Proportional representation (or lack thereof) isn't a left or right, liberal vs conservative issue. It's a Canadian issue, and in the face of threats from the south, we need to stand united🍁
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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What is This Group is About?
De Quoi Parle ce Groupe?
The unofficial non-partisan Lemmy movement to bring proportional representation to all levels of government in Canada.
🗳️Voters deserve more choice and accountability from all politicians.
Le mouvement non officiel et non partisan de Lemmy visant à introduire la représentation proportionnelle à tous les niveaux de gouvernement au Canada.
🗳️Les électeurs méritent davantage de choix et de responsabilité de la part de tous les politiciens.
- A Simple Guide to Electoral Systems
- What is First-Past-The-Post (FPTP)?
- What is Proportional Representation (PR)?
- What is a Citizens’ Assembly?
- Why referendums Aren't Necessary
- The 219 Corrupt MPs Who Voted Against Advancing Electoral Reform
Related Communities/Communautés Associées
Resources/Ressources
Official Organizations/Organisations Officielles
- List of Canadian friends of Democracy Bluesky
- Fair Vote Canada: Bluesky
- Fair Voting BC: Bluesky
- Charter Challenge for Fair Voting: Bluesky
- Electoral Renewal Canada: Bluesky
- Vote16: Bluesky
- Longest Ballot Committee: Bluesky
- ~~Make Votes Equal / Make Seats Match Votes~~
- Ranked Ballot Initiative of Toronto (IRV for municipal elections)
We're looking for more moderators, especially those who are of French and indigenous identities.
Nous recherchons davantage de modérateurs, notamment ceux qui sont d'identité française et autochtone.
founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
I strongly prefer RCV. Don't see the positive of tweet.
Canadian politics are already arguably broken in that party loyalty determines all votes, and riding issues don't matter, though rare stray votes do occur. PR makes this dysfunction even stronger in that the strongest party loyalty is the requirement for receiving an appointment. A possible positive is that someone really good at policy get appointed over someone really good at lying to public to get elected. But then why would a candidate help if there is 0 chance they will get a seat even if party wins, unless they get 90%+ of vote.
If a conservative won a seat through RCV in Toronto, they would still be in favour of Federal funding for Toronto. Similarly, an Alberta politician could like things that are good for Alberta independently of their party. Most FPTP races are decided with less than 50%, and under threat of wasting your vote on someone the least evil. RCV can change those dysfunctions. Under PR, who do voters complain to about stuff that should be done?
PR is such a drastic change with no obvious improvements to democracy.
I appreciate your thoughts on electoral reform, though I'd like to address some misconceptions about PR systems and explain why RCV alone doesn't solve our fundamental electoral problems.
First, it's important to clarify that RCV (what you're referring to) is typically implemented as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) for single-member districts. IRV is still a winner-take-all system that fails to ensure proportional representation. While it eliminates the spoiler effect, it still discards many votes and produces results where seat percentages don't match vote percentages.
Read more: A Simple Guide to Electoral Systems
You raise concerns about regional representation and accountability under PR:
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Regional representation: Many PR systems, particularly Single Transferable Vote (STV), maintain strong regional representation through multi-member districts. Representatives still have geographic constituencies, but districts elect multiple MPs proportional to votes cast. This actually improves regional representation as more diverse viewpoints within each region are represented.
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Party loyalty vs. local concerns: Under our current FPTP system, party discipline is already extremely tight. PR systems like STV actually give voters more power to choose between candidates of the same party, potentially reducing party control. In Ireland's STV system, for example, representatives actively compete with party colleagues for voter preference, increasing accountability to constituents.
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Accountability: Your question "who do voters complain to?" has a simple answer under PR: they have multiple representatives from their district. This creates more avenues for constituent services, not fewer. In fact, having multiple representatives per district means voters are more likely to have at least one MP who shares their political values.
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Improved democracy: PR objectively improves democratic representation. Under our current system, millions of perfectly valid ballots have zero effect on representation. In rural areas like Hastings-Lennox and Addington, over 51% of voters had their votes completely discarded in the last election. That's not a "minor dysfunction" - it's a fundamental democratic deficit.
If combining ranked ballots with geographic representation appeals to you, I'd strongly recommend looking into STV, which accomplishes both while ensuring proportional representation. It gives voters the ability to rank candidates while ensuring that the overall makeup of Parliament reflects how people actually voted.
