Trudeau can say what he wants, proportional representation best choice for Canada

On Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017, the newly appointed Minister of Democratic Institutions, Karina Gould, announced that the government would not be pursuing its election promise of electoral reform, attracting much opposition and public protest. In the House, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau energetically defended this decision, saying that he would not do something that was harmful to Canadians just to check off a campaign promise. That is the front story, but the big story is the back story. Electoral reform must be considered at two levels. On one level, the front story, is concerned with electoral mechanisms, first-past-the-post (FPTP), with or without ranked ballots, and proportional representation. On the second level, the back story, is concerned with political culture with two alternative visions of democracy— majoritarian democracy, where a majority of elected MPs may dominate a minority, and consensual democracy where elected MPs attempt to work together. In 2014, Samara Canada, a non-partisan political research and education organization published a book through Random House, Tragedy in the Commons, in which researchers Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan reported on the “exit” interviews which they had conducted with 80 former MPs who had been defeated and/or had retired from politics. While only two former NDP MPs spoke of the need for electoral reform, former MPs from all parties spoke of a toxic political culture in which, as one time Reform-turned Liberal MP Keith Martin observed, “The tragedy of the Commons is that public good is sacrificed on the altar of short-term political gain.” The back story that really matters is the story about how electoral processes create and maintain this toxic political culture. Samara's book, while a good read, was hardly a bestseller, but it is more than curious why former politicians from all political parties did or could not express themselves until they were out of politics and why they should have similar views. There are good reasons for both. The former MPs were not critical of their then colleagues but of their respective political parties. They did not speak out much while they were sitting MPs because political parties are powerful organizations in Canada as they are in most countries. Current or prospective MPs who speak out against their own parties put their personal political futures at peril. MPs from different parties expressed similar views because political parties are the teams of professional politics and the major league teams, the Conservative, Liberal, and NDP teams, operate in much the same way. Our current political system is based on these teams. It is a majoritarian democracy, where the team with the most team members elected forms the government. If a team elects a majority of the MPs, it may and does dominate the remaining minority of them. This sounds democratic until one recognizes that majorities in the House are routinely elected by a minority of voters. In fact, Canada has only had six majority governments in its history which were elected by a majority of voters 1900, 1904, 1917, 1940, 1958 and 1984. Majority governments elected by less than a majority of voters, that is, most of them, are sometimes called “false” majorities. The 2011 Conservative government of prime minister Stephen Harper was and the 2015 Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a “false” majority. So while both were parliamentary majorities, each was elected by somewhat less than 40 per cent of the popular vote. True majorities are rare, but false majorities are possible because of the existing first-past-the-post electoral system. Since the difference between the tremendous power of a majority government, false or otherwise, and the impotence of opposition is often only a small percentage change in the popular vote, it is natural that politicians and their most ardent supporters do whatever it takes to garner those extra few votes or to inhibit their opponents from doing so. We frequently criticize some politicians doing just that but is a credit to most current politicians that, given the rules under which political competition is conducted, their behaviour is not worse. In fact, the eighty MPs whom Loat and MacMillan interviewed, while quite critical of their parties, were much more sympathetic of their Parliamentary colleagues. The real alternative to a majoritarian vision of democracy is the vision of a consensual democracy. In a consensual vision of democracy, elected Members work together, frequently across party lines, to secure the best outcomes for the nation. To make consensual democracy possible at all, the excessive rewards to hyper-partisanship, that is, going from an impotent minority to a nearly omnipotent majority by securing only a small increase in voter support, must be attenuated. That means changing to a proportional representation system so that forty percent of the vote means forty percent of the seats and thus forty percent of the power, no more, no less. Proportional representation makes electoral outcomes more fair to voters. But this is just a side albeit important benefit. The big reason for proportion representation is to improve governance by defusing the hyper-partisan political culture by reducing and limiting the partisan advantage from it. Why Ottawa Politicians Had to Fumble the Electoral Reform Ball There is a big carrot and a big stick in electoral reform. Unfortunately, both carrot and stick support no