Poll of the Day > Trudeau gave up on electoral reform in Canada.

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/justin-trudeau-electoral-reform-broken-promise/wcm/213e6355-448d-4b97-b633-865159102643

tl;dr: His party (Liberals) wanted to change it to Ranked Ballot. The other major party (Conservatives) wanted it to stay as it is. The third large party (NDP) wanted it to be Proportional Representation. It was recommended to him that he hold a referendum to allow the people to pick what they want, but he thinks Canadians are too dumb to pick appropriately, so it stays as it is.

I'm a bit annoyed as this was one of his most major campaign promises, but I understand the struggles here. The liberals absolutely want it to be Ranked Ballot, as they'd basically never lose an election again if that were the case. The Conservatives want to keep the status quo as the left wing votes are currently split between the NDP and the Liberals, and allowing any other kind of situation (particularly ranked ballot) puts them at a severe disadvantage. And the NDP wants proportional representation as they often get a decent number of votes, but comparatively few seats.

Oh well. Guess it stays as it is.
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Wow what a piece of shit

TRUDEAU YOU MOTHERFUCKER! Ò_Ó
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Trudeau, no :(
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He gave up on it months ago, he just explained the reasons in greater detail today.

Unsurprising, but still disappointing Even though I'm generally a Liberal supporter, the NDP were absolutely correct on this one - proportional representation makes far more sense than ranked ballots. Fuck this FPTP bullshit.

And I actually support not having a referendum on this, because too few people actually bother to research what's involved in each voting system for them to make an educated decision. This becomes painfully obvious whenever you hear people opining about the various systems, even people who should ostensibly know better.
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Trudeau has literally done nothing except go around the world for free and pose for pictures. Shit PM.

Lil69Leo posted...

Trudeau has literally done nothing except go around the world for free and pose for pictures. Shit PM.

Doing nothing is better than doing something if the things are harmful

He has been lackluster. Glad to see Harper out, disappointed with what has happened with Trudeau so far. Still glad.
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Dynalo posted...

but he thinks Canadians are too dumb to pick appropriately, so it stays as it is.

lolwut? Biased much?
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Trudeau is so shitty I'm honestly wondering if Trump is the worst leader in NA right now. He's running up a crazy deficit on shit no tax payer wants (see: mailing money abroad to buy favour with the UN and be another dumbass SJW). No improvements to anything, tons wasted money. All we see here is more debt, that's it.

Like a good SJW though, he's a massive hypocrite and is taking the human rights commission to court to get the federal government off the hook from any responsibility to the high native suicide rate because many of them basically live in third-world conditions in the middle of nowhere. Trudeau = "fuck Canadians, hello international recognition". He will ruin us for generations like his pussy-ass idiot father. By the time people were fed up with Pierre, Hitler stood a better chance in an election...
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Doctor Foxx posted...

Lil69Leo posted...

Trudeau has literally done nothing except go around the world for free and pose for pictures. Shit PM.

Doing nothing is better than doing something if the things are harmful

He has been lackluster. Glad to see Harper out, disappointed with what has happened with Trudeau so far. Still glad.

Of course. But with all the bullshit he promised I knew he was never going to do a damn thing. I hate how he prances around for all these dumbass social media setup photo ops to make it seem like hes hip and cool instead of doing his actual goddamn job.

Electoral reform was one of the only things in the 2015 Liberal platform I disagreed with. I'm actually happy they've dropped this.
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As unremarkable as he's been, he was still the best choice in 2015, so it's like, what can you really do.

I'm glad my country's impending heat death isn't being brokered as we speak but I wish more was being done.
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darkknight109 posted...

Unsurprising, but still disappointing Even though I'm generally a Liberal supporter, the NDP were absolutely correct on this one - proportional representation makes far more sense than ranked ballots. Fuck this FPTP bullshit.

Either is a better choice than FPTP so this isn't that complicated.

I think Trudeau's basic assertion about proportional representation is correct, but I see the outcome of more specialized parties as a good thing, not a bad thing. His idea that we need parties that can represent broader ranges of thinking isn't tenable.
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Kungfu Kenobi posted...

Either is a better choice than FPTP so this isn't that complicated.

