Are we mushrooms, Mr. Premier?

While picking raspberries and hunting for mushrooms, one’s thoughts turn to many things, including what happened to the Tory Government of Nova Scotia? Where’s our government?

Are they on the beach, in the orchard, sailing, or hiking in Cape Breton? Making raspberry jam, perhaps? Do you not find it odd that the Cabinet didn’t meet for a month this summer?

Has our Premier quietly folded his tent and capitulated on the Atlantic Accord? Certainly, our politicians deserve a holiday, but isn’t this taking the issue just a bit too far?

Perhaps they’re thinking up more silly ideas like the very expensive playpen they wish to build with our money for the press at Province House. Why put these funds to such a useless enterprise when we’re so short of medical doctors in this province?

Possibly they’re filling the numerous ‘potholes’ one finds on the secondary roads throughout the province or contemplating how to revive the tourist industry? With a youthful Premier, they may well be contemplating reforms that would keep our educated youth in the province? Perhaps they’re thinking about reforming our electoral system and are currently studying the debate taking shape in Ontario?

Ontario, which has now joined the march toward ‘fixed election dates’, will hold its next provincial election Oct. 10 this year. On that date, the voters will not only elect a new Legislature, they will also vote in a special referendum on electoral reform.

Of course, Ontario will not be the first province to hold such a referendum. British Columbia and PEI have already done so and in both cases the proposed reforms did not obtain the required support and thus failed. Perhaps history will be repeated in Ontario, perhaps not.

In neutral, or even reverse

What’s important to note is that many provinces as well as the Parliament of Canada are vigorously studying electoral reform while our Government seems to be in neutral or even in reverse on the issue of ‘modernization’ and improving the democratic process.

The issue in Ontario is either to retain the ‘first-past-the-post” system (FPP) that we have in Nova Scotia or to replace it with the ‘mixed member proportional’ system (MMP). The differences between the two, as New Zealanders have discovered, are quite significant. Elections Ontario has developed a neutral website, www.yourbigdecision.ca, which sets out the choices the voter faces simply and clearly. The 103 ‘ordinary citizens’ who were members of The Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform recommended to the Legislature that MMP be adopted because it was a more democratic way of electing MPPs as they are called in Ontario.

In order to be successful, 60 per cent of those who vote as well as 50 per cent in 64 of the 103 electoral districts must be in favour of changing to MMP from FPP. Although the threshold is high, perhaps it’s appropriate given the impact change would have on the political system.

Under the Ontario proposal, each voter would cast two ballots: the first would be for their constituency representative who would be elected by FPP and the second would be for the party lists.

At the moment there are 103 Members. Under the MPP proposal, 90 would be elected in their constituencies and 39 from the Lists presented by each party based upon the percentage of the vote each received. The parties would construct their own lists.

In FPP, the candidate who receives the highest number of votes is the winner no matter what percentage of the total vote he or she receives.

Under MPP, the parties prepare lists of candidates they wish to have elected. In Ontario there would be 39 names on the list in the order determined by the various parties. Members would be selected from the lists depending on their percentage of the total vote. For example, if party Z received 20 per cent of the vote they would receive 20 per cent of the candidates on their list. It’s possible for a voter to vote one way in his constituency and another way on the list.

Manage the fringe

Those who favour retention of FPP fear MPP would lead to more minority governments and would allow fringe (are the Greens really a fringe? I think not) and single-issue parties to exercise more power than their numbers warrant. Those in favour of reform bring up the constant point that a party can win at least 60 per cent of the seats with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote.

They also state that MPP would permit the election of more women candidates as well as visible minorities. New Zealand as well as the German experience shows that it’s possible with a floor in the list vote of say three per cent to prevent the election of miniscule parties, or single issue individual candidates via the lists. They could be elected in a constituency, but that’s no change from the existing process.

There’s a debate in political circles if it’s better to have fringe candidates in Parliament where they are scrutinized constantly by other politicians and the media than outside where they can cause disturbances and cry discrimination. The evidence seems to suggest that it’s better to shine the light of publicity on such groups in the legislature than to have them outside causing trouble.

However, the important issue here is not if one prefers MPP over FPP, but rather that the Government of Ontario has stimulated debate. The electoral process, like our government, belongs to the citizens not the politicians. Thus, the Government of Ontario like BC, PEI and New Brunswick before deserves credit for asking the voters if they’re happy with the status quo or do they desire change.

Compare the actions of these governments with that of our own. Many provinces and governments in Ottawa have established reform committees of one type or another. Why is it that we in Nova Scotia have not had a reform commission since the Green Royal Commission of the late 1960s? Do our elected politicians truly think we are but mushrooms to be kept in the dark and covered with political propaganda?

Oh Mr. Premier; is that a chanterelle I see?