The Inhumanity of MMP

[Marcus Brubaker]

Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> Currently, MPPs are not robots. Sometimes they vote against party
> discipline. Sometimes they change parties in mid-session. Sometimes they
> force free votes on issues that transcend party politics. Sometimes they
> face local backlash when a province-wide initiative severely threatens
> their riding. Sometimes they advance local needs in caucus to provide
> context to province-wide programs. Sometimes they resign, or die while
> in office, and by-elections need to be called. Sometimes they may even
> be persuaded by debate on the floor of the legislature. And sometimes
> they may leave their party and sit as an independent.
>
> In other words, there's a human element to the system. Legislators have
> to balance personal, party and constituency accountability -- this is,
> to me, a Good Thing. Yet, under MMP,  all of that goes out the window
> for the 30% of the legislature to be selected by parties rather than
> directly from the public.
>
> The list members won' t need to justify themselves to the public, only
> to the party backrooms, where loyalty is the only talent that matters.
> Almost one-third of the MPPs -- some of whom could even find themselves
> in Cabinet -- will have their voting record dictated to them by party
> brass and generally stripped of individual thought, for they have no
> other accountability. 

What you say is true in theory, the list MPPs would lack the direct 
local accountability to a constituency.  Their job is, in fact, to vote 
the party line.  This is, in many ways, the right thing to do.  The 
point of MMP is to balance out the power of *parties* in parliament.  If 
those members aren't, in general, voting the party line then that would 
seem to be a bad thing.  However, if you take a look at places like New 
Zealand, you'll see that what typically happens is that list members are 
assigned constituencies by the party, sometimes even before the election 
occurs.  This is done very publicly and often times these people setup 
actual constituency offices.  This allows them to interact with a 
geographic portion of the population and be able to represent their 
interest in their caucus.  Further, these people are often involved in 
the campaign, just like the riding MPPs.

> I imagine that if one of the 39 dies or resigns,
> their party just appoints a replacement and the legislature doesn't skip
> a beat.
>   

According to the current proposals, vacancies will be replaced based on 
the original party lists.

> To take this to its logical conclusion, why even appoint people to the
> 39 positions? Each party whip could simply deliver, by proxy, the party
> designated answer to each vote, proportioned according to the election.
>   

True, but I think people would be even *more* upset about that.  With 
MMP there are people in the loop and you *do* get to vote for and 
against them.  When you choose your party vote you're not just selecting 
the platform, your selecting the people.  Much like today when you vote, 
you're voting for your local candidate but you're also selecting a 
potential premier.

> (Of course, one can argue that even the party-list MPPs are free to vote
> on their conscience and occasionally buck the party line. But if that's
> the case, it' s the party -- not the people -- who gets to decide their
> consequences. At that point, though, what's point of the promise of MMP
> if the party reps can vote against the party?)
>
> Is this what people really want? Is this worth making majority
> governments an aberration and reducing the influence of independents? I
> don' t want MPPs who are reduced to yes/no switches, with no public
> accountability and no need to bind with local constituents. These MPPs
> don' t need to campaign; the party can simply parade out smooth talkers
> -- who aren't even on the list -- to explain and attack, while
> appointing parliamentarians who can't relate to people.
>   

Frankly, I don't think MMP will do anything to diminish the influence of 
independents.  If any thing, it may increase it.  Independents are 
completely worthless in a majority government, but in a minority they 
can actually be crucial.  (If you don't believe me, go check the voting 
records when Paul Martin's minority fell, or when Stephen Harpers first 
budget passed.)

> I understand the calls for fairness, I get the point proponents are
> making, and I do see some benefit of cold logic in the proposal.
> However, IMO what we lose from MMP is far more than what we gain. There
> are many other reasons to oppose MMP, but this is certainly a big one to me.

I think this is precisely the question everyone should be answering 
tomorrow.  Are we likely to gain more than we loose with MMP?  I think 
so myself.  I think looking at the dozens of success stories around the 
world indicates that many of the fears about MMP aren't justified.  
Germany and New Zealand both use MMP and many others use some form of 
list-based PR.  There are certainly idiosyncratic examples, such as 
Isreal and Italy but I think the problems in both of those countries 
have little to do with their electoral system.

Cheers,
Marcus
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists