Section 3 – Policy Initiatives & 2025 Deliverables
11. Democratic and Electoral Reform
The Parties will work together to create a special legislative all-party committee to evaluate and recommend policy and legislation measures to be pursued beginning in 2026 to increase democratic engagement & voter participation, address increasing political polarization, and improve the representativeness of government. The committee will review and consider preferred methods of proportional representation as part of its deliberations. The Government will work with the BCGC to establish the detailed terms of reference for this review, which are subject to the approval of both parties. The terms of reference will include the ability to receive expert and public input, provide for completion of the Special Committee’s work in Summer 2025, and public release of the Committee’s report within 45 days of completion. The committee will also review the administration of the 43rd provincial general election, including consideration of the Chief Electoral Officer’s report on the 43rd provincial general election, and make recommendations for future elections.
That’s simply untrue! I’m not sure if you’re forgetful or honestly don’t remember what you write but here are a handful of examples in our brief exchange:
Here’s me pointing out some of the toxic consequences and you just handwaving it because hey, people got what they voted for.
Or, here you are deciding you don’t actually want to talk about the successes of failures of PR and all that matters is how good it is at measuring democracy:
Heck, here you are explicitly saying all that matters in this conversation is how democratic PR is:
Heck, this nonsense:
Is **entirely **defining superior as measuring democracy.
What’s happened here is I think that as a way to deflect any actual criticism of PR you reflexively go into a “all that matters is how democratic the outcome is, I don’t care about any other consequences.” But, I think you’re starting to see that’s not a particularly cogent dodge because there are systems that would produce a more democratic outcome, so now you’re trying to backpedal.
But, now that you concede that yes, okay, the consequences of the system matter, let’s go back to the initial points about why FPTP is better.
Your original response: How is that a “bad outcome” when it’s literally what people voted for. Electoral systems are not supposed to decide the ideological makeup of government.
So, here, you’re totally okay with a system that puts hate groups in positions of power?
Basically, and I wish I still remembered some of the course books, but some of the interesting first year poli sci courses (I think Stanford or Harvard have some online for free. If you’re interested I’ll look for a one for you) are exactly about the tension between democracies and human rights. That tension is why most democracies (including ours) have Charters of Rights and Freedoms that outline things that are so important that we say no matter what people vote for, they have these protections. The point here is that yes, democracy is a good thing but it is not the only good. If you have a system that tends to produce poor outcomes (large coalition governments unable to pass significant legislation, hate groups getting chokeholds on government etc) then those outcomes can outweigh the goodness of democracy.
Anything other than demonstrating which of FPTP or PR is better than the other is irrelevant to the discussion.
The “toxic consequence” you point out isn’t unique to PR, it’s an inherent characteristic of democracy. So, yes, you are making an argument against democracy.
I don’t know why you consider it nonsense when it’s actually true.
I’ve already said that I’m not pretending the only factor to consider is democratic measures.
You mean how in practically every single FPTP election, unpopular polices are enacted without the consent of the majority? This is what I mean when I am saying that PR mathematically produces more democratic outcomes, in addition to other mathematical criteria.
You are taking the extremes of democracy, which do happen I don’t deny occurring, and exploding them into: they will surely happen, so we must keep a system that denies the vast swaths of the population their representation in government.
Again, the policies enacted under PR systems will always be supported by the population. And it’s not our call to decide what is hateful and not, nor can any electoral system do that (not even FPTP).
You need to disentangle morality from electoral systems, when there is none. The unfortunate truth of democracy is that people will have all sorts of opinions, including ones considered hateful, but that doesn’t mean they should be robbed of their right to representation in government.
You mentioned the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What good is the right to vote, if your votes don’t contribute to the outcome of an election? Suppose there is a “perfectly” ethical voter, but by being “perfect”, that puts you technically on the extreme end. So therefore your vote should not count? And FPTP doesn’t even set out to exclude any particular ideology for that matter.
You mentioned, what good is it, if all the parties in a PR legislature are fractured and policy takes ages to get through. To which I say, but at the very least, the policy is supported by the majority, and everyone had their say via their representative. Nobody’s democratic rights were infringed upon (yes, the right to vote necessarily implies that the vote must count), but this is how democracy works. It’s slow, it’s fragmented, but there will never exist a policy enacted that isn’t supported by the majority. You want “effective” government, but at the necessary cost of it’s citizens not consenting to it.
