If the NDP ever won a majority in a federal election, one of the first things the party says it would do is try to change the system so no party could ever achieve a winner-takes-all result again.
The NDP is promising to strike an all-party task force with a mandate to consult with experts and others on the best design for the mixed-member proportional representation system the party is advocating. That system allows the voter to cast a ballot for a local MP and another vote for a party, from a list of candidates who can be ranked in preference.
An NDP government would then introduce legislation based on the task force’s recommendations. “We’re not saying it won’t be challenging,” said NDP reform critic Craig Scott, who brought his cross-Canada town hall forum to Victoria’s Alix Goolden Hall Friday night. The campaign is called Make Every Vote Count.
Scott said it’s ironic that if the party won a majority, it could bring in the reforms more easily, but only as the result of a “flawed system.”
The NDP says it would likely have backing from the Green Party, which also supports electoral reform, and hopes to convince the Liberals. “Changing the electoral system needs a cross-section of support,” Scott said.
The “one ballot, two votes” approach the NDP is advocating allows voters flexibility, Scott said.
Former Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca MP Keith Martin, for example, was known as a maverick whose views didn’t always align with those of his party. Some constituents liked Martin but not his party, whether it was Reform, Conservative or Liberal, the last party he served. The system the NDP is advocating would allow voters to support the individual, but also cast a vote for a different party.
Proportional representation also means that the number of MPs each party has in the House of Commons reflects the percentage of the vote received by that party, Scott said — something that doesn’t happen under the current system.
In the 2011 election, for example, the Green Party’s percentage of the vote should have generated 12 seats in the House of Commons. Instead one lone MP, Green Party leader Elizabeth May, representing Saanich-Gulf Islands, went to Ottawa.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives won 53 per cent of the seats with only 39.5 per cent of the vote.
