Citizen's Vote Empowerment: For Canada, For Canadians, and For Democracy!
- P J Jewell
- Nov 5, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 20, 2020
Q: Why should Canadian Parliamentarians reform their parliamentary voting procedures?
A: For Canada, for Canadians, and for Democracy!
The bad news is that Canada’s 2019 election has produced a dangerously distorted Parliament, with regional polarization greatly exaggerated by our colonial-era ‘First Past The Post’ (FPTP) voting system, which again has failed to reflect the true ‘will of the people’ (the basic premise of democracy).
The good news is that Canadian Parliamentarians now possess the knowledge and power to immediately and easily fix Canada’s flawed electoral system, to make it truly represent the ‘will of the people’—not by replacing FPTP, but by reforming their parliamentary voting procedures with Citizen’s Vote Empowerment!
AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARIANS
Congratulations on being elected by your constituents as their representative in Canada’s Parliament. As such, you’re entrusted to serve their interests and Canada’s interests above any self-interests and those of your party. Alas, most MPs fail to serve as true Parliamentarians, accepting instead to be controlled by party bosses who often demand their first loyalty is to serve the party and its patrons (e.g. SNC Lavalin).
But you do have a choice. Together you can become true Parliamentarians by serving the interests of Canada, Canadians and Democracy. How? By adopting a truly democratic parliamentary voting system!
This was an ugly election campaign mired in personal attacks, fear mongering and demonizing the leaders, who urged people to ‘hold their nose’ and vote strategically (about one-third did) for them as the ‘lesser of evils’. Canada’s FPTP voting system is the root cause of both the ugly campaigns and distorted results. Canada urgently needs electoral reform to fix the damage to our democracy caused by FPTP.
Regional polarization is the most critical problem. FPTP distortions deprived the Liberal Government of any representatives from Alberta and Saskatchewan, fanning the flames of Western alienation, despite winning enough votes to merit four seats in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan. Also, the Conservatives were severely under-represented in most urban centres. Sadly, such distortions are normal under FPTP.
But this election’s greatest abuse of democracy was producing the ‘wrong’ winner. The winning Liberals (157 MPs, 33.1% vote-share) won almost a quarter-million fewer votes than the losing Conservatives (121 MPs, 34.4% vote-share). Hence this Liberal Government cannot claim true democratic legitimacy; it was not actually elected by the people as first choice of voters. Rather, it ‘won’ through the black-magic distortions of a voting system that ‘wasted’ (i.e. gave zero value to) more than half of all citizens’ votes.
Both these electoral injustices (and many others) were caused by the FPTP voting system in conjunction with the Westminster parliamentary voting system. Its problems have long been recognized, but the political will to fix them has always been trumped by the self-interest of the governing parties (e.g. even after our PM had so emphatically promised us that “2015 will be the last election under FPTP”).
Given all the criticism of FPTP, it may surprise most people to learn that its many flaws can easily be remedied—hence there’s really no need to replace it! All Parliament needs to do is to reform its own parliamentary voting system by giving equal value to all citizens’ votes!
Citizen’s Vote Empowerment is the ideal solution. Here’s how it can easily be implemented immediately!
Parliament should recognize the citizen’s vote as the true source and natural unit of democratic power, and therefore adopt it as the new unit of voting in Parliament (instead of MP seat counts)!
In Parliament, each party would have exactly the number of votes won by all of their candidates (n.b. about 51% of all citizens’ votes went to defeated candidates, unjustly ‘wasted’ under FPTP).
Each party’s votes would be equitably assigned among their MPs, according to rules established by Parliament, with party Leaders holding the residue of any unassigned votes. Citizen’s Vote Empowerment enables a flawless fix for the problems of regional polarization and under-representation. With rules to be established by Parliament, any appropriate number of supplementary ‘regional’ seats (perhaps up to 10%) could simply be created as and where needed! They would be filled under rules set by Parliament (e.g. by the leading defeated candidate of the most under-represented party in the region, probably with preference for gender balance). They’d be given the same voting power as other MPs, drawn from the residue of unassigned votes won by defeated candidates and retained by the party Leaders. Any representation problems (e.g. MP absence) could be remedied any time, with no impact on the parliamentary balance of power!
As each MP casts their single vote in Parliament, it would be automatically converted by computer into their assigned number of Citizen’s votes (i.e. ‘proxy voting’).
Citizen’s Vote Empowerment is the simple yet comprehensive solution that would permanently eliminate regional polarization, under-representation and ‘wrong winner’ elections. It would also eliminate the problems of ‘wasted votes’, ‘strategic voting’, ‘vote-splitting’, ‘safe seats’ and all geographic distortions due to vote distribution or gerrymandering. All votes would count, and all votes would have equal value. Hence perfect proportionality is automatic, and a Conservative vote in Alberta would always be exactly equal to a Liberal vote in Toronto, or an NDP vote in Quebec, or a Green vote anywhere in Canada!
All of Canada’s national parties could now benefit by adopting Citizen’s Vote Empowerment, which would substantially alleviate the injustices inflicted on them in this election by FPTP-Westminster distortions:
Liberals won no representation in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and were seriously underrepresented throughout rural Canada, despite winning many votes there.
Conservatives were cheated out of an earned election victory, and were seriously underrepresented in Canada’s urban centres despite winning many votes there.
The NDP were cheated by almost 30 seats, with vote-shares that merited 7 more seats in Quebec, 14 more in Ontario, and 2 more in both Nova Scotia and Alberta.
The Greens and their supporters were cheated by 19 seats, largely because their votes were too evenly distributed across Canada. This unfairly deprived them of having official party status.
Canada needs, Canadians deserve, and true Democracy demands an honest electoral system that’s truly fair to all voters, all candidates and all parties. Citizen’s Vote Empowerment is the way to fix FPTP and make all votes equal, empower citizens to elect the rightful winner, and remedy any regional polarization.
We call on all party leaders to allow a free vote on Citizen’s Vote Empowerment. And we urge all Parliamentarians to do what’s right—to do what’s best for Canada, Canadians and Democracy. MPs with the political courage to stand on their principles will be remembered as true Parliamentarians, and the PM who delivers an honest electoral system would deserve to have an airport renamed in his or her honour!
This can be your legacy—showing the way for the provinces and indeed all the Westminster democracies of the World! You can make history by doing what’s right for Canada, for Canadians and for Democracy!
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