Now I’m not going into a discussion about the tyranny of the majority, as I predict you’ll bring up. This is because I think the tyranny of the minority is worse, and we have a constitution (read: the Charter), that limits what a legislature can do.
After this entire conversation, I really think you are just against democracy itself. Because PR is more democratic than FPTP, you haven’t disputed this whatsoever, and this can be demonstrated mathematically. Everything else you’ve brought up such as “a small minority of people would vote for really hateful parties”, that’s a problem that you’ll find in any proper democracy. FPTP does nothing whatsoever to prevent or encourage this, just like any other electoral system.
For most of the conversation, you’ve made the point that PR gives hateful groups power (which is inaccurate, as it gives all groups power). So therefore we should limit extremists, but FPTP does nothing to change that. FPTP limits effective representation in government, and that is true of every single election. You know who loves the idea of pushing through unpopular policies: authoritarians. Why deal with the population and winning over people with ideas, when you can just deny them their right to representation in government?
So that you’ll be willing to throw democracy to the fire, just to prevent other people, and many many other citizens, from receiving their rights to representation. If that’s not anti democratic, I don’t know what is.
Fundamentally, your critiques of PR are not unique to PR, but rather democracy itself. You have not established a compelling case that we should deny people their democratic rights, in order to “limit extremism”. I think it is an extreme idea itself to deny someone their rights, perhaps I should develop a system that denies rights to anti-democratic individuals like yourself?
Taking a page from your playbook: so you’re totally okay with a system that denies constitutional rights to the vast majority of the population? At least my question is grounded in reality, and is true of every FPTP electoral system.
Buddy, keep your positions straight!
This:
Is fundamentally incompatible with this:
Unless, what human rights shouldn’t count as a factor in what a good electoral system is? That’s wild and insane. If your side requires you to say “hey, we’re not judging about the merits of human rights here” then it’s not a particularly good side.
And saying stuff like this:
Just lets us know you haven’t thought this through. Giving small extremist groups power is a consequence of PR that is largely mitigated in FPTP. It’s why the AFD doesn’t have a politcally viable analog here. It’s literally how the systems work. Just a quick recap: in PR basically any group that gets over a certain threshold gets that many seats, which makes extremist minority parties much more viable. But in a FPTP system, barring incredible regional variation, that’s almost impossible. This is one of the page 1 textbook arguments against PR. Not understanding it or pretending not to doesn’t endear anyone to your cause.
You’re right, it is wild and insane. But not for the reasons you’re thinking, but rather for the reasons that electoral systems don’t have morality. In the same way 2+2=4 doesn’t mean anything other than that. Blame the culture, not the electoral system.
Yes, why give small extremist groups power, when you can give large minority extremist groups power. FPTP doesn’t even set out to mitigate small extremist groups, and it can easily be gamed. And again you don’t have a response to the following: at least in PR every single policy enacted has majority support, unlike in FPTP where the majority is trampled over.
Again, I repeat: taking a page from your playbook: so you’re totally okay with a system that denies constitutional rights to the vast majority of the population? And you know you can’t answer that, because a system that denies representation is anti-democratic.
Bottom line is this, if we live in a democracy, we are entitled to and deserving of representation in government. Yes, there exist bad people, but that doesn’t mean they should lose their constitutional rights, otherwise what’s the point of rights in the first place? And who is the decider of who is good and bad, in no way shape or form does FPTP address that.
You are trying to take a nuke to the bad guys. And are minimizing all the actual harm being caused. In the process, you hurt everyone else as collateral, throw democracy and people’s constitutional rights to the fire. This is not acceptable by any reasonable person (yes, you aren’t reasonable).
All PR does, is restore the system that should actually already be there. A proportional representation is a fundamental aspect of democracy itself, and to say otherwise is inherently anti-democratic.
In every single FPTP election, you infringe on people’s right to representation in government. These hate groups already exist, and electoral systems do nothing to change that, as you so ardently attest to otherwise.
If you want to fight hate groups, don’t deny people their constitutional rights to representation to do so. That’s an insane loss, that you have no damn right to be taking away in the first place.
