The Inhumanity of MMP

[Evan Leibovitch]

Marcus Brubaker wrote:

> I was at a FPTP v MMP debate last week with Andrew Coyne and I thought
> he put it very well.  Parties aren't suicidal.  If parties engage in
> backroom dealing that upsets their supporters, they will be punished at
> the next election.

Conversely, they can totally please their supporters, and still get
punished by the electorate. Or they can compromise core principles in
order to get elected -- witness the growing rift between the NDP and the
trade union movement.

> Similarly if they continually put party hacks on
> their lists that no one wants.

Since you don't know in advance how many list candidates will get in
power, you have to vote for the policies rather than the slate of
people. And if the slate has a bunch of people you don't know but two or
three that you really can't stand, is that enough reason to vote against
the party on the list vote? Since they're all voting party line, why
should it even matter who the list candidates are?


> No different than what we have now,
> really.  It's not like there is a mechanism in Ontario where an MPP can
> get booted out if their constituents are unhappy with them.  (Whether
> there should be such a mechanism is another question.)

Now you're talking. The two best possible electoral reforms I can think
of are:
- an elected Senate with term limits
- a recall system for MPs and MPPs

The ability for a riding to recall its representative in mid-term is IMO
a far more useful change than proportional representation could ever be.

- Evan
--
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