I don't disagree, but in these arguments perfect tends to be the enemy of good. I'd have been content with ranked ballots, even if PropRep is the plainly better choice, but the Liberals would not have had a scrap of support from the opposition if they'd tried to push that through (and they likely would have been punished at the ballots for it, so it's not surprising they backed down).

The problem is there's so much naked partisanship wrapped up in this question that it's impossible to have a discussion at the parliamentary level that doesn't sound nakedly power-hungry. It's no coincidence that each party is arguing for the system that gives them the most power while paying lip-service to the idea that it's being done with the voters in mind. The Conservatives know that 60-70% of Canadians are left-wing or centre-left and the imbalances inherent in FPTP are the only way they can ever hope to form government as a result, so of course they support the status quo. Ranked ballots consolidate power in the political middle, so of course the centrist Liberals are in support of it - they might never lose another election if they'd succeeded in passing it (and even as a Liberal supporter I think that's a bad thing). And Proportional Representation grants the most power to smaller political parties, so naturally that's what the NDP and the Greens support, because it's pretty much their only reliable path to being in government, albeit as part of a coalition.

This whole thing should have been taken out of the politicians' hands and handled by an independent committee, which it looked like they were doing until they decided to just ignore the outcome/recommendations presented.
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That's disappointing, it was one of his big campaign promises right?

I like his pro refugee stances though I know it triggers a lot of people. Overall he's disappointing, but whatever, not gonna have a fuss about it. At least he's not actively opposing the scientific community like Harper was.
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Trudeau?

More like Poo-Deau amirite?
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he's been pretty frustrating
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pezzicle posted...

he's been pretty frustrating

tbh, I had been under the impression that PM Hair was popular, but I tend to listen mostly to leftist media where he's idolized.
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Dammit. He should have taken the gamble with a referendum. It's not like Proportional Representation can be any worse than the FPTP he's now effectively chosen.
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ZeldaMutant posted...

Dammit. He should have taken the gamble with a referendum. It's not like Proportional Representation can be any worse than the FPTP he's now effectively chosen.

FPTP got him in power though.
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If there had been a referendum, turnout probably would've been higher for maintaining the status quo than any other outcome. Sure, all the parties could have run ads lauding their preferred electoral method, but the Conservatives could more effectively rile up their base into voting for FPTP through fear-mongering, while the other parties would probably find it more challenging to overcome voter apathy over electoral reform.
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Zeus posted...

pezzicle posted...

he's been pretty frustrating

tbh, I had been under the impression that PM Hair was popular, but I tend to listen mostly to leftist media where he's idolized.

I'd say he is pretty popular still. The right-wingers in Canada hate him obviously, but they mostly do for the wrong reasons.

You gotta remember that in 2015, our choices were Trudeau, Harper (who everyone was sick of and was on some seriously dumb shit in the last 3-4 years of his term), and Mulcair (who mostly existed to yell at everyone else and just didn't have any leader qualities; the NDP is still seriously reeling from Jack Layton's death). Now, Harper has left politics for good and his replacement, Andrew Scheer, was only elected about a month ago and has been described mostly as soft Harper, which probably won't go over too well. I think the NDP will be electing a new leader in October.
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darkknight109 posted...

Ranked ballots consolidate power in the political middle, so of course the centrist Liberals are in support of it - they might never lose another election if they'd succeeded in passing it (and even as a Liberal supporter I think that's a bad thing). And Proportional Representation grants the most power to smaller political parties, so naturally that's what the NDP and the Greens support, because it's pretty much their only reliable path to being in government, albeit as part of a coalition.

Ranked Ballot doesn't do as much to eliminate split voting the way PropRep does, but honestly, I think the NDP and Greens would have a much stronger showing than they probably think under Ranked Ballot. I volunteered for the Green Party briefly when my sister ran in our riding (before the party came to its senses and pulled her as their candidate), and good god, the number of people who said "I'd vote Green, but they just aren't electable" when choosing Liberal. I know it's anecdotal, but even if it's only true regionally, it's a start.

And until they shoved Trudeau into the spotlight, the NDP was gutting the liberal party, and that Liberal momentum won't last forever. Things are already swinging back, and even a lot of Liberals are kinda wishing we still had Harper. The NDP can leverage that under Ranked Ballot FAR more effectively than FPTP.
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darkknight109 posted...

