Electoral reform and ‘vote efficiency’
Justin Trudeau called abandoning electoral reform his biggest regret as prime minister. With a federal election on the horizon, how quickly can voting systems change? CBC News’s Ashley Fraser explains.
Former B.C. NDP MP Randall Garrison, one of CBC News’s election panelists, brought up the issue of electoral reform — which was not discussed much during this election campaign.
But it was a promise Trudeau ran on, but never implemented.
“Most advanced democracies have moved to proportional representation, where every vote actually counts toward getting representation,” Garrison said.
Canada’s electoral system is a first-past-the-post system.
“If we had had a change to that … we wouldn’t be having these arcane discussions about vote efficiency and other things. We’d be talking about what people actually wanted being reflected in Parliament,” Garrison said.
The Liberals and Conservatives have dominated popular vote polls — leading to discussions about other parties, including the NDP, Bloc Québécois and Greens, losing support due to people voting strategically.
There have also been discussions about how Conservative support, according to polls, appeared concentrated in western Canada for much of the campaign.
We’ll see later tonight how it all translates into seat counts.
