Section 3 – Policy Initiatives & 2025 Deliverables
11. Democratic and Electoral Reform
The Parties will work together to create a special legislative all-party committee to evaluate and recommend policy and legislation measures to be pursued beginning in 2026 to increase democratic engagement & voter participation, address increasing political polarization, and improve the representativeness of government. The committee will review and consider preferred methods of proportional representation as part of its deliberations. The Government will work with the BCGC to establish the detailed terms of reference for this review, which are subject to the approval of both parties. The terms of reference will include the ability to receive expert and public input, provide for completion of the Special Committee’s work in Summer 2025, and public release of the Committee’s report within 45 days of completion. The committee will also review the administration of the 43rd provincial general election, including consideration of the Chief Electoral Officer’s report on the 43rd provincial general election, and make recommendations for future elections.
Please, anything but full PR. Please. In a polarized landscape PR is leading to increasingly bad outcomes (Israel, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland etc.) In a PR system, the Far Right would be running France.
This is not happening because the citizens of those countries are less good than Canadians.
Anything less than full PR is less than an ideal representative democracy.
Besides, electoral systems are not supposed to determine the ideological makeup of government. The responsibility of the electoral system is to ensure effective representation in government, that’s it.
If you don’t like the ideological makeup of those countries you mentioned, blame the culture, not the electoral system.
I didn’t realize what community I was in, I thought this was a more general one. Seems rude to come in and argue the merits of PR in a community devoted to it, apologies, I’m happy to let it be.
blame the culture, not the electoral system.
If you read about what’s happening in those countries, you’ll realize it’s not about the culture, it’s that PR incentivizes really bad outcomes. Take Germany for example. Just like here, a small minority of people would vote for really hateful parties that are toxic and should be avoided. However, avoiding them has made the other parties form really broad and thus ineffective coalitions, which are unable to push forward significant legislation. The increasing inability to pass significant legislation has led to Germany’s stalling development, which then further fuels extremist parties.
Similarly, you’ll see in Israel where mainstream parties are held hostage by relatively small extremist parties leading to horrific outcomes that are generally not supported by the public.
I basically agree with the statement:
The responsibility of the electoral system is to ensure **effective **representation in government
but I think you are missing the effective part. Consider, an absolute pure democracy where every bill, item etc was voted on by everyone. That would certainly be the ultimate in democracy, but it would be a terrible way to run a country and likely lead to some insane policy choices. Similarly, an autocracy can pass perfect and brilliant legislation but is completely un democratic. So, we can see that there is give and take between full representation and effective government. My entire point is that PR, while really groovy on paper, tends to produce really bad outcomes and thus sacrifices a lot of the efficiency of government (and of voting frankly) for some (arguably temporary) democratic gain. I know too much about the to be anything but stridently opposed to PR.
Seems rude to come in and argue the merits of PR in a community devoted to it, apologies, I’m happy to let it be.
I mean, we live in a democratic society, so free speech is encouraged.
Edit: also if there were a hypothetical system superior to proportional representation, I’d be in favour of it after rigorous consideration. I’m not bound to any particular electoral system.
If you read about what’s happening in those countries, you’ll realize it’s not about the culture, it’s that PR incentivizes really bad outcomes. Take Germany for example. Just like here, a small minority of people would vote for really hateful parties that are toxic and should be avoided
How is that a “bad outcome” when it’s literally what people voted for. Electoral systems are not supposed to decide the ideological makeup of government.
It’s not PR you are against, you are against a characteristic inherent of democracy itself.
has made the other parties form really broad and thus ineffective coalitions, which are unable to push forward significant legislation
Is this worse than the big tent parties we have now, that members can’t vote or think independent of their party leaders?
an absolute pure democracy where every bill, item etc was voted on by everyone. That would certainly be the ultimate in democracy, but it would be a terrible way to run a country and likely lead to some insane policy choices
What does this have anything to do with our conversation? We aren’t discussing representative democracy versus direct democracy. We are discussing proportional representation vs non-proportional representation.
My entire point is that PR, while really groovy on paper, tends to produce really bad outcomes and thus sacrifices a lot of the efficiency of government (and of voting frankly) for some (arguably temporary) democratic gain
- Tends to produce bad outcomes how exactly? You would need to describe an outcome that you would not see under any democracy.
- Sacrifices the efficiency of government how? And is “efficiency” more important than policy that the majority actually agree on?
- Your argument against PR is that voting is “inefficient”, therefore we should allow non-proportional governments?
- How is it “temporary” democratic gain, when there are more mathematical criteria satisfied under PR systems for producing democratic systems?
