MMP is not right for Ontario

from the desk of Derek Lee, M.P...

Ontario will soon vote in a referendum which seeks approval for a form of proportional representation in electing Members to the Queen’s Park legislature. I oppose the proposal to adopt proportional representation (PR) and will vote against it. This is why.

The allegation of the proponents is that the current electoral mechanism is broken, even thought it has served Canada for 140 years, and the legislatures of several other countries and states for similar or longer periods. Strange to think that the world’s longest established democracies have come so far and have done so well with a “defective” electoral model

I must acknowledge all the work of those who have developed the “PR” model and in good faith did their very best to put forward changes for our consideration. I will not shoot the messengers; they are good citizens engaged in a healthy exercise. They were asked to develop a proposal, not argue against it, and they will undoubtedly take a certain “pride in authorship” in promoting the proposal. But it is my impression that the driving force behind the original desire for “PR reform” was (with all present company excepted!) a gathering of wannabes, losers of elections, whiners, party hacks and classroom academics, all with a visible complaint or agenda to change the rules to make it work “better” - at least for them.

I know that I, and other opponents, will be criticized for being too “experienced”, and insensitive to the needs of those struggling parties and unsuccessful candidates, and that I am too interested in maintaining the existing system in which I’m elected … in short, “reactionary”. But the fact is that I and all our electeds do not “cling to power” but will be replaced and/or defeated in elections, by the people we serve, and nothing will prevent that.

I do not regard our electoral system as broken. It sends persons elected with the highest number of votes to represent all of the constituents of a district; a person to represent people (not a party- although there is usually a clear party affiliation). The reformists don’t quarrel with that representation, but they propose to allow political parties to appoint additional persons to the legislature to exclusively represent those parties.

Advocates of these changes have also described votes in favour of losing party candidates as “wasted”. This is nonsense. Every contest, by its nature, yields a winner and losers. Their logic appears to question why anyone would engage or participate in a race that would produce a loser. Surely running and losing in a contest is not a waste, nor is voting for any candidate in a municipal/provincial/federal election a waste. Should we also reform municipal election contests because there would be losers there as well?

So here are some reasons I believe this Mixed Member Plurality (MMP) proposal is dangerously wrong for our Canadian legislatures and parliaments:

1) Fostering Unity:

Ours is a huge country and diverse in language, culture, religion and geography. There were and are many forces pulling us in many directions. It was very hard bringing the country together in the first place and Canadians need a governance model biased (yes biased) in favour of unifying interests, not fortifying factions and differences. The MMP proposal would give strengthened representation to interests, which had attracted votes but not enough to win. I believe this could foster the birth and growth of parties representing factional or regional interests as distinct from parties having a national unifying focus. MMP might be workable in small relatively homogenous jurisdictions like New Zealand and PEI, but the experience of many jurisdictions in Europe and elsewhere is that infusing factions with additional proportional representation can trigger forces leading to more small parties, impairing the formation of majority governments and exposing a parliament to legislative gridlock on contentious national issues. What if many of our large cities or well organized minorities formed parties to elect Members to Queen’s Park? What if electors from each province did the same thing in the federal parliament? Would we thereby undermine out ability to form and sustain national parties?

2) More Minority Governments?

Increasing the representation of “losing” parties, (of which there could be several in a legislature), will mathematically increase the likelihood of a minority government situation. While a minority government occasionally can add some spice to governance in a legislature, most of the tough decisions in our history, the ones that lead us through trials and crises, have been taken by governments with majorities in stable parliaments. Just what might have happened without those majorities is open to speculation. Would we ever have been able to found a country or provinces in the first place with so many potentially entrenched factions among us if our electoral system had predisposed us to minority governments?

3) More Elections?

Canadian legislatures and the House of Commons are “Westminster style confidence” houses where, by constitutional convention, a government defeated in the house on a matter of confidence (eg. a bill dealing with finances) will ask for an immediate election. Such a defeat is much more likely to materialize in a minority legislature situation which as noted above, is more likely to occur using the proposed MMP system. It is arguable that in a form of government where the Executive sits outside the legislature (as in many Presidential systems) this alleged shortcoming would not be so significant. But in short, in a huge and diverse country like Canada, increasing the number of parties and impairing the formation of majority governments will increase the risk of more collapsed governments, parliamentary dissolutions and election calls. 4) The Creation of Lower House “senators”:

This MMP proposal entails the appointment, as Members of the House, of dozens of party loyalists put forward on a list by each eligible party. Isn’t that awfully similar to the way we now appoint Senators? Do we really want to appoint a class of strict party loyalists (how else would their names get to be on the list?) to our legislature(s)? And these appointees will never represent a constituent, but will rather be beholden to the party, so that they might earn the favour of being on the party list for the next election. They would never be accountable to any electors and in practice would probably never even have to answer a phone call - except from the party boss!

5) Weakens and Dilutes Constituency Representation:

The MMP proposal will foster two classes of legislators: one that would be elected directly by constituents and work for and be accountable to them, as has been done for 140 years; and another which is appointed, works for and is accountable to his/her party. What linkage or accountability would this appointed group have to the electors of any constituency? I see little or none. A directly elected MP will work within his party in the Caucus Room and sometimes even break with his party in House votes in order to reflect the views of his/her constituents. The appointed MMP legislators have no reason to; they have no constituents and are “owned” by the party which appoints them. They might often be motivated by “party position”, or “conscience”, but not by constituent electors.

Not only that, but in this proposal, Ontario’s voters will actually lose 17 of those locally elected MPPs and increase the number of residents represented by each remaining one by an average of 20,000!

6) Strengthens the hand of a party leader – Weakens the Riding MPP

By appointing more party “yes” men/women, who don’t represent ridings, the hand and clout of a Premier/Prime Minister and the other party leaders will be strengthened at the expense of the constituency- based legislators. Although voters expect their elected representatives to be accountable and responsive, the presence of party-appointed people among them will dilute the clout and presence of the directly-elected constituency legislators, both in the House and in the Caucus room. Remember, “He who pays the piper, calls the tune!” For this reason alone, one could understand why leaders of smaller parties would be very supportive of the MMP proposal. It strengthens parties but weakens constituencies

7) The Cost:

Electoral reform will come at a cost to Ontario voters. They’ll be on the hook for more than $8,000,000 per year (salary plus office budgets) if they choose this proposal. This includes 22 additional salaries of $112,990 each and an office budget in the range of $264,000.

Summary

Irrespective of whether the objectives of the MMP proposal were to try and improve voter participation levels, or to provide consolation prizes to losers and party loyalists, the arguably dangerous and negative impacts of those proposals on large Westminster style federal jurisdictions like Canada and its provinces are, in my view, more constitutionally subversive than the alleged ills they seek to correct. All the additional costs needed to adopt the proposed MMP system might be much better spent improving the work outputs and accountability of our existing legislators. And just because proponents of these changes (imported from other very different countries) call them “reforms”, that doesn’t mean they are right for Ontario.

Derek Lee has served as the Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Rouge River since 1988