The proportional representation (PR) voting structure central to democracy legitimized this system in the eyes of many around

the world. In Canada, it can be seen that the First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system does not have the this effect. If Canada wishes to expand democracy it should change its election process to the Proportional Representation List System. PR is a more adequate structure than FPTP because it counts every citizen's vote, it allows the House of Commons to be composed in a way that reflects society, and it increases political efficacy across Canada. Therefore, PR is the appropriate polling system for Canadian society if it wishes to expand democracy. In PR, partisans vote for a party rather than a candidate representing a region. After the election, the seats are divided up according to the percentage of the popular vote won by each party. Political parties hold a percentage of seats in the legislature that approximates their percentage of the popular vote in the election.1 Candidates are listed in an order that the party decides; the party leader is normally first on the list. These lists are often published for the public so voters know who the candidates are. FPTP is an electoral system in which the winner in each constituency is the candidate who receives more votes, but not necessarily more than all other candidates' votes combined. 2 The issue that arises from the FPTP system is the major discrepancies between the number of votes for a given party, and the number of seats rewarded to that party. For example, in the previous Canadian Federal election, the conservatives won 39.6% of the popular vote. This translated to a win of 166 seats and a majority government.3 This means that 60.4%; the majority of the vote, is split between other parties. In other words, the majority of Canada did not vote conservative. This is undemocratic because if Canada is a 'people's state', the government should reflect the vote of the people. With FPTP it does not. One of the main causes for these discrepancies is due to regionalism. Regionalism occurs as a result of gerrymandering. This is when a politician tries to win over certain geographical area. They often
1 John McMenemey, The Language of Canadian Politics (Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001) 235 2 John McMenemey, The Language of Canadian Politics (Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001) 112 3 2011 Canadian Federal Elections Results ://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/results.html

attempt to gerrymander highly dense electoral regions such as the GTA. By winning over these 'pockets', they win major groups of seats which gives the party an advance towards a majority government. An example of this occurrence is in the 1979 Canadian federal election. The Progressive Conservatives fell 6 seats short of a majority (136 seats) with 35.9% of the popular vote. The Liberals won 114 seats with 40.1% of the popular vote.4 5 This was the Joe clark Pierre Trudeau election. It is well known that Trudeau was disliked in the west. Knowing this, it is quite apparent that the west was where Clark focused his campaign. From Ontario to B.C, the PC won the majority of seats, including all of Alberta.6 This shows how regionalism distorts the actual major vote. It is undemocratic because the Canadian voters are not being properly represented. FPTP may be a better system in terms of establishing a majority, but what is the point of a four year majority when it is not in the major interest of the Canadian partisans. If Canada was to change to the PR List system, the effects would expand democracy in Canada. The PR list system helps rectify many of the discrepancies caused by FPTP. If this system is used, the election process would be changed to a single district election, instead of regional electoral districts.7 Without electoral districts, politicians would have to work to please the most people, to get the most votes, instead of just certain pockets of votes. This would help lower the uses of gerrymandering, and in turn would also help eliminate the advantages parties can attain through regionalism.8 Referring back to the 1979 election, the division of seat would have been different. The Liberals would have obtained 113 seats; 101 for the PC. That is a steep difference in seats for the PC. It would be a more democratic result because it actually represents the majority of the votes in that election. Overall, the PR list system is a much more democratic system because it considers all votes instead of only those directed towards the winning party.
4 Mintz, Close, Croci. Politics, Power and the Common Good. (Toronto, Pearson Canada, 2011) 185 5 1979 Canadian Federal Election Last Modified 3 Feb. 2012 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1979 6 Ibid. 7 Mintz, Close, Croci. Politics, Power and the Common Good. (Toronto, Pearson Canada, 2011) 187 8 Lecture notes

The PR list system also expands democracy because it can remodel the legislature to reflect society which is difficult to accomplish in FPTP. The House of Commons is most democratic when it reflects Canadian society in a demographically proportional way. A major factor that PR attends to is the representation of women in the lower houses of government. In the 1997 Canadian election, 20% of the elected candidates in the House of Commons were female.9 In the 1996 German election, 39% of the those elected were female in the PR list portion of the vote; 45% were elected in New Zealand.10 The reason that there was an increase in elected females in the PR list system is because women are listed more frequently on the party list. This is due to the pressure of gender equality in society.11 If a party had a significant portion of men over women on the list, the party would likely face accusations of sexism. Also, in an election like FPTP, there can only be one representative for said constituency. It less likely for a female to be elected in a district if males appear more frequently on the ballot; which occurs often. In Welland Ontario for example, there were seven candidates on the ballot in the 2011 federal election. Of these seven candidates, one was female. Malcolm Allen (NDP) was elected.12 PR increases the likelihood of women in legislature which proves to be democratic. The PR list system could also change the age demographic of the House of Commons. Currently in the House of Commons the median age of the representatives is 53.3 year,13 wherein Canada the median age currently sits at 39.7 years. This suggests that the majority of Canadians are of a younger demographic with respects to the House. To properly reflect Canadian society, younger candidates could be place higher on the list to help increase the likelihood of younger representatives. Newcomer Chris Alexander (43) has made a bold impact in the House of Commons since he was elected into

