Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. This is the Red Eye Podcast. You can hear our live broadcast on Saturday mornings from 10 till noon at 100.5 FM in the Lower Mainland.
Speaker: On the podcast today, Ted Craig of Fair Boat Canada joins me to discuss the benefits of proportional representation looking at the recent elections in Germany and in Ontario.
Speaker: Both Ontario and Germany just had elections. In Germany, more than 80% of the electorate turned out to vote. In Ontario, it was less than 50. In Germany, voters got what they voted for.
Speaker: The seats in the German parliament reflect what voters said with their ballots. In the Ontario election, just 20% of the voters were able to hand Doug Ford a sizable majority in the legislature, 16 months early.
Speaker: Fair Vote Canada says that the two elections pose a sharp contrast in what democracy can be. I'm joined this morning by Ted Craig, a longtime volunteer with Fair Vote Canada, to take a closer look at the differences between the two systems and the kind of results that they yield.
Speaker: Hello, Ted. Hello. Thanks for having me. It's great to have you on the show. Now, Germany has a form of proportional representation where everybody gets two votes.
Speaker: how How does that work? Who are they voting for? Yes, so they have two votes. The first vote is essentially a local candidate. They call it ah a direct candidate who represents a local area like a riding.
Speaker: And then the second vote is for what's considered a party candidate. So they're choosing more the party they like. And less emphasis on the actual individual, the person, it's more the party. So you get these two votes. And generally, in I think in Germany, in most countries that use this, when you consider what the ballot looks like, there's two sides to the ballot. So one side is that party vote, the other side is their local vote.
Speaker: And then how is that all put together? So the Bundestag, the legislature, is a combination of those local ah representatives and then the party representatives who I believe are essentially still assigned kind of a region, but they are a different type of seat in the parliament, but they are all considered equal representatives. It's just the way that they're elected. So some are the local, some are the party, and then they all come together under the different parties.
Speaker: So if, for example, ah in Canada you say, oh, the NDP didn't get many seats per se, but they got a certain percentage of the popular vote, then their seats in Parliament would be bumped up from the party list.
Speaker: Yeah, the way we often talk about proportional representation is that it equates the popular vote to the seat count or the percentage of seats in the legislature. So in Germany, in the recent election, let's take the Social Democrats, for instance, they won 16% of the vote. Now they ended up with 19% of the seats. So it's not exact, but it's pretty close, the number of seats, the percentage of seats to the percentage of vote.
Speaker: In the recent election in Ontario, the Conservatives got 43% of the popular vote, but 64% of the seats. How would the ledge look in Ontario if the Liberals and NDP and Green were all assigned seats according to how many votes they got?
Speaker: What would the balance of seats be? So in Ontario, there are 124 seats in the legislature. So if the Conservatives had 43% of those seats, that would be 58, 60 seats.
Speaker: In the end, they got 80-something. So that's well over 50%, of course. So the Conservative had 43% of the vote, they get 43% of the seats. The Liberals had 30% of the vote. The NDP 18.5, Greens at 5. So those three parties together have majority.
Speaker: But what happens first past the post, the Conservatives not only have the most seats, it's not just a plurality, it's a vast majority of the seats. And that's not what voters elected. And I guess the ah the other side of the equation is that a lot of people didn't vote. So that the party of the people who didn't vote is, what is it, the biggest of all?
Speaker: Well, that's part of it too, because the turnout in Ontario was 45%. The voting system does not encourage people to get out and vote, but it's discouraging to see it that low.
Speaker: Fair Vote Canada says that the first-past-the-post system limits the range of choices for voters. How so? Well, we can really think that first-past-the-post is designed for a two-party system, which makes sense because it was designed in the 19th century, in the mid-1800s in Britain, when basically there were two parties. So, you know, why would they consider anything else? It's going to be one or the other.
Speaker: So it's easy to get over that 50% and win fair and square. But hey, it's the 21st century and we have a very pluralistic society with all kinds of different issues and demographics, multicultural and so on.
Speaker: And voters don't want to be forced into that one or the other black or white two party type choice. We like to have our choices. And that's reflected in the parties that exist, both provincially across the country and federally.
Speaker: So that's why we have the Greens, the and NDP, the Liberals, the Conservatives, the People's Party. There's other small parties that could pop up, given the opportunity, if it was worthwhile, under something like proportional representation.
Speaker: But big, big part of proportional representation in the campaign is emphasizing that it's voters who should be making that choice at the ballot box, as opposed to these big tent parties within...
Speaker: their policy conventions and their strategy and so on, deciding what should happen in our democracy, it is voters who should be able to have as much choice as possible. So how many parties typically end up being represented in the German parliament?
Speaker: I believe in the last one here, i think it's five parties. There may be a couple smaller ones. But an interesting thing with Germany that's part of the system too is the threshold. So you need to get at least 5% of the popular vote to essentially qualify for a seat in the legislature, in the parliament there.
Speaker: So taking a quick look at the results here, there's like the Free Democrats, they had 4.3% of the popular vote. And you need to get at least 5%. And otherwise, you wouldn't qualify for a seat.
Speaker: And that's really important because it keeps the single issue parties, the so-called fringe parties, the startup ones from getting those one or two seats typically that give them perhaps a balance of power. it keeps out those extremists, which is often...
Speaker: an argument we hear against proportional representation, but you put in that threshold and it makes it still a challenge for parties to get elected because it's actually quite hard to get 5% of the vote.
Speaker: You look at the Green Party here in Ontario, maybe they're relatively popular, but they got 4.8%. So for a small party to get 5% or more of the popular vote does take quite a bit of effort. It's not likely to happen.
Speaker: They usually have to have a more broader platform as a result. Now, the big story of the German election was the number of votes that the far-right AFD got, over 20%, maybe 24%. What happened after the election?
Speaker: what happened after the election Yes, if they got 21% of the popular vote, that gave them 24% of the seats. That's something. I mean, that's substantial enough, but that doesn't mean they're going to be part of a governing coalition.
Speaker: And in fact, what happened, and voters knew this ahead of time because all the other parties had said, well, we're not going to enter into any kind of coalition or cooperation agreement with the Alternative for Deutschland there, this far-right party.
Speaker: So even though they had 24% of the seats now, they're still squeezed out of any kind of power, and that's a crucially important thing when it comes to the difference between PR and first-past-the-post.
Speaker: What happens in the first-past-the-post, it's very conceivable, and we're starting to see it now over the last 10 years or so, a so-called fringe element, kind of extreme, maybe populist element, can work its way into an established party,
Speaker: And over time, basically take over that party. They get one of their people elected as leader. The leader brings in in others and gets a final say on candidates and stuff like that and starts to become that party.
Speaker: Now, this is exactly what we see in the United States because the Republican Party there is virtually unrecognizable from even just 10 years ago because of the extreme element that is now taken an over. But it's so dangerous for a couple reasons, at least, because voters don't often know the difference. They say, oh it's the Republican Party. You know, I've always voted Republican. I've always voted conservative. What's the difference? It's the same party.
Speaker: It's not the same party. It's changed. They have a completely different platform and different people. It's not the party that people are used to. But these fringe elements, they've taken over the party and they use that identity, that branding and that recognition to convince voters that they're something that they're not.
Speaker: So there's that. And then, of course, there's the fact that first past the post, then when party wins an election, especially if it's a false majority, as we call it, where they may have had a plurality seats, but not a majority.
Speaker: and then they get 100% of the power. So that makes it really doubly dangerous. Imagine in Germany, if this Alternative for Germany party had been able to take over an existing party, which I think would probably have been the Christian Democrats. They were kind of the conservative center-right party. Imagine if the Alternative had taken over that party over a few years, over 10 years or something, and gradually worked their way into the leadership.
Speaker: If they had to first pass the post system, they could have won 100% of the power. And imagine what kind of situation would be in then. No, one of the criticisms I've heard people make of pro-rep is that as governments are always coalitions, just inevitably, they're less stable and not able to govern for as long.
Speaker: Has that been the case in Germany? Germany's have remarkably stable governments and there have always been coalitions essentially since the Second World War once they brought in proportional representation.
