Gordon Gibson's column of today is behind a paywall at the Globe and Mail. But it's a big one. A leading advocate of electoral reform says Ontario's MMP proposal is not supportable.
Gibson is a former leader of the BC Liberal Party, a politically active citizen for decades, and one of the west's leading advocates for electoral reform, Senate reform, and other systemic changes to Canadian politics. He was appointed by BC Premier Campbell to direct the Citizen Assembly on Electoral Reform. That assembly recommended the new voting system for B.C. which was put to a referendum there last year -- and narrowly failed to get the 60% support required.
The B.C proposal was for STV, "single transferable vote" and, as Gibson says in his Globe piece, STV empowers elected members, whereas MMP empowers parties. Party organizers and party leaders already have too much power, he argues. If he lived in Ontario, he writes, he'd be on the No side.
