FPTP vs MMP

[Marcus Brubaker]

Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> Marcus Brubaker wrote:
>
>   
>> Israel and Belgium are true red herrings here.
>>     
>
> They're reasonable (and real) examples of coalition gridlock. That they
> exist in unstable political environments is understood -- yet Canada has
> also had its times of political chaos (think Meech Lake).
>
>
>   
>> In fact, FPTP
>> *encourages* geopolitical divisions in the electorate, witness the Bloc.
>>     
>
> One can't suck and blow at the same time. You can't attack FPTP for
> encouraging geopolitical divisions, while championing the MMP
> empowerment of small parties.
>   

FPTP encourages geographically limited parties.  MMP encourages 
ideologically limited parties.  I have nothing against small parties on 
either side of this, but the crisis in Belgium has to do with geographic 
and linguistic divides which are very much encouraged by FPTP which is 
what Belgium uses anyway.


> If MMP happened on a federal level, some of the first new parties would
> certainly be aboriginal and western separatist groups, which (unlike the
> Bloc when it started) already have grassroots base. Indeed, if MMP were
> to succeed here it wouldn't surprise me if a party were to evolve to
> advocate the GTA's separation from Ontario -- a POV advanced by folks as
> disparate as Mel Lastman and Jane Jacobs.
>   

Alright, fine, lets walk through this.  Lets pretend that everyone in 
the GTA wants to separate because we don't like food, wine, cottages, 
uranium, or, you know, all those natural resources that we make lots of 
money selling.  That's about 5.5 million people so that's about ~42% of 
the population if they all vote the same way.  So under MMP they would 
get 42% of the seats.  Well, frankly, if all those people thought that 
way, they would probably also get all of the ridings in the GTA under 
FPTP too.  So?  Well, that's ~48/107 which is ~44%.  So, honestly, the 
efficacy of the "Bloc GTA" is basically identical under both systems.  
Except we're assuming that EVERYONE in the GTA will vote for this Bloc 
GTA party and I think even you would admit the odds of that are pretty 
slim.  So lets say 60% of them vote this way, well then under MMP they 
get 25~30% and under FPTP they get...wait for it...~44% of the seats.  
Now, how is this an argument against MMP?

Those scary parties people talk about could have always existed and many 
of them already do.  However, separatist parties are less likely to win 
authority in MMP than in FPTP because their support is predominantly 
regional.  Ideological parties which are spread out (like the Family 
Coalition or Greens or Communist or whatever) are likely to have a very 
small impact.  In fact, even the Greens are unlikely to end up with more 
than half a dozen seats given their current (record high) polling.  
Finally, doesn't the FCP or Greens or whoever deserve at least some 
representation in parliament if they're able to get over 200,000 (3% of 
the likely voting public) people to support them?

Marcus
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