Proportional Representation or How I Learned to Let Nutjobs Run the Country

Federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May is once again pushing for proportional representation for the House of Commons. She feels the current system of "first past the post" elections are unfair to alternative parties. It's worth addressing this issue again since British Columbia recently voted in a referendum to switch their electoral system to the needlessly complex "single transferable vote" system. It was voted down of course since naturally, nobody understood it. It's hard to get excited about electoral systems but it ends up effecting us all. Arguably our current system has a lot of issues but is not nearly as problematic as the nightmare that proportional representation would be. Currently the candidate with the most votes wins their seat in parliament. Which ever party wins the most seats rules the House. Under proportional representation, rather than counting the number of votes for an individual candidate, only votes for the party are counted. The House of Commons has 308 seats. I'm going to use the figures from the 2008 election to show how this would work, rounding numbers off to make it easier.

Current System
Conservatives: 37.65% of popular vote, 143 seats
Liberals: 26.26%, 77 seats
NDP: 18.18%, 37 seats
Bloc: 9.98%, 49 seats
Greens: 6.78%, 0 seats
Independent: 0.69%, 0 seats
Christian Heritage: 0.19%, o seats
Marxist-Leninist: 0.06%, 0 seats
Libertarian: 0.05%, 0 seats

Proportional System
Conservatives: 37.65% of popular vote, 116 seats
Liberals: 26.26%, 81 seats
NDP: 18.18%, 55 seats
Bloc: 9.98%, 31 seats
Greens: 6.78%, 21 seats
Independent: 0.69%, 2 seats
Christian Heritage: 0.19%, 1 seats
Marxist-Leninist: 0.06%, 0 seats
Libertarian: 0.05%, 0 seats

I know this doesn't equal 308 but of course somebody can't have half a seat. However, you can see how the playing field changes when popular vote is factored in as a whole rather than per individual candidate. Left wing parties in parliament would have gained a significant amount of power had this system been in place. It especially benefits the greens who would have gone from no seats to 21. May sees proportional representation as a free ride to power. Some have argued that this would enhance democracy but like so many things, what looks good on paper doesn't always work in real life.

The biggest flaw with proportional representation is the question of accountability. Under the current system, members of parliament are directly accountable to their constituents. This is why people like Garth Turner, Wajid Khan, and Blair Wilson lost their seats in the last election. They betrayed the trust of their voters. Proportional representation completely wipes out the local riding system and local candidates in favour of a list. Parties draft this list of 308 names with the party leader at the top and the most favourable choices in descending order. The problem with this system is two fold. First of all, it separates the citizen from their representative. There is no local representative to contact as everyone is based in Ottawa. In a country as vast as Canada, a lot of issues would likely get ignored. If candidates are caught doing unscrupulous activities, it is up to the party to deal with them. The public has no say. While it is more democratic in terms of allowing smaller parties for a shot at seats, it removes a great deal of interaction between citizens and their government. Proportional representation is a system ripe for abuse. The second issue is one of patronage. A common complaint about the current system is that it fails to ensure that the best candidates for the job lead ministries. Proportional representation opens the door to changing that but the list based on favouritism is also widely open to abuse as party leadership moves their friends and biggest campaign contributors to the top, ensuring that they get seats regardless of whether they're qualified or not. The temptation to stack the list with patronage appointments is just too strong and opens the door for corruption combined with lack of accountability. This system in actuality is far less democratic than the current system. It may benefit May but it doesn't benefit us. Besides, the current system is hardly broken so why try to fix it?