@AlolanVulpix @MyBrainHurts Sorry I know this isn’t directly abt PR for Canada. But isn’t Germany really an example of PR success? AFD is not in government. In the US, a similar movement (MAGA) pretty easily parlayed a small plurality within one party into a takeover of every government branch.
Great question! In the very short term, sort of. (Though from the start I’d point out that it is much harder to envision a party like the AFD gaining traction in an FPTP system)
PR causes 2 different styles of issues with the AFD. 1) It makes politics much less likely to produce significant or helpful change, so people don’t see meaningful political improvements in their lives and are more likely to turn to extremist parties like the AFD. and 2) Because the AFD has so many seats, the winning coalition has to be super broad, basically the same coalition of the Conservative and Progressives that was seen as ineffectual the last time around. Admittedly, this time they can exclude the Greens. The same reasons the previous government collapsed and led to such a significant rise in support for the AFD are still in effect.
What you’re seeing as a broad ineffective coalition happens in Canada within the parties themselves, prior to the election. They’re preconfigured to be broad and ineffective. The end result of ineffective governance is the same.
An AfD in Canada takes root not as a separate party but as a faction of one of the large parties. They grow internally and either split or take over that party. Has happened to our PC party which got split in two, then reunited again under the extreme part’s leadership.
The significant difference between that and PR which produces the AfD is that the dissenting voices are hidden and suppressed for much longer under our system. Either by their own parties, or by gaining no seats under a third party. Both of those don’t eliminate the problems that make people vote this way. They just delay the knowledge of those problems and therefore any serious solution. With PR the AfD shows up on the radar as soon as 5% of the people have a problem which makes them vote this way. The incumbent parties have an incentive to fix those problems much earlier. Sure they can do nothing and be ineffective but they could also decide to do something. Or there could emerge another party that rises up to address what they wouldn’t. In our system that’s basically impossible. Meanwhile in Germany, De Linke got 9%.
What you’re seeing as a broad ineffective coalition happens in Canada within the parties themselves, prior to the election
Sort of? That coalition still comes forward with a set of proposals that they generally have a chance to enact (or, they choose not to and bear the electoral consequences for it.) This is different than going forward with a set of proposals, then in a murky set of compromises behind close doors with multiple parties, some other result happens. How to assign blame or credit?
Has happened to our PC party which got split in two, then reunited again under the extreme part’s leadership.
Come on. I don’t think a serious or well informed adult can honestly look at the PC party and say that it is seriously comparable to the Hard Right like the AfD. While some of those folks are swept up into a faction, their outcomes get moderated by the PC party because of the FPTP incentives to appeal to a broad swathe of the electorate.
They just delay the knowledge of those problems and therefore any serious solution.
I mean, you’ve seen this learning happen pretty quickly to the Liberal party. People got fed up about inflation and housing, started abandoning the party. There’s a reason the guy who crushed the Liberal party election was the only one who could credibly say he’d had nothing to do with those bad decisions.
Like, political parties aren’t only informed about public opinion during elections. (Otherwise, their campaign promises and platforms would just be wild guesses.) There’s all sorts of public opinion polling etc. And thanfully, we have a strong system that can address these issues instead of just muddle through with a coalition that’s too broad to actually address those issues.
Look at Germany. Does it seem likely that the coalition government will be able to do anything about the AfD or will they just muddle through while the problems fester and the AfD gets more popular? I’d put heavy money on the latter. Whereas Canada, has already started broad plans to create housing etc (these are the sorts of plans that take a long time to materialize, a sad irony about the upcoming election is that whatever party wins will likely be credited for dealing with housing developments spurred by the current Liberal government.)
I’m not about to have a full discussion about PR causing success or not. I’m sure there are already articles written on it.
However, if we live in a democracy, we are deserving of and entitled to representation in government, and only proportional representation can get us there. A democracy necessarily requires everyone having a seat at the table, and in a representative democracy, vote percentage must equal seat percentage.
If you’re going to advocate for something, it seems wild to just hand wave “surely someone has written articles about this.”
It seems like you are very excited about the goal of PR but haven’t really looked into, or are unwilling to acknowledge, the dangers, pitfalls and harms. Sort of like when trump says he wants to help American workers, very hard to hate that idea but it’s the details and how those details will play out that is the essential bit.
The point I’m trying to make is this:
- In a democracy, we are entitled to and deserving of representation in government.
- I am not trying to argue whether democracy (and by proxy PR) itself is successful (or unsuccesful), because that is an entirely different discussion.