FPTP literally does nothing to prevent extremists. The most problematic extremist is a person who doesn’t recognize reality – that in a democracy, yes you’ll get all kinds of people, but that’s how it works. Your points brought up for efficiency don’t always apply to every FPTP governed country, look at how much waste fraud and abuse there is down south, and to think that our governments are efficient?
You still haven’t answered several fundamental points:
I also really want an update on this one:
We already have a small minority holding the majority hostage. And this isn’t the exception, virtually all elections under FPTP, a minority strangles the majority.
Basically, the answer to all your points is very simple, more representation is a good thing but it is not the only good thing. The results the system generates are important as well.
Every point you’ve made is basically “hey, this is more democratic!” Which, cool but that’s not a point anyone is arguing.
What I am saying is that the outcomes PR creates can be terrible.
Like, this is utterly silly. Which large extremist group are you thinking of in Canada that took power? Because as much as you might dislike the parties, it is pretty childishly ignorant to call any of the big 4 parties extremist compared to some of the smaller parties that form under PR.
Yawn. No on is being denied a constitutional right.
Oh, which hate group has a legitimate chance of being in government in Canada?
Let’s look at your “fundamental points.”
1, 2, are the same “hey, this is more democratic!”
3, 4) If you want to be taken seriously, maybe don’t try to argue the very basics? It would take an incredibly strange district to elect an MP. Because you have to win the most votes in a riding, extremist groups have a much harder time. Come on, this is poli sci 101.
same as 1, 2.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.
Yes, everyone who disagrees with PR is an extremist? Come on kid.
You being ignorant doesn’t change reality? Japan moved from STV to a more FPTP system, there is a lively debate in Italy about what the best system is having moved from full PR to MMP in the 90s. New Zealand went from FPTP to MMP and then had a referendum where more than 40% wanted to return to FPTP.
Because that’s literally how the system works?
and this:
Is again, the same as 1, 2 and 5.
More democracy is literally the whole point of the proportional representation movement?
Ok, but no more terrible than any other democracy. Here we are again, arguing against democracy. And FPTP can also create terrible outcomes, but at least people can have the agency to self govern under PR.
I’m talking about the group elected with minority support that regularly passes unpopular policies. Just because they are “big” parties, doesn’t mean they aren’t extreme. Look at the Ontario PCs using the not withstanding clause, or other constitutional violations. That is the minority strangling the majority.
And I’m referring to people like yourself who believe people are undeserving of representation in a democracy - you are an extremist.
I think this is the biggest problem with your perspective. That you refuse to see how people are being denied their rights. I say refuse to see because it is undeniable that people are being denied democratic representation. You know that this is true, which is why you keep evading points about the democratic arguments for PR, and minimizing the actual harms being caused.
So overall, you really don’t care about people and their ability to govern themselves. You don’t care about international law, or laws in general. What’s the point of voting if your vote doesn’t affect the outcome? And if your vote doesn’t affect the outcome (as is the the norm of FPTP), what’s the point of voting rights?
When you don’t get your way, you play dirty and bully people into submission. But perhaps that’s why you think people don’t deserve democratic representation, you don’t think that people should govern together. And for the points that are actually challenging, you just brush off or say that I’m a kid. It’s intellectually lazy.
Every single argument I bring up about democracy, you just say: “muh democracy”. Listen to what you are actually saying, and that’s why anybody who listens to you will think you are both out of touch and extreme.
You also haven’t answered how parties come into play with FPTP? You said it’s easy to vote out parties with FPTP. Really? Ontario is being governed by the PCs, while 60% of people didn’t vote for them. Meaning, Ontarians generally wanted to vote out the PCs.
There is an example right under your nose of the failure of FPTP, and it’s not even the exception, it’s the norm.
You can’t say that Ontarians wanted the government they elected, because it’s not true. So this comes back to the value of democracy, which you have on several occasions demonstrated you don’t care about. And this isn’t something that you alone can argue for because, it’s against international law as the SCC adjudicated. Surely, you aren’t arguing against the rule of law?
Fundamentally, we don’t just disagree on PR vs non-PR, we disagree on democracy vs non-democracy.