Unsurprising, but still disappointing Even though I'm generally a Liberal supporter, the NDP were absolutely correct on this one - proportional representation makes far more sense than ranked ballots. f*** this FPTP bulls***.

I disagree completely. If the NDP had their way, whoever was the most popular in Ottawa and Quebec would always be in, the other provinces would go completely without because 70% of the population is in those two. So suddenly no one would care about the rest of us because that's not how you would get voted, you would get voted in by pandering to those who live in the big cities in the east and that's it.

If I was to choose, I would have gone with the Liberal's Ranked Ballots even if I don't agree with them on a lot of things. But what we have is still a whole lot better than what the NDP want. There's a reason it was designed like this in the first place. Sure, it's not the best, but it's a whole lot better than what it could be.
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

I disagree completely. If the NDP had their way, whoever was the most popular in Ottawa and Quebec would always be in, the other provinces would go completely without because 70% of the population is in those two. So suddenly no one would care about the rest of us because that's not how you would get voted, you would get voted in by pandering to those who live in the big cities in the east and that's it.

That's the way it is already, though. No voting system - short of one that's blatantly undemocratic - is going to counteract the fact that Canada's population is extremely concentrated around Ontario and Quebec. Even under the current system, which is easily the least representative of the bunch, ridings are drawn by population and there are more of them in Quebec and Ontario than the rest of the country. Ontario has 121 seats and Quebec has 78, giving them a cumulative 199 out of 338 ridings or just shy of 60%. That's actually pretty close to their population share too - they contain roughly 64% of the population at last count, meaning their voting impact would not appreciably change in a switch to proportional representation.

It is almost completely impossible to win a federal election without carrying at least one of those two provinces and no voting system, be it FPTP, ranked ballots, PropRep or some other system, is going to change that.

Mario_VS_DK posted...

So suddenly no one would care about the rest of us because that's not how you would get voted, you would get voted in by pandering to those who live in the big cities in the east and that's it.

But again, how is this different from the system now?

At least under proportional representation, your vote matters regardless of where it comes from. The 2015 election was actually a breath of fresh air for me, because it was the first time I'd got the chance to vote in a competitive riding. I previously lived in Alberta, in a riding the Conservatives reliably carried by claiming >70% of the vote; as a direct result, we never saw our MP ever (nor, for that matter, any of the people who were campaigning against him) because why would the parties bother? The result was predetermined, meaning there was absolutely no point to spending so much as a single cent on campaign events there.

I still always voted, because I consider that an important part of living in a democracy, but honestly I may as well not have bothered. My vote didn't count for anything, so what was the point?

At least under proportional representation my vote would have meant something, because under that system EVERY vote means something. Whether you are a conservative in downtown Vancouver or a green in the Alberta hinterlands, every vote helps the chosen party regardless of who casts it and where it comes from. Sounds like a good idea to me.
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I knew Ottawa and Quebec got a fair amount of seats, but I didn't know it was such an overwhelming number. Wow.

I see where you're coming from now, and while I don't completely disagree with you anymore, I don't exactly agree either. I would have to actually sit down and do some solid research on what the benefits and negatives to each voting method is to actually know for sure anyways. And unless they actually do bring it to a vote, there isn't much reason in me doing that.

One thing I'll say though, is what or who determines who takes the seats the party gains? I realize a very small percentage of people do so, but there are those who vote based on the person who would take the seat representing their region. If the head of the party decides who takes those seats, they simply become even more single minded than they already are, and that is just simply not good.
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Zeus posted...

pezzicle posted...

he's been pretty frustrating

tbh, I had been under the impression that PM Hair was popular, but I tend to listen mostly to leftist media where he's idolized.

you clearly aren't listening to actual leftist media because no one on the left actually likes him at all

he's like by "liberals" but liberals aren't left wing so
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

One thing I'll say though, is what or who determines who takes the seats the party gains?

