The following is posted as a comment on the blog for TVO's The Agenda.
I wanted to post a comment in favor of the MMP proposal, partly in reply to the last comment.
The purpose of the Citizens Assembly was not to recommend the impossible which is a system everyone would think is 'perfect'. The intention was to get average Ontario citizens together, one per riding, and of sufficient diversity, to think as average Ontario citizens would. They were not intended to come up with an electoral system that is only understandable by academics, but to study and make a recommendation of what electoral system is best for Ontario given how voters actually vote. They could easily have decided that the current system is fine, but after being informed of the options decided MMP was far better.
While I have a personal preference for a version of Single Transferable Vote, this preference is not the best system for Ontario where voters predominantly vote for parties (and thus votes for the local candidate nominated by that party, no matter how good or bad the persons may be).
Governments are formed in our parliamentary system not from the best people elected from ridings, but from the party who has the most number of seats -- making the party decision very important. I may not personally like this, but this is the reality of Ontario's parliamentary system -- and a reality that should be reflected in the voting system.
The MMP proposal is a modest incremental improvement, leaving 70% of the seats elected the same way they are now and having a level of party proportionality for the remaining 30% to more closely mirror how Ontario voters actually vote.
I grew up in Northern Ontario. My parents are visiting Ottawa where I live now for thanksgiving. She mentioned that the opposition in Sudbury comes from two conflicting ideas: one that the MMP proposal will mean fewer representatives from Northern Ontario, and a second that the proposal adds too many MPP's to parliament.
There is nothing in the proposal that suggests that when we go from 107 riding seats to 90 that we will be reducing the number of seats in Northern Ontario, any more than when Mike Harris unilaterally changed from 130 riding seats to 103 that there was a reduction in Northern Ontario seats. In fact, Northern Ontario retained the seats it had prior to the reduction of seats, and from everything I hear suggests something similar will be done under MMP. This means that the most likely scenario is that Northern Ontario will loose *no* seats as a result of the MMP proposal.
The MMP proposal increases the likelihood of Northern Representatives as parties wanting to win Ontario-wide seats will need list candidates that represent the diversity of Ontario.
I also fundamentally disagree with the concept that fewer politicians is a good thing. This is not something we were ever given a chance to vote on!
Fewer politicians mean less access to politicians from average citizens, but easier manipulation of politicians by special interest groups. We didn't save money when the previous government reduced the number of seats as parliamentarians needed more staff to get the job done. I believe that returning to a house size that is 1 seat fewer than what we had in the early 1990's is itself a major improvement over the status-quo.
I live in one of the majority of 'safe' ridings in this election that is effectively an appointment from the party into Queens Park. This gives me time to focus on promoting the MMP proposal, as my views on other issues are largely ignored. This also motivates me given I want a voting system where nobody in the province is ignored as every vote counts towards electing members from the 30% province-wide seats! I want MMP as it reduces the power of the parties to abuse the current voting system and ignore a majority of voters!
I BLOG this issue at: http://digital-copyright.ca/ontario2007