The core principle at stake is simple: in a democracy, we are deserving of and entitled to representation in government. Any system that systematically discards votes, as both FPTP and IRV do, undermines this principle. Only proportional representation ensures that vote percentages match seat percentages - the mathematical foundation of fair representation.
IRV is still a winner-take-all system that fails to ensure proportional representation.
IRV is RCV. 2nd election runoff is still a winner take all, but with RCV you could vote Green party even if media tells you that they will finish 4th, but if they had enough 2nd choices in RCV, and media horse race manipulation is eliminated in your first choice, they could still win.
seat percentages don’t match vote percentages.
The holy grail you seem to want maximizing for is "party identity" rather than "Unifying maverick exceptionalism" potential. Latter is rare and counter to Canadian political system, but local values and local loyalty could better attract voters independently of national party affiliation. I understand that in practice, all candidates are shills for party. But PR precludes a complete independent of running, it would seem.
Representatives still have geographic constituencies, but districts elect multiple MPs proportional to votes cast. This actually improves regional representation as more diverse viewpoints within each region are represented.
This is a good point, I learned from one of your other links. I think from your STV link, you can have multiple candidates from same party included, and then include least bad conservative at 10th choice if you want. Albertans voting for liberal would still only affect an Alberta liberal possibly included in government.
Whatever dysfunction occurred in voting reform committee that caused derailment of RCV was a dysfunction. I get why you could prefer PR
I appreciate your thoughtful response. Let me address each point:
IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) is indeed a form of ranked choice voting, but this doesn't change its fundamental nature as a winner-take-all system. While it allows you to vote sincerely for your first choice without fear of "wasting" your vote, it still results in only one candidate winning per district, meaning many voters remain unrepresented.
The key difference is that in winner-take-all systems like IRV, a significant portion of ballots (often 40-60%) don't elect anyone at all. These votes are effectively discarded. In PR systems, virtually all votes contribute to electing someone who shares the voter's values.
Regarding "party identity" versus independent candidates - this is a common misconception about PR. Systems like Single Transferable Vote (STV) actually make it easier for independents to win seats compared to FPTP. In Ireland, which uses STV, independents regularly win seats. The key is having a reasonable threshold and multi-member districts.
As for local representation, both STV and MMP maintain geographic connection while ensuring proportionality. Under STV, each region has multiple representatives reflecting the diversity of political viewpoints in that area. This provides better regional representation, not worse, as voters are more likely to have at least one MP who shares their values.
The voting reform committee didn't "derail" RCV - they actually studied various systems extensively and recommended PR because it better fulfills the democratic principle that all citizens deserve equal representation. This wasn't dysfunction; it was evidence-based policy making. Trudeau rejected their recommendation because he preferred IRV, thereby breaking his promise to have 2015 be the last election under FPTP.
The fundamental question remains: In a democracy, shouldn't every vote contribute meaningfully to representation, regardless of where you live or who you support? Only PR consistently delivers this basic democratic principle.
Trudeau rejected their recommendation because he preferred IRV, thereby breaking his promise to have 2015 be the last election under FPTP.
I consider it a dysfunction that "letting IRV win" was blocked.
The key difference is that in winner-take-all systems like IRV, a significant portion of ballots (often 40-60%) don’t elect anyone at all.
Understand the point. Definitely don't see it as a dealbreaker for democracy. As a green voter, possible election assistant, possible candidate... I could try to win a seat under IRV, knowing that message/platform matters more than manipulation of "vote wasting". Platform could still piss off oligarchy that backs different parties, but to voters, saving the world could make Green a 2nd choice, despite their media propaganda supporting oligarchy and against the alternate oligarchy.
Under PR, if the green party accepted me as one of 3 accepted candidates, and I got the most votes out of the Green party, and the Green party got say 20% total of the vote (threshold for a seat), then I could win that seat. Our party's 3 candidates would be covering a larger riding that used to hold 5 candidates, and so personal campaigning would be more challenging.