This is one of the common complaints against PropRep, especially by those who are fans of regional representation and/or decentralizing power away from party authority (in my opinion a bit of a lost cause given how Canadian politics is set-up, but I understand the sentiment). However, there are ways to address that concern and most of the proposals I've seen regarding implementing PropRep in Canada include some form of a nod to regional selection. For instance:

1) Riding amalgamation/Mixed-Member Proportional Representation. Under this system ridings would be merged to create a smaller number of larger ridings, and each riding would be represented by multiple MPs, elected proportionally based on the vote count within that riding (so, for instance, five ridings would be merged to create one riding represented by 5 MPs - if the results of the election were 55% Liberal, 30% Conservative, 15% NDP, 4% Green, and 1% Other, the seat distribution for that riding would be 3 Liberal, 1 Conservative, and 1 NDP). Under this system, there would be almost no no changes in how members are selected, since each super-riding (formerly five ridings) would pick five candidates to put forward for election.

2) Provincial system. Basically the same as above, but with members chosen on a per-province basis rather than per-riding. This reduces regional representation, but increases granularity of the vote.

3) Another system I've seen put forward but which doesn't have a snappy name, as far as I know, is that candidates would be nominated as normal, but seats would be distributed based on who won the largest proportion of votes in each riding. So, for instance, if the Liberals win 120 seats under this system, the candidates chosen would be selected from the 120 ridings where the Liberals won the largest proportion of the popular vote.

Mario_VS_DK posted...

I would have to actually sit down and do some solid research on what the benefits and negatives to each voting method is to actually know for sure anyways.

If you're interested, CGP Grey has an excellent series of short (~5 minutes each) videos that explain several of the most common voting systems, their strengths and their drawbacks in an entertaining, very easy to understand way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&list=PL7679C7ACE93A5638
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Mario_VS_DK posted...

I would have to actually sit down and do some solid research on what the benefits and negatives to each voting method is to actually know for sure anyways

Also, if you want the cliff notes version, here's the usual talking points:

First Past the Post
Winner is determined by who gets a plurality of votes in any given riding; a majority is not required.

Pros:
+Tends to result in large parliamentary majorities, allowing the winning party wide latitude to implement their agenda
+As a result, governments elected under FPTP tend to be stable and almost always serve out the full term, minimizing the costs and inconveniences of frequent elections
+If a government exceeds their mandate, it becomes a relatively straightforward task for the voters to toss them at the next election

Cons:
-Is a terrible voting system
-One of the most unrepresentative of all democratic voting systems. In Canada it is very possible to get >50% of the seats (which, thanks to an absence of separation between our executive and legislative branches is equivalent to nearly 100% of the power) with <40% of the popular vote (both the Harper Conservatives and the Trudeau Liberals did this in the last two elections). And, amazingly, we're not anywhere close to the worst example of that trend.
-Electoral resources are disproportionately funnelled towards competitive ridings; those ridings where any given candidate is polling more than 10% ahead of their nearest competitor are not worth investing in.
-It's awful
-Suffers from the "Spoiler Effect" where if you have a dominant party on one end of the political spectrum, creating/voting for an ideologically similar party will weaken both and provide an advantage to your rivals (this is why so many Conservative parties in Canada have amalgamated - they can only be competitive as a single, unified party under FPTP, and marching under one banner allows them a shot at electoral victory, despite the fact that >60% of Canadians vote for left-wing parties).
-Favours large parties, to the point where FPTP implicitly encourages a two-party system. Even in those countries that hold more than two political parties (like Canada), there are almost never more than two dominant ones at any given time.
-Very vulnerable to Gerrymandering
-Seriously, FPTP is just the worst

Ranked Ballots
Winner requires a majority of votes, not just a plurality. Voters cast ballots that include multiple ranked selections; in the event that no candidate get a majority, the lowest-ranked candiate is dropped and his/her voters' second choice is added to tally - this process is repeated until one candidate has a majority of votes.

Pros:
+Strikes a balance between proportional and FPTP systems
+Reduces the effects of "strategic voting" and the Spoiler Effect - voters are now free to vote for whatever candidate they like, no matter how fringe, and still be confident that their choices (in the form of their alternate selections) will still matter and they won't be supporting their ideological foes.
+Generally more representative than FPTP.

Cons:
-Strongly favours centrist parties.
-Can still produce extremely unrepresentative results, depending on how the votes shake out. Although this allows voters to support fringe parties without worry, that support still usually won't translate into actual representation.
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Proportional Representation
Seats are distributed as proportionally as possible based on the vote results - 40% of the popular vote means getting 40% of the seats.