9 Members of Parliament in Canada http://www.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx 10 What is PR Last modified 8 Apr 2005. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/whatispr.htm 11 Ibid 12 List of Welland Election Candidates http://www.digital-copyright.ca/election2011/candidates?edid=35097 13 Age Of MP's Last Modified 2 Mar 2012. http://www.parl.gc.ca/parlinfo/lists/ParliamentarianAge.aspx? Menu=HOC-Bio&Chamber=03d93c58-f843-49b3-9653-84275c23f3fb

legislature for the first time last May. He is the parliamentary secretary for Defense Minister Peter MacKay, and was recently named Rookie MP of the year by Macleans magazine
14

A shift to a slightly

younger age median could revitalize the House, and bring a fresh perspective to politics. By using the PR list system, young, new candidates can be elected more frequently, which better represents the younger age median found in Canada. This is an improvement to democracy. Political efficacy is a positive symptom felt by voters in a country where a PR list system is implemented. Political efficacy is the trust and belief of a voter in the government, and in the matter that their vote can ultimately have an affect on political affairs.15 There are 5 thoughts that a voter may have which could lessen their efficacy: 1. Political officials do not care what I think, 2. The way people vote decides how things are ran, 3. Voting is the only way I can have a say about how the government is ran, 4. My vote does not count, and 5. Elections are too confusing for me.16 A PR list system can attend to these thoughts. In regards to thoughts 1 and 3, political officials have to care what the partisans think in PR. This is proven because the officials in the parties must attend the the interests of society or they will find it very difficult to win votes. If a party declares to meet these interests but does not, the party can suffer detrimental losses in the next election due to nonsupporting voters. Thoughts 2 and 4 can also be addressed by PR. In FPTP, the way people vote does not necessarily reflect the way the government runs things. This is because of the discrepancies between the number seats won, and the percentage of votes won, which causes many votes to be not count. Because of the parallel proportionality found in PR. between given seats and votes won, all votes count, and the government does reflect the way the partisans voted. Lastly, thought 5 can also be easily attended to. PR is a very simple electoral system. Parties create a list of candidates which is posted for the public. Partisans vote for the party which is found to be in their best interest. The percentage of the popular vote that a party wins the percentage of seat they win in the House of Commons. It is clearly
14 Mark Kennedy ,Chris Alexander Turning Heads Already Postmedia News, December 28th 2011 http://www.canada.com/news/Rookie+Chris+Alexander+already+turning+heads/5918998/story.html 15 Politcal Efficacy Last Modified 21 June 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_efficacy 16 Ibid.

seen that PR can support all the five thoughts of efficacy. A voter does not participate in politics in order to be efficacious, but rather are more likely to participate in politics if they are efficacious.17 Because PR can increase the level of political efficacy in voters, there is often and increased motivation to vote in elections. This is another benefit of PR that can increase democracy in Canada. Because more people vote, it increase the diversity and interests of voters. The increased diversity of the vote defines the government. The government is ultimately being ran by the people of Canada due to the causes of PR, which is the meaning of democracy. PR is a stable, successful system that can help Canada expand democracy. Critics of PR would say the number of minor and interest parties would increase substantially, that coalitions and political deadlock frequently come to turn in the legislature, and that if PR is used then the fate of that country will be similar to Israel. This can be proven otherwise. Firstly, to rectify a surge in minor and interest parties, a threshold can be set. A threshold is a quota of votes that a party must win in order to attain seats in the house. In retrospect, voiding a few percent of the popular vote because of a threshold is a significantly smaller waste of votes than those that do not count in a FPTP vote. There are 87 countries which are currently using a PR system, 68 of which are using a list system. Most of these countries have been using the system for many years and have been operating under efficient coalitions. There is the theory that any majority that could occur in a PR system is composed of several minority parties.18 The reasons that these coalitions are effective are because parties are aware that it is unlikely to win a majority because it is rare that the majority of voters will support a single party. This sets a mentality to all parties that they must work constructively with other parties to effectively govern the country. Also with coalitions, there is little use of forcing frequent election because slight shifts in societal opinion will have little effect in the popular vote.19 In terms of the issues in Israel, no electoral system is perfect. There will always be a country that is suffering from the system. In contrast, Rwanda is a prime
17 Rhenson Psycological needs and Political Behaviour (New York, The Macmillan Company,1974) 31 18 Hoag and Hallett, Proportional Representation, (Toronto, The Macmillan Company, 1926) 63 19 Facts about PR http://www.fairvote.ca/en/myths-about-fair-voting-and-proportional-representation

example of a country which has suffered significant political issues under the FPTP system. PR is a strong, stable electoral structure that can truly increase the means of democracy in Canada.

For Bibliography http://canadaonline.about.com/gi/o.htm? zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=canadaonline&cdn=newsissues&tm=5&f=00&tt=2&bt=1&bts=0&zu=http %3A//www.parl.gc.ca/parlinfo/Lists/Members.aspx%3FParliament%3D1924d334-6bd0-4cb3-8793cee640025ff6%26Current%3DTrue%26Language%3DE