Three of Ontario’s four main parties promise to change the electoral system. According to a political scientist, the objective is very noble, but difficult to achieve.
The NDP and the Greens are calling for some form of proportional representation, while Liberal leader Steven Del Duca promises to step down as prime minister if he fails to pass a preferential ballot system within a year.
Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford has said nothing about it, but he has already indicated that he is not inclined to change the electoral system.
“We need politicians and leaders who need to collaborate more and work across party lines instead of repeating the same old politics,” Del Duca said during a campaign stop in Thunder Bay. , Sunday. Doug Ford wants a rollback, but we want to make sure that our political system, our democracy, the way we elect parties and leaders keeps up with the times.”
Cristine de Clercy, an associate professor of political science at Western University, reminds us that while it’s easy to talk about electoral reform during a campaign, it’s harder to take action once in power.
“If you look at the history of electoral reform in Canada over the past 20 years at the provincial level, you can conclude that it is unlikely that any party will achieve it, even in the next 20 years.”
Several referendums have been held in British Columbia on this issue, but de Clercy observes that supporters of the reforms have often lost them.
The Progressive Conservative organization did not immediately respond to questions about electoral reform.
According to the Pre de Clercy, there are good reasons for preferring to keep the system in place.
“A competitive multi-party system exists in Ontario,” she says. If we adopt a reform leaning towards a more proportional system, it will be very unlikely to form a majority government. We will always have minority governments, which are by definition unstable, because a coalition can fall at any time, leading to the triggering of new elections.
She says she understands Mr. Ford’s hesitation about electoral reform given the nature of his party.
“The Conservatives are ideologically speaking, the party of tradition on the Canadian political scene,” she argues.
The other three parties say that the current system is not acceptable.
Andrea Horwath’s NDP favors a mixed member proportional system, giving a certain form of stability to a government resulting from such an election. In such a system, some deputies would be elected in constituencies and others on lists provided by the parties.
This system was proposed by a committee of Ontarians on electoral reform, set up by a former Liberal government in 2006.
“It was the people of Ontario, in constituent assemblies, who recommended a mixed member proportional system. That’s why we adopted it,” Ms. Horwath said on Saturday.
However, when the proposal was rejected by voters in a referendum that took place at the same time as the 2007 elections.
For its part, the Green Party would like to set up a completely proportional system, but suggests in its program that it will form citizens’ assemblies whose mandate will be to propose binding recommendations.
The Liberals, New Democrats and Greens want to allow municipalities to choose the preferential ballot, as in 2018.
But the Progressive Conservative government canceled this possibility in 2020, a measure described as “brutal” by Ms Horwath.
– With the collaboration of Jessica Smith and Maan Alhmidi.
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