Ontario's "Citizens' Assembly" has done as instructed by its handlers and recommended that Ontario vote on a proportional representation thingee next fall in the fixed election.
I don't like Citizens' Assemblies. Isn't this why we have legislatures? Can you see a problem with the proposition: "Hey, this issue is too important to be left to the people we the people actually elect to represent us. Let's set up another tribunal that's not elected at all."
The Citizens' Assembly of Ontario has rapidly become as mealy-mouthed as "the politicians" they were supposed to supplant. They want to enlarge the house by about 30% -- gee, more politicians, what a great idea! -- but they only want about a third of the legislature to be appointed by the parties, rather than 50%, which is what the PR zealots usually go for. (Ten to 15% would pretty much solve the votes/parties imbalance that PR claims to address.)
But it's PR, PR itself, we need to talk about. I keep reading that the justification for First-Past-the-Post electoral systems is that they are designed and intended to provide majority governments.
No. The point of First Past the Post is that representatives are to be chosen by communities of citizens rather than by political parties. The point of PR is that citizens hand over their votes to political parties, so that the parties can appoint their devoted loyalists to permanent sinecure seats in the legislature.
Now if you want more dedicated party hacks and flunkies in our legislatures, you are entitled to say so. But that's the point of PR. I wish its backers would say so.
I think our legislatures are already way too full of party hacks and flunkies. But that's a problem that could be fixed if we agitated for it.
The point of PR is to entrench the hacks and flunkies in place forever. This is a good thing, why?