change. That big carrot is power and politics is about power. Power is the oxycontin of politics. Henry Kissinger once said that power was the ultimate aphrodisiac. Two of Canada’s most highly regarded politicians, William Davis of Ontario and the late Peter Lougheed of Alberta, each of whom had years of success as premiers of their respective provinces and, after politics, went on to remunerative corporate directorships. But each, in separate interviews with TVO’s Steve Paikin acknowledged that their very best day as a corporate director was not as good as their worst day as premier. Why? Because as premier, one has direct power. As a director, one must negotiate with others who have equal power. With a proportional representation election system, majority governments will be unlikely and no future prime minister will hold the kind of raw power now available to the leader of a majority government. The big stick for any party for maintaining FPTP is that the risk of acknowledging the difficulty of managing well in such an adversarial environment will invite the other major party to respond that it is just the first party's lack of competence and pursue a vote of confidence. With such a big carrot for keeping FPTP and such a big stick against proposing proportional representation, it makes no partisan sense for either the Liberals or the Conservatives to propose or support PR. Why Canadians Must Not Let Ottawa Politicians Fumble Electoral Reform Our current toxic political culture and its too frequent subordination of the national interest to partisan advantage, as those retired and/or defeated MPs saw it, is a direct product of our FPTP electoral system that awards enormous political power or denies it almost completely for only a small percentage change in the popular vote. Observations tend to confirm this conclusion. The government of Harper was criticized for its less than straightforward presentation of the F-35 fighter jet costs when it was in power and Trudeau’s government is being criticized in a similar fashion about the possible Super Hornet replacement. Both governments face the same problem. The Canadian Fighter Replacement, whatever the choice, has a staggering cost. The big danger to any government of the day comes not from another fighter but from the opposition of the day. In the current adversarial system, an open and fair comparison of alternatives is a political minefield. This is why it is so difficult to deal with any real problem. No government can safely admit it was wrong about anything. The four decade struggle to replace Canada’s Search and Rescue Sea King helicopters is another example of partisanship inhibiting management. The claim that FPTP has served Canadians well is evidence that our MPs' grasp of good governance is weak at best. Adversarial systems require enemies. Loat and MacMillan have documented the problems of viewing another political party as the enemy. Too often, demagogues have identified other enemies as scapegoats to support their cause: the courts, the Constitution, the media and, too often, some other race, religion or ethic group. The alternative to majoritarian democracy is consensual democracy. In a consensual democracy, political parties are much less powerful organizations and elected members of the legislature attempt to devise policies and programs that may cut across party lines in order to get the best choice for the national interest. In a consensual democracy, there is less pressure to identify and persecute scapegoats. Prime Minister Trudeau’s Arguments for Maintaining FPTP Trudeau argues that there is no broad public demand for electoral change. There is some truth to this because current politicians talk neither about the constraints imposed on them by their parties in this toxic cultural environment nor about the impact of the FPTP electoral system on them and their parties. But they do talk about the shortcomings of their political opponents. Ordinary citizens are left to believe that the problem with politics is politicians. This is also why some demagogues without government experience claim that, because they are not politicians, they can “ fix” government or “drain the swamp." Without some understanding of those linkages, neither these demagogues nor the electorate at large has seen a reason to rise up in mass for electoral reform. The current government has been as spectacularly unsuccessful as its predecessor in informing Canadians about governance and the need to improve it. Trudeau also argued that he would not put Canadians at the risk of political instability by changing the electoral system. Maintaining the FPTP system allowed Trudeau to go from being leader of the third place party in Canada to being prime minister by promising to reverse many of his predecessor’s policies. It would also allow some possible outsider to replace him in that post as happened in the United States with its modified FPTP electoral system but he does not seem to view this as a threat to stability. The only stability risk that Trudeau does really seem to fear appears to be the risk of spoiling a potential continuing Liberal hegemony as Canada’s Natural Governing Party. Why Proportional Representation Now? There are two reasons why electoral reform is urgently needed now. First, Canada and indeed the world are facing increasingly complex environmental, social and economic issues, issues that cannot be resolved by arguing platitudes across party lines. No person or no party has all the answers to these issues. Second, the rapidly growth of social media is creating a world where individuals can restrict