FPTP vs MMP

JoeHill joehill-R6A+fiHC8nRWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org
Tue Oct 9 17:21:43 UTC 2007


John McGregor wrote: 

> Christopher Browne wrote:
> > I'd tend to expect MMP to give fringe parties appalling amounts of
> > power/control, as majority governments would be replaced by a need to
> > build coalitions where the last little bits to head in would get power
> > out of proportion to their representation.  That's the sort of thing
> > that has happened in places like Italy and Israel...  
> My concern runs is that an unpopular governing party could remain in
> power by vastly increasing it's plurality in its traditionally 'safe'
> seats. eg. the Liberals in Toronto and London; the NDP in areas with
> large numbers of organized labour like Windsor, Sudbury and Oshawa; and
> the Conservatives in the 905 area; -- could all get out the vote in
> order to offset their performance at the polls in areas where they are
> distinctly unpopular.

For anyone who is just beginning to follow this discussion (like me) and who is
tempted to read the numerous posts below (like I did), let me sum up what I
read in terms of the arguments against MMP:

1. Ontario will be turned into some bizarre negative world where politicians
will be even _less_ accountable than they are now.

2. If any shape-shifting brain-eating aliens were to land in Ontario, they
would only have to get a couple of votes in order to force us to begin
construction of the giant brain-extraction towers.

3. We might become more like Switzerland.

-- 
JoeHill
++++++++++++++++++++
   Bender: Hey, that's my last beer, you bastard. I'll kill you! 
   Fry: I'll kill you too, buddy, I'll kill you too.
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