…remember what the “First Past the Post” system delivered twice:
I’ve done the occasional Tampa-to-St. Pete commute during peak times, and they can easily stretch…
Anitra and I saw the sticker pictured above on a Model Y Tesla parked outside…
It’s Sunday, and it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are the memes, pictures, and cartoons…
I saw this a couple of weeks ago in Austin at Uncommon Objects, a delightfully…
This stuff makes for amazing fried rice or musubi (a.k.a. “Spam sushi”).
Anitra and I were dropping off a package at the UPS Store on Kennedy when…
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Yeah, but not in this jurisdiction.
I don't really consider it much of an argument in favour of tossing a system that's delivered a couple hundred years of responsible Westminster-style governments in dozens of countries across several continents.
Come now-a presidential system is not compatible with any sort of proportional representation. PR might have caused things to be different in Congress, but W. would be in, regardless.
Except the American system is a presidential system. You vote in two ballots, one for representatives, one for president. Here you vote on one ballot and whoever wins the majority (absolute or relative) then gets to be PM. So really, you are incorrect.
I will admit my bias towards proportional representation systems comes from the math nerd in me -- I like a mapping of votes to representation that's close to one-to-one. Consider the results of this election:
While plurality (a.k.a. "first past the post" or "winner-take-all") systems have served us well, I don't think there's any harm into continually investigating if there are better ways to do things. Consider that our system was designed at a time when the pace of life was slower, our economy was resource-based rather than service-based, globalization meant a ship that came every 6 months, and tabulating and then announcing election results could take weeks.
Fair point. We're still pretty resource-based though, which is why all our primary industries freak out when the dollar starts to climb. You don't notice it much in T.O. because we have no resources to hock, but in B.C. or northern Ontario it's much more of a factor.
I like the last paragraph of your rebuttal comment best - "I don’t think there’s any harm into continually investigating if there are better ways to do things."
There is certainly no harm in investigating other electoral systems in order to find a fair balance. However, I don't think MMP is it. Honestly, I don't think the referendum question was fair at all. I'm certain the Citizen's Committee did a lot of work to come up with their suggestions (in fact, I know a member of the committee and a more dedicated individual I've never met), but the question as posed was forcing us down a path which only these subject matter experts had truly traced to the end.
As proposed, MMP would 1) reduce the number of elected officials and increase the size of ridings, 2) place unelected MPPs in office at the discretion of party officials (patronage?) and 3) marginal or fringe parties with an incomplete party platform (such as the Marijuana Party or the Family Coalition) gain an unfair advantage over policy by demanding appeasement in exchange for votes in the House.