Pros:
+The most representative of the common electoral systems - the government makeup most closely matches the election results
+Allows for a large number of political parties with disparate views, thus ensuring voters have a wide choice of platforms and policies to choose from
+Most governments rule by coalition, which fosters compromise and negotiation
+More "stable" overall, since a drop of a few percentage points in the polls does not equate to dozens of seats lost.
+Virtually eliminates "strategic voting", since there is no benefit to voting "against" a disliked party.
+Very resistant to Gerrymandering
+The favoured system of discerning, intelligent, and attractive people

Cons:
-Can lack regional representation unless specifically addressed
-Tends to favour smaller parties (which can give influence to fringe or extremist politics, particularly if a small party winds up as a "kingmaker" in a coalition)
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Ranked Ballot botting would be amazing
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ranked or PR would be a godsend at this point because fptp is the worst
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Ranked sounds like a good system to me.
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Ranked is still a huge step up on FPTP, and I'd certainly be content under such a system, but I still think Proportional is the better option.

Ranked ballots still suffer from one of the big drawbacks of FPTP, which is that your vote only *really* matters if you're in a competitive riding. That and the representation is still less than ideal. For instance, let's say that a hypothetical race has the following results:

Liberals: 40%
Conservatives: 35%
NDP: 25%

The NDP candidate is eliminated - 10% of their voters have the Liberals as a second choice while 10% have the Conservatives and 5% had no one as their second choice. That's enough to give the Liberal candidate the win and all seems well.

Except... it's still overlooking the fact that 60% - a clear majority - of the electorate wanted someone else representing them and that 50% didn't even have the Liberals as their most preferred runner-up.

Under a Proportional system, the Conservatives and NDP would still get some representation from those results, though the Liberals would still take home the largest share.
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proportional is by far the best. the only flaw people talk about ("fringe parties") is really they're complaining about actual democracy
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I like the idea of a hybrid of FPTP and PropRep. Give half the seats to PropRep so that way regional representation is still a thing in Parliament (which is why we have FPTP to begin with) because sometimes what's good for Ontario and Quebec isn't what's good for the Prairies and the Maritimes.
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synth_real posted...

I like the idea of a hybrid of FPTP and PropRep. Give half the seats to PropRep so that way regional representation is still a thing in Parliament (which is why we have FPTP to begin with) because sometimes what's good for Ontario and Quebec isn't what's good for the Prairies and the Maritimes.

1) Regional representation can still be achieved in a PropRep system by using the Mixed Member or Single Transferable Vote variants (among others).
2) PropRep and FPTP are both tilted in central Canada's favour because of simple demographics and there's really no democratic way to fix that (unless you want to go with the Triple-E senate that Harper was trying to implement a few years back - even then, calling that "democratic" is a bit of a stretch).
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What I'm wondering is how alternate election methods will work with how members of Parliament are elected currently. Would we be voting for the prime minister separately from the MP?
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synth_real posted...

I like the idea of a hybrid of FPTP and PropRep. Give half the seats to PropRep so that way regional representation is still a thing in Parliament (which is why we have FPTP to begin with) because sometimes what's good for Ontario and Quebec isn't what's good for the Prairies and the Maritimes.

My concern one way or another is how majority governments would be decided. The last time a party received 50% or more of the popular vote was 1984, and even then it was just BARELY over 50%.

Honestly, with how segmented this country is, it makes far more sense to continue to decentralize powers to provincial authority, as has been the general trend in the last 100 years. We're already arguably the most decentralized country on Earth, but there's still room for more decentralization.
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Doctor Foxx posted...

What I'm wondering is how alternate election methods will work with how members of Parliament are elected currently. Would we be voting for the prime minister separately from the MP?

You wouldn't have to change anything on the PM front, unless you really wanted to. The Prime Minister is whoever the HoC says it is - even if you change how you're electing MPs, that doesn't mean you need to change how the MPs choose the PM.
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we don't really need a PM anyway
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faramir77 posted...

My concern one way or another is how majority governments would be decided. The last time a party received 50% or more of the popular vote was 1984, and even then it was just BARELY over 50%.

Two or more parties would form a coalition government so that they have a majority vote. This would make parties work together and compromise. Sounds horrible, I know, but quite countries have done that for decades.
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