News release: Monday night (May 16) Fair Vote Canada and the Federal Green Party of Canada teamed up at St. Andrew’s United Church to an audience of several dozen people to discuss how to make Canada more democratic.
Green Party Deputy Leader Bruce Hyer was introduced by former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario Gordon Miller to talk about why Canada is considered by many experts from around the world to be one of the least democratic governments in developed countries. Said Hyer, “The vast majority of world-wide democracies have some form of Proportional Representation (PR), where if the Purple Party gets 20% of the popular vote, they get 20% of the seats in the legislature. Here in Canada repeatedly governments like the recent Harper and Trudeau governments have achieved a ‘false majority’ of the seats and 100% of the power with less than 40% of the popular vote. Absolute power can lead to arrogance and corruption.”
Liza Vandermeer, local representative for Fair Vote Canada, (www.fairvote.ca) presented an visual explanation of why our flawed electoral system can and should be replaced by some form of PR. Liza stated “Even an imperfect form of Proportional Representation would be vastly better than our flawed winner-take-all system that we inherited from Britain.” Liza went on to say that Fair Vote Canada is non-partisan but is pleased that two of the main parties, the NDP and the Green Party of Canada, already support PR. The Liberal Party of Canada has not yet agreed to PR, but committed in the recent election campaign to ensure that “Every Vote Counts”.
The Liberals have established a House of Commons special committee to examine which new form of voting will work best for Canadians to make Canada truly democratic.
