Monday, October 20, 2008

Toronto Sun: Voting rules fail us (Bryn Weese)

It seems strange that columnists for the conservative Toronto Sun can support proportional representation while editors at the liberal Toronto Star feel the need to support the existing antiquated voting system.

Here's a column by the Toronto Sun's Bryn Weese with highlights below:

Electing governments in Canada with the antiquated first-past-the-post system is akin to pulling names out of a hat.


The distribution of seats in the House of Commons is completely arbitrary, and has nothing to do with what Canadians actually voted for. It never does.


Is it any wonder that only half of eligible voters in Canada can be bothered to cast ballots? Most of their votes (unless they're cast for the winner) are worthless and huge scores of Canadians are robbed of representation.

3 comments:

geovani said...

Also, having some form of proportional representation in the electoral process would force our governments to learn to co-operate in minority parliaments, as opposed to the dog's breakfasts we have seen recently where parties play fun and games jockeying for a chance at a majority in the next election.
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geovani

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Chrystal Ocean said...

Had already begun thinking that The Star was turning more and more into a rag. Their hypocritical position on PR lost any respect I had left for the paper.

Erik said...

Agreed; Toronto's Sun stance on democracy is favourable over that of the Toronto Star.

PR is the most democratic way for ALL people because it reflects the votes and voices of all. And although FPTP is a little bit better than the "pulling names out of a hat" it nevertheless is antiquated and should be discarded ASAP. What major party will have the guts to address this issue?