As progress on some measures in the Liberal-NDP confidence-and-supply agreement continue to play out publicly, the two parties have quietly been in talks to table electoral reform legislation before the next federal vote.
As progress on some measures in the Liberal-NDP confidence-and-supply agreement continue to play out publicly, the two parties have quietly been in talks to table electoral reform legislation before the next federal vote.
Minorities are often shut out from any decision making in a prop rep system.
See in a prop rep system the parties have all the power. Given the likelihood that no one party will get a majority, then a negotiation between parties are necessary. The deals made behind closed doors between parties is all that matters. If a minority group represents 2% of the vote, they likely wont matter in that negotiation. In fact a party representing minority interests can result in the need for the larger party to bring in for radical parties from the opposite end of the spectrum to form a coalition representing 50%+1 of the seats. Which results in the bizarre situation where increase support for a party representing minority interests ultimately results in worse conditions for that minority group.
This is how Israel’s proportional representation system played out.
Proportional representation systems only look good from the perspective of a spreadsheet. And maybe from an optics point of view, because the party controls the seats they can have people sitting in those seats that conform to how people want a parliament to look like from a diversity metric or whatever. But make no mistake, whoever sits on those seats is kind of irrelevant, the seats are owned by the party. Whoever sits in those seats have to vote for whatever polices were decided in the backroom deal to form the coalition.
From the perspective of power dynamics a prop rep system is actually super bad. Politics isn’t really as mathematical as putting numbers on a spreadsheet might indicate. Prop rep is a top-down party first dynamic.
A Community Representation system, which has a voter first bottom-up power dynamic is far better in my opinion.
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Israel has a proportional representation system.
Minorities are often shut out from any decision making in a prop rep system.
See in a prop rep system the parties have all the power. Given the likelihood that no one party will get a majority, then a negotiation between parties are necessary. The deals made behind closed doors between parties is all that matters. If a minority group represents 2% of the vote, they likely wont matter in that negotiation. In fact a party representing minority interests can result in the need for the larger party to bring in for radical parties from the opposite end of the spectrum to form a coalition representing 50%+1 of the seats. Which results in the bizarre situation where increase support for a party representing minority interests ultimately results in worse conditions for that minority group.
This is how Israel’s proportional representation system played out.
Proportional representation systems only look good from the perspective of a spreadsheet. And maybe from an optics point of view, because the party controls the seats they can have people sitting in those seats that conform to how people want a parliament to look like from a diversity metric or whatever. But make no mistake, whoever sits on those seats is kind of irrelevant, the seats are owned by the party. Whoever sits in those seats have to vote for whatever polices were decided in the backroom deal to form the coalition.
From the perspective of power dynamics a prop rep system is actually super bad. Politics isn’t really as mathematical as putting numbers on a spreadsheet might indicate. Prop rep is a top-down party first dynamic.
A Community Representation system, which has a voter first bottom-up power dynamic is far better in my opinion.
And how is that minority represented in a first past the post system? There’s a party in Quebec that got 13% of the vote and not a single seat.
Minority rights should be protected by a strong constitution, which is what is lacking in Israel.
The Netherlands also has proportional representation but with a strong constitution, and minority rights are perfectly protected.
Yeah good thing we have a strong constitution in Canada!
cough notwithstanding cough