There's a matter of fringe positions that would get represented under PR. Fringe can be avant-garde good, or it can be "Covid doesn't exist and we should all get it for our own good". I think PR would be an advantage for our common oligarchist/US/Israel accepted disinformation group think, in getting representation not indebted to CIA, but that is independents rather than parties and their leaders and every parliamentarian swearing a loyalty (their votes) to party leader system. Maybe parties that allow candidates to represent them, give more power to the diversity of candidates, and their opinions, and allow for some independence on CIA "must haves", but my impression of PR is that it is a much stronger party hierarchy system. Diversity on "alternative medicine" can be allowed, only because it is not a critical (except for Pharma dominance) CIA issue.
In the case of Alberta, 35% of our seats in the last federal election would have been Liberal or NDP under proportional representation. That's also including the fact that rural (conservative) ridings tend to have about half the people in them as urban ridings, so the rural votes effectively count for twice as much as the urban ones.
It's so frustrating living here.
I cannot see bsky
A copy of the content is in the content of this post.
I don't think the entire infographic is communicated in the prose.
The contents of this post match the contents of what the original poster published... Unless you can't see the infographic?
Is there anywhere else that’s switched to proportional representation, run-off voting, or similar from FPTP? How does it affect things like regional representation. Seems like it creates instances where the candidate from some ridings gets a seat with fewer votes than the other candidate. I think the urban/rural divide is only going to get worse as technology leads to more migration to urban areas even though it’s the rural population that’s taking care of the fundamentals in our economy.
runoff voting is common. It keeps regional/representation system from fptp.
Is there anywhere else that’s switched to proportional representation, run-off voting, or similar from FPTP?
https://www.fairvote.ca/how-democracies-adopted-proportional-representation/
How does it affect things like regional representation
https://www.fairvote.ca/localrepresentation/
For example, if we go with MMP, https://www.fairvote.ca/mixed-member-proportional/
If you prefer a video format, https://youtu.be/D3guVBhKmDc
Seems like it creates instances where the candidate from some ridings gets a seat with fewer votes than the other candidate.
Not too sure what you mean by this, but maybe MMP would give you an idea as to what would happen, and whether the scenario you’re thinking of would actually be possible? Lemme know.
I think the urban/rural divide is only going to get worse as technology leads to more migration to urban areas even though it’s the rural population that’s taking care of the fundamentals in our economy.
I don’t really believe that technology is the leading factor to the migration, but economic factors are. This isn’t to say that our farms aren’t profitable (I believe they are and should be), but there simply are more options of work in urban areas. Given that farms take up a lot of space, population ends up being sparse, and so do economic opportunities. It doesn’t have to stay that way of course, perhaps we could rethink how rural life works, e.g. rural Japan, but that’s not only a change in culture but likely also a multi-year work, so I digress.
PR isn’t one electoral system but more so a principle that some systems follow. So it makes more sense to talk about the different systems that implement PR, and see how they can work for us, or if we can give it a bit of a twist so that it can work for us.
Fairvote has another proposed system that aims at the rural/urban divide: https://www.fairvote.ca/rural-urban-proportional/
I see it a bit. An entire city will still get representatives from that city, without being down at a riding level. Would they do the same for large rural regions? Would Barrie ON be a 1 seat city, or would it be part of a greater rural region?
Depends on which one of the flavours we’re talking about. I’m not an expert by any means, but my understanding is that, in general, we could go with the urban/rural approach by breaking up the city into smaller voting districts to reach some kind of acceptable balance in both the population across the city, and the number of MLAs across the region, just to somewhat balance out the urban and rural voices. How big should the rural regions be? I don’t know, cause it’ll be up to whatever census data that we know about the region.
That said though, I never realized it but Barrie is somewhat special from what I can find online, in that it’s politically independent from the Simcoe county. So perhaps it can just continue to be independent from the county? I’m honestly not sure about what being politically independent actually entail.
Is there anywhere else that’s switched to proportional representation, run-off voting, or similar from FPTP?
New Zealand, Australia.
How does it affect things like regional representation.
Regional representation is mostly the same. Even in the current situation, we can have parachute candidates: candidates that don't come from the region are allowed to put up their name for consideration and be elected. So we don't really have good regional representation to begin with. And if that's the case, regional representation isn't as relevant as people might perceive it to be (that's not to say it isn't important!).
even though it’s the rural population that’s taking care of the fundamentals in our economy.
The economy is far too complex to capture in this statement alone.
...and as everyone knows the value of a human (and therefor the influence they should have over society) is measured in how many dollars they contribute to the economy. that's why our current system of government is so just!
That graphic is not making anything clear...