GuelphToday received the following letter to the editor from reader Kevin Bowman in response to news on the fate of Ontario's greenbelt.
The corruption and belligerence of the party governing Ontario is a direct result of our flawed electoral system.
When a party can "win" a four-year dictatorship with the support of only 18% of the voting population (and only 41 per cent of the popular vote), it is no surprise that they feel no accountability to the public at large.
Doug Ford and the PCs know that their jobs are safe in the hands of their base regardless of their actions and they behave accordingly. Former Ontario Liberal governments were not much different but perhaps less brazen.
The situation is essentially the same at the federal level just with parties shuffled around. Why should the government of the day pay attention to the opposition parties? Because they collectively represent a majority? So what?
Having a majority of the public behind you is unnecessary to maintain power in our sham of a democracy. Our electoral system creates false majorities in the legislature and literally throws out every vote not cast for the "winner" in each riding. This hurts ALL voters.
Conservative and NDP voters are silenced and not represented in safe Liberal ridings. NDP and Liberal voters are silenced and not represented in safe Conservative ridings. Liberal and Conservative voters are silenced and not represented in safe NDP ridings. (Lather, rinse and repeat with any combination of parties.)
Swing voters and partisan supporters alike cannot vote for what they actually want if they want their vote to count. They must vote strategically for the person they think will win (if they like them) or whoever has the best chance of beating the person they think will win (if they don't like them).
A proper, democratic and representative electoral system:
- minimizes the number of votes that fail to elect a representative
- matches the share of seats/votes in the legislature to parties according to their share of the popular vote
Period. Nearly every democracy on the planet has updated their electoral system to achieve this basic principle of Proportional Representation but Canada has failed to do so despite talking about it since 1921 and despite it having broad public support.
I strongly urge the leaders and members of ALL parties to work together to end this charade. No more false majorities! No more fake democracy!
Kevin Bowman, Guelph