what they see or hear to the opinions of those with whom they agree and arrange to scarcely see or hear any other. An adversarial system needs enemies. Polarization has always existed but is now easier for adversaries to manufacture it. Muting the adversarial culture of politics by making it more consensual would help minimize that polarization. Decades ago, American politics was more consensual than it is now with left-leaning Republicans working with their Democratic colleagues and right-leaning democrats working with Republicans to get good legislation passed, a practical strategy given that the U.S. does not have a system of responsible government as Canadians know it. That era has passed in the U.S. as it has in Canada. Can Proportional Representation Work? Notwithstanding the often puerile behaviour so often exhibited in Question Period, most politicians are really quite decent and intelligent people who are trapped in a peculiar organizational structure which is itself driven by our electoral process. When the prime minister set the Special Committee on Electoral Reform up to be proportionally representative, he effectively released those MPs from the current adversarial majoritarian structure, so that they were able to exercise their “better angels” as Parliamentarians. As one reads in the proceedings of the Special Committee the questions posed and discussion points raised by the various MPs, one cannot help but be proud of how far each MP could explore the issues beyond the partisan interests of his or her party. This is itself powerful testimony for the possibility that proportional representation would lead to better governance. Many Parliamentarians and journalists have claimed that FPTP generated majorities are essential for good governance. Prime minister Lester B. Pearson campaigned endlessly for the majority government he never, got but his minority governments produced medicare, the Canada Pension Plan and our new flag. Prime minister Stephen Harper also campaigned for a majority, a strong stable government, throughout his two terms as a minority government leader. After winning a majority in 2011, he was final able to do what he wanted and, for this, his party was defeated in 2015. Had he not won a majority in 2011, he might still be prime minister. Many Parliamentarians and journalists sense that proportional representation will just create a series of coalition governments. Here one must look at both of the two levels at which electoral reform must be considered. At the level of mechanisms, the purpose of a coalition government is to create a majority when no majority was elected. A coalition government is, therefore, an artificially created majoritarian and therefore adversarial government even if the MPs were elected proportionally. At the level of political culture, the alternative to adversarial democracy is consensual democracy. Proportional representation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for consensual democracy. Consensual democracy requires more than creating broader coalitions than would have to be created to produce a majority government. In our system, the government is the cabinet or ministry, not the party even if all cabinet ministers come from the same party. In a consensual government, they are likely to represent most if not all parties represented in the House. The government would continue to govern, as it does now, so long as it has the confidence of the House. Currently, all MPs are obliged to hold the government, that is, the cabinet, to account although in our current partisan system, MPs in the governing party often do not do so to the extent for which they were elected. What is Now Needed for Proportional Representation to Go Forward? Essentially, if MPs, on reflecting on the subordination of national interest to partisan advantage as reported to Samara’s Alison Loat and Michael MacMillan and on the hyper-sensitivity of power to small changes in electoral outcome, they might conclude, as we have, that proportional representation was important to better governance for Canada. They then might, as they have the right and, indeed, the obligation, choose to hold the government to account on its decision. Such a proposal is unlikely now to come from cabinet itself whose MPs have already tasted the oxycontin of power and found it good. But this is not impossible. Thirty-seven years ago this month, prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau took a “long walk in the snow” to consider the future. He was, as his son Justin is now, both prime minister of Canada and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Prime Minister Trudeau might also take “a long walk in the snow” to consider a different existential question than his father faced whether he should to aspire to be a great leader of the Liberal Party or whether he should aspire to be a great prime minister. I wish him wisdom in this choice. Bill Johnston is a former federal public servant from 1966-95 who worked at National Defence, the Treasury Board Secretariat, Transport, and Office of the Auditor General. He has been a riding association member since 19997, first with the Progressive Conservatives, the Conservative, and now the Green Party. The Hill Times

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Trudeau can say what he wants, proportional representation best choice for Canada

It's off the table now, but it will be back. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government should bring in proportional representation for the sake of the country.

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