Former prime minster Justin Trudeau infamously broke his promise to reform the electoral system. Trudeau’s own preference was for a type of majoritarian system called the Alternative Vote (AV) AKA Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). However, the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform established by his government went in a different direction: it ultimately recommended that the government design a system of proportional representation (PR) and vote on it through referendum.
Grossly, electoral systems are classified into majoritarian and proportional types. In addition to AV there are two other well-known majoritarian systems: FPTP and the two-round system (used in France). Trudeau rejected the recommendation to move away from a majoritarian system and has negatively characterized proportional representation in different ways. In this townhall exchange, Trudeau explains his opposition to PR. "If we were to make a change or risk a change that would augment individual voices — that would augment extremist voices and activist voices that don’t get to sit within a party that figures out what’s best for the whole future of the country, like the three existing parties do — I think we would be entering a period of instability and uncertainty."
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Political stability, dissatisfaction with democracy, and political polarization are easiest to compare with simple data. With political stability, PR countries on average perform better. With democratic dissatisfaction, PR countries dramatically outperform majoritarian countries. On political polarization, PR countries outperform, with Ireland achieving the lowest polarization score in the whole OECD.
Further, when you examine the three comparison pairings listed above, the PR country performs better on each dimension for all three pairs. Trudeau feared that proportional systems would bring instability, polarization, and that voices which undermine what’s good for the country would be augmented, but it’s the majoritarian countries where these concerns are more severe.
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Trudeau’s thesis was that these problematic outcomes should be happening in PR countries, not majoritarian ones. Given the observation we see, there is no basis to say that majoritarian electoral systems can minimize these concerns, there is simply no supporting evidence for this.
The idea that PR (at least the MMP and STV systems) would definitely lead to these outcomes is also not supported by the evidence. To be able claim that PR would cause extremism, or that majoritarian systems protect against, you would at least need to observe an association that suggests this possibility, but we do not observe any such association.
What we do have an association for is that MMP/STV are protective against democratic and social decay, while majoritarian countries inflame these issues, which is the opposite of what Trudeau believed. This does not mean causality, but it does make a causal relationship possible.
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In proportional systems, coalitions tend to form, and different political parties sharing power helps alleviate the irrational decision-making of groupthink in a majority government. In addition, politicians must always be wary about losing their spot at the top because voters can easily select alternative parties without the inhibitions of vote splitting and vote wasting. In a proportional system, there is no shielding to give a false sense of security: politicians understand that if they are complacent, a disruptive political force can easily swallow them, so they must stay vigilant and proactive about emerging political issues to keep the public satisfied. In proportional systems, complacency and corruption can be easily punished by the electorate, which keeps politicians disciplined.
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Israel uses proportional representation. To maintain power Netanyahu made deals with some far-right crazies.
The EU is proportional representation. This allowed Nigel Farage to make a name for himself, and ultimately the UK left the EU.
PR systems give all of the power to political parties. They have negotiate backroom deals so they can form a coalition and govern. Minority interests are often ignored. If some extremists want to harm minorities, and a party needs those extremists to form a coalition, the minority groups will be harmed. This is not a hypothetical, this has happened in Israel. Nothing anyone can do about it but hope in the next election Israelis vote for parties in the correct proportions to make a coalition like this not possible.
Yeah, PR looks better on spreadsheet. And maybe some people spread across the country with specific interests might get an MP in Parliament. But if that MP doesn't get into the ruling coalition, their interests will be ignored.
Calling it a "first past the post" system is just putting the thumb on the scale to slant the debate by making the system sound arbitrary. Let's instead call it what it is, a community representation system. In a community representation system, community leaders control the seats, not the parties. In the case where there's a minority group spread across the country, they will be well represented. Not by a single MP that gets ignored by the ruling coalition. But by multiple MPs in representing ridings. A party may ignore the interests of a million people. But an MP doesn't want to ignore a thousand people in their riding. If their party refuses to address the concerns of those thousand, they might cross the floor. If they don't, they might lose votes to someone who will represent that minority group in their riding.
Community representation is bottom up. People in a community choose someone to represent them in Parliament. The parties need to keep those community leaders happy or they lose seats. And parties hate losing seats. The Liberal party of Canada has really worked on attracting community leaders into their party. This isn't solely altruism, they do this because it gains them seats. So in a community representation system the most cynical strategy focused operatives are made to talk to community leaders and make compromises with them.
A PR system is top down. You have the party leadership, the MPs are just trained seals because they can't cross the floor. They have to fall in line with the party leadership or you lose your job. MPs are basically pointless in a PR system, you'd save money by just having the party leaders declare what legislation they want, their vote is worth X votes (with X being the percentage of the vote their party got) and the legislation passes. We would find out what compromises they made with the other parties to form a coalition immediately and wouldn't have to pay a bunch of MPs to vote the way their party requires them to vote. The only reason to have MPs in a PR system would be to create the appearance that communities are being represented, when really it's just some party leaders making decisions in backrooms with zero oversight by community leaders.
A PR system only looks good on a spreadsheet. It's actually terrible when power dynamics are considered. And we should primarily be thinking of power dynamics when discussing political systems. I don't think numbers on a spreadsheet lining up don't matter all that much when minorities are having their houses bulldozed by a country governed by coalition formed in a backroom.
BS. I live in a riding where a third of the population is never represented, either federally or provincially, where thousands of us routinely are disenfranchised, and our needs and perspectives are utterly ignored by the conservative majority for partisan purposes. Your claim that naked partisanship in our riding based system is inhibited is objectively and demonstrably BS. Empty fields of cattle are given more political weight than human beings. At least a PR system is open about partisanship. This farcical pretence at enlightened compromise is smoke and mirrors.
You could talk to your neighbours, go to a town hall, call your MP.
If you're represented by a party that's not in a ruling coalition, sure that party will tell you they care about you, but they're powerless to do anything to help you. Y
You're complaining about partisan politics but you also want to make the system even more partisan?
I want the system to be honest about what it is. Not dragging my name through the mud with people who turned their backs on their neighbors. Nor will I be run off from my home. I know who my people are. These monsters aren't it.
Edit: and no, I can't go to a town hall. They're invite only around these parts.