Speaker: But because no one party wins an outright majority of seats, they need to find a governing partner. least since 1998, those coalitions have always been just between two parties. You've had the Social Democrats working with the Greens.
Speaker: You've had the Christian Democrats working with the Free Democrats. And what was really remarkable in Germany was in 2005, the circumstances came about where the Christian Democrats, the center-right, the social Democrats, the center-left, couldn't find other coalition partners, so they decided to work together.
Speaker: And they formed what they called the Grand Coalition. And then it even came back 2013 to 2021 for eight years. That's akin to the liberals, federally the liberals and the conservative party working together to form a coalition. and It's hard to imagine in Canada that this could happen, but this is what proportional representation creates.
Speaker: It gives parties the incentive to work together. And imagine over time how that kind of changes your mindset towards politics that is more of a cooperative thing that you're not trying to constantly attack and throw your opponents under the bus because these could be the people that you now have to work with after the election to form a government. So Germany's really set a great example here.
Speaker: So I guess there's not the the big hard shifts from, you know, for example, here in BC, if the progressive conservatives had won, there would have been a very big shift from the NDP to the PC.
Speaker: Yeah, first pass the post is notorious for these policy shifts, these swings that go from essentially one extreme left to to right and back again. ah new government comes in, they basically undo as much as they can of the previous government.
Speaker: You can imagine all the time that takes and of course the waste of money. And that wouldn't happen when you have proportional representation because parties don't have that much power, for starters. They don't have 100% of the power if they have a false majority government where they can just do or undo whatever they like. They need to work together.
Speaker: So you get more stability. It saves us money. has more consistent policy. You get more progressive action as well. And yeah, whether it's federally or provincially, in Canada, you can just think about you know, elections over the years and how governments have changed. And we get so used in Canada to this notion that a new government comes in, we've thrown the bums out, the old guys, the new one comes in, and they just kind of redo everything.
Speaker: It's really, really inefficient. You know, it all makes so much sense. And it probably makes a lot of sense to, you know, most people listening, but we can't seem to do it. and So what can people do to move us towards getting a fairer electoral system?
Speaker: Well, the the message, the number one message really that Fair Vote shares with volunteers and people interested is to write to your MPs, your MLAs, even write to candidates, you know, talk to parties, go and visit them, make those phone calls, tell your friends, your family to do that too, because the more volume we have, it really makes a difference. I mean...
Speaker: I've been doing this for years. I've met lots of politicians over the years. And they've told me, you know, when people take the time to reach out to them to make that contact and let them know how they feel about this issue, it makes a difference. They really do notice that. Imagine that in if we increase the volume on that and get as many people as possible ah sharing that message.
Speaker: So that's part of it as kind of on an on an individual level. On a broader scale, we really need a parties to take leadership on this issue and realize that it's in their interest to change the system.
Speaker: Because we've certainly learned over the decades now that it's very hard to expect politicians who are elected under the current system to want to change that system, to change the system that got them elected.
Speaker: There's an inherent bias there. British Columbia set a wonderful example in 2004 with the Citizens' Assembly, which was born out of a number of skewed election results, which were quite wonky in terms of the popular vote versus the seat count. People wanted something done. They created a Citizens' Assembly, which brought in normal citizens, everyday people from across the province to study issues. They made a recommendation.
Speaker: They suggested the single transferable vote system for British Columbia. At that point, it went to referendum, and a lot of your listeners might know this, of course, in 2005. It had 58% support. The BC Liberals at the time said it needed 60%.
Speaker: It gave them an acc excuse to walk away. We need to keep as much pressure as possible on these parties and let them know it's in their interest to change the system because they have a chance of at least being part of a government after every election and not having to wait 10 years or something for their turn.
Speaker: I believe it is in the in the recent and NDP Green agreement that they just signed that there will be another look at that. So we'll just keep our fingers crossed here in BC and and not not just keep our fingers crossed, but also talk to politicians.
Speaker: they They really do pay attention, yeah. Thanks so much, Ted. Thanks. It's been my pleasure. I've been speaking with Ted Craig. He's a longtime volunteer with Fair Vote Canada. You can read Fair Vote's comparison of the elections in Ontario and Germany on their website, fairvote.ca.
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