How
Our Federal Plan: The plan to get electoral reform federally, is to pressure the Prime Minister and the Liberal MPs to bring forward a bill for a citizens’ assembly to determine the best option for electoral reform for Canada. The federal Liberal Party membership has an excellent resolution for electoral reform from 2023, which is good for 8 years. (You can find it in this linked PDF. It is item 11, page 14.)
We are inviting Cooperate for Canada members from across the country to join in efforts to lobby your MPs of all parties to support electoral reform.
Our Ontario Plan: We are seeking volunteers to work within party riding associations to promote the benefits of electoral reform and the reasons why a citizens’ assembly is the best process to bring about this goal.
Partisan interests make consensus agreement of elected members unlikely. A citizens’ assembly, composed of a representative cross section of the population hears:
- expert presentations about different electoral systems,
- the experience of nations using these systems and
- the outcomes for the population in terms of well-being and government action to address affordability and threats such as global heating/pandemic.
Nations electing representatives using one of the types of proportional representation usually do not have majority governments. Governments are formed through coalitions, requiring cooperation.
With our first-past-the-post electoral system, voters are often voting against representatives – strategic voting – rather than for representatives who share their values.
We are facing multiple crises with real threats to our health, security and our children’s future. Government action requires cooperation. Polarization detracts from the cooperation required to build agreements to respond to crises and threats. And voters need assurance that their votes will count and that their representatives share their values.
A Plan for other provinces and territories: If you are interested in mobilizing multi-party cooperation for electoral reform in your region please reach out to Cooperate for Canada’s core team. Email info@cooperateforcanada.ca
Join Us
Participate in the Electoral Reform Lobby Campaign
While MPPs and MPs are in their home ridings on break, you may be able to meet them at community events. You could attend one of these gatherings wearing intriguing buttons that show pie charts of the last election. (See below for a printable option)
If you don’t have buttons, you can print the following image and either pin it on your shirt or slide it into a plastic identification badge that you have lying around from a conference.
The intention is to get conversations going with MPPs, MPs, their staff, party leaders, and the general public. You won’t be pushing an agenda, just making pleasant small talk. These buttons stimulate conversations about our voting system. They go something like this:
“What are those buttons about?”
“They show the results of the last provincial election.”
“But…they are not the same.”
“No they aren’t. One shows how we voted and the other shows the seats in the legislature”
“You’re kidding! I had no idea it was so unfair.”
You now have an opportunity to talk about how this is an old problem and one that is not going to go away unless we change our voting system to one of the many used successfully in countries around the world.
You don’t need to know more than that for a short conversation, but if you want to know more, we strongly recommend looking at the information provided by Fair Vote Canada.
