vote, then the Conservative candidate wins. Worse still, under the first-past-the-post system, the composition of the House of Commons doesn’t necessarily match up with the national vote. This especially hurts the Greens, who received nearly seven per cent of the vote in the last election, but have no seats in Parliament. Under proportional representation at least some of Parliament would be elected according to each party’s share of the national vote.
Proponents of proportional representation think that the current system gives the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois an unfair advantage over federalist, left-of-centre parties. But proportional representation won’t solve all of Canada’s problems, and proportional representation has problems of its own as well.
The Green Party plan, which calls for Senators to be elected by proportional representation in addition to House members, is simply a bad idea. Under the current system Senators are appointed by the Prime Minister and serve until they die; Senators have no real legitimacy. Elections would confer legitimacy on the Senate—but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. In theory, the Senate has many legal powers to hurt legislation, but in practice the Senate is more like the Queen: it is an old and largely pointless body. An elected, legitimate Senate could paralyze Parliament with constitutional and legislative headaches.
It’s true that there are better and worse ways to implement proportional representation, but even as an abstract proposal, proportional representation just isn’t right for Canada.
Proponents of proportional representation don’t seem to realize that our political system is dynamic; if we change our political institutions then parties, policy, and coalitions will change as well. So, even if Canada had a system of pure proportional representation, the House of Commons would not mirror the current Canadian polls. It might seem like the current system gives the Conservatives an unfair advantage over the left, but that’s only because, to outsiders, any political party looks more cohesive than it really is. Keeping Conservatives together is difficult, and that difficulty is one of the reasons Harper has had no real political victories. Proportional representation would carve the Conservative party at its joints, but it would make it stronger. And while proportional representation might reduce regionalism, it would strengthen smaller parties. Small extremist parties could even exploit prejudice against immigrants or other groups for electoral gain. It may be uncomfortable to form a coalition with the Bloc Quebecois, but forming a coalition with extremists would be morally wrong.
Germany currently elects half of the German lower house by proportional representation. And in Germany, far-right and undesirable political parties are even stronger than in Canada. To put it in Canadian terms, the social conservatives have the most seats but they need the libertarians’ support to pass bills, so the welfare state is in more danger.
I share the NDP’s vision of a green social democracy, but there are better ways to achieve that vision than proportional representation, such as a renewal of private sector unions, or equal representation for cities. More importantly, if we are going to change something as fundamental as how we elect our government, we should be able to state our reasons in terms of shared Canadian values, not just naked political gain.