If you want to eliminate extremists, why not just censor them, take away their free speech rights, that way it guarantees their extreme ideas won’t spread. That is a sure fire way to eliminate extremism, unlike FPTP. If the governments that FPTP produces are so amazing, why can’t they legislate away hate groups? Why not implement the death penalty for persistently hateful people?
Democracy matters, people, and their agency matters. You’ve become the very thing you’ve so deeply despise, an extremist who thinks it’s acceptable, even preferable, that people are denied their democratic rights.
Yes… No one is disputing that. What you refuse to acknowledge is that there are significant costs that outweigh the benefits of more democracy. (Again, this is presumably why you’re not advocating for the most democratic system possible, direct democracy. The associated costs outweigh the benefits of more democracy.)
That’s literally the point, PR has worse outcomes than FPTP. FPTP, you don’t see parties like the AFD forming and being dangerously close to power.
If this is your definition of extremism, you realllllllllly need to read more.
This is utterly silly. Think through the logic here. If your position is that people are being denied their right under FPTP because there is a more democratic system, the same would be true of PR because direct democracy is a more democratic system than that one. Take a couple of minutes, think it through carefully.
By pointing out facts? Disagreeing with you, pointing out logic and reality are not bullying or playing dirty.
Because it’s all the same point? Yes, democracy is a good thing but there are tradeoffs. Yet again, consider why you are not advocating for direct democracy, which is more democratic than PR. So yes, PR is more democratic, cool point. Direct Democracy is more democratic than PR but we (hopefully!) understand that the associated costs outweigh the benefits.
What are you trying to say?
Wait but you’re not a fan of direct democracy. Is that because you don’t believe in democracy?
What on Earth are you trying to say? Is this an actual set of questions? Seriously?
Yup. But having a government that can help people also matters. Again, if democracy is the only goal, why not direct democracy? Oh right, those tradeoffs.
You literally just were in your last message.
That’s your opinion, which isn’t supported by the evidence, nor mathematics.
Yes, using the notwithstanding clause was considered extreme by the writers of the constitution. “It’s polisci 101”. That the notwithstanding clause expires after 5 years, because the government would be required to have an election by the constitution, and would be put up for review, albeit ineffective review under FPTP. So yes, it is extreme, and another example of you being out of touch with reality.
Furthermore, how does this address the actual point? Another example of you evading points.
Again, feasibility was always a presupposition, so a direct democracy doesn’t make sense. We both already know this. I’ve already said I’ve not pretending democracy isn’t the only consideration. To keep bringing up this point that nobody is arguing about is lazy.
I’m trying to say that FPTP does not easily permit you to vote out parties, as you would love to be the case.
Having a government that respects people’s agency also matters. And look at the US government under FPTP, it’s abandoning it’s people, same with Canada tbh. Forcing the government to serve it’s people so that nobody is left behind: only PR can do that.
Bringing up the same tired talking point again, when I’ve never denied judging based on other factors. This isn’t new information.
And so you have or haven’t looked into ranked ballots? You’re saying it’s impossible to eliminate extremism under PR, when ranked ballots (STV) actually will do that for you inherently. “you being ignorant doesn’t change reality”.
Where’s the response to this?
And this?
And this?
Maybe share a quote of what you’re misunderstanding?
I mean, I’ve shared examples and theory as to why this is the case, repeatedly.
Again, if you’re going to accuse the Ontario Conservative party of being extremists, that’s a pretty ridiculous bar. You should look at actual extremist parties, like the AfD, Die Linke, FPO etc. Lumping in the Ontario conservatives with those groups makes it even harder to take you seriously.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here, besides misusing the word literally. Somehow me being a fan of FPTP means I hate democracy or something?
I have no idea what “logic” you’re using. Maybe… Do you not understand how legislation is typically passed in a PR system? Basically, it’s very rare for a government to form a majority under PR, so they make deals with other parties to work together as part of what’s called a coalition government, under which the parties trade priorities etc. For an example of how this plays out, look to Israel, where the government is held hostage by a number of small extreme right parties, which keeps the war going farther than most Israelis and defence personnel wanted. There are numerous far right people in cabinet, like Smotrich etc helping to craft and pass legislation.
Sorry, you want me to respond to you deciding that I am an extremist for supporting FPTP? What a bizzare stance. Because I understand the consequences of PR I’m an