this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2025
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What’s more chilling than Trump’s presidency? The fact that we use the same system that just handed him total control... If we want to protect democracy in Canada, we need proportional representation. (bsky.app)
submitted 3 days ago by AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/40140681

Fair Vote Canada on Bluesky

What’s more chilling than Trump’s presidency? The fact that we use the same system that just handed him total control.

First-past-the-post fuels a hyper-partisan two-party system.

If we want to protect democracy in Canada, we need proportional representation.

#cdnpoli

top 14 comments
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[–] shirro@aussie.zone 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Good idea but also a gross oversimplification.

You can't compare a parliamentary democracy with a presidential republic whatever the voting system. The president is an elected tyrant. It's a miracle one hasn't gone rogue previously.

A prime minister is a chairperson who only serves with the confidence of their party. In the UK and Australia PMs are routinely knifed by their own parties. Additionally the government needs to win confidence votes to govern.

Australia has a proportional upper house with some real teeth. They can bring a government down. But New Zealand has a unicameral proportional lower house. Optimised for different things. Many people say NZ is better but they haven't had a big constitutional crisis so who knows. NZ only gets labour or national governments despite proportional representation.

[–] AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Good idea but also a gross oversimplification.

In a microblogging platform, there's only so much content you can write. And even Lemmy's post titles are limited to 200 characters.

You can’t compare a parliamentary democracy with a presidential republic whatever the voting system.

Of course the systems are different, however, the core of both Canada’s and the US’s electoral system is winner-take-all (e.g, FPTP).

Read more about how Canada is trending towards a two party system.

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

It is a great idea. Strike while the iron is hot.

I didn't realize Canada's electoral system was so outdated. I assumed you would have a popularly elected upper house and if not proportional at least instant runoff/rcv/preferential for your lower house.

We didn't want to give up local representation in Australia so we stuck with single member electorates but preferential voting. It is fairer to voters than FPTP but still results in a two party lower house that doesn't reflect the actual percentages of votes cast for parties so the senate is more powerful that UK or Canada to offset. We could do a lot better. NZ follows a more German model that compensates popular parties that didn't win seats. Not sure how I feel about that. The Greens would end up with 13% of lower house seats here instead of approximately 0 but chances are we could see parties like our own One Nation or the German AfD grow in influence as well. Tasmania has had proportional voting for their state lower house for over a century as does our capital territory.

Edit: the web site is very informative and and the fact checker addresses my extremist party fear well.

[–] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

We didn’t want to give up local representation in Australia so we stuck with single member electorates but preferential voting.

Single transferable Vote and Mixed-Member Proportional keeps the local representation. It's only with the Party-lists that do away with it.

[–] AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We didn’t want to give up local representation in Australia

Did you know there's actually a way to maintain full local representation, while still meeting the criteria of proportional representation?

It's called single transferable vote (STV).

[–] shirro@aussie.zone 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That is how Tasmania has worked for over a century. They call it Hare-Clarke but it is a form of STV. They also use it in the Australian Capital Territory.

Mixed member might be more suitable nationally here. I have mixed feelings about the example in NZ. Anything is better than FPTP which should only be in history books. Even ranked choice/preferential with what you already have is an incremental improvement if that is all you can get.

[–] AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

How do we get proportional representation? Start by joining communities like !fairvote@lemmy.ca

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Done! :)

What next?

[–] AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

I wrote a comment on some things we can do, but:

  1. We need to grow the movement.
  2. We do have evidence that politicians are catering to the fair vote movement.
[–] rxbudian@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Reminds me of what Padme said in Star Wars' Revenge of The Sith

[–] AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What did Padme say?

[–] rxbudian@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1FFVWEQnSM

I seem to remember she said "Democracy", but all the clips say "Liberty" so the actual quote is

"So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause"

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 4 points 2 days ago

Probably a conflation of this scene with the one where Palpatine says "I love democracy".

[–] AlolanVulpix@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

Liberty and democracy are one and the same. If Canadian democracy goes down (of which we are witnessing now), at the very least we should put up a fight.