CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication).
This is not a knock on Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservative government, who, despite having over one calendar year left on their mandate, have decided to call an election in the middle of the worst winter in years.
It is well documented that some of Mr. Ford’s policies have been controversial to say the least, but regardless, he still had plenty of time to enact anything he wanted due to our present archaic voting system, first past the post (FPTP), that gave the conservatives absolute power with only 40 per cent support. So, why send out a $200 bribe to every Ontarian and call a snap election? The simple answer is because he can using FPTP.
The majority of Canadians want their governments to work together for the betterment of the majority, not the minority. The only way to achieve this is by having a proportional representation (PR) voting system that developed countries like New Zealand, Sweden and Germany, to name a few, have used for years. If a political party in these countries wants to rule with impunity, then they need to convince 50 percent, plus one, to support their mandate.
In Ontario, no one is alive who voted in an Ontario election (1936) where one party received a real majority with 50 per cent support. This may be bad news for some, but if we had PR now, there would be no $200 cheque in the mail, but you wouldn’t be freezing your butt off going out to vote. By the way, the Liberals have no interest in PR (see Justin’s big lie in 2015), the NDP are wishy-washy and the Greens are fully supportive but have never been close to power to see if they would commit.
There needs to be an adult conversation around electoral reform and the media plays a big role here. Mostly, the media has a negative view of PR due to the fact they love a race where the winner takes all. The least all media outlets can do is tell their viewers/readers that 35 to 40 per cent is not a majority. Any child in elementary school knows that is bad math.
Ken Robertson
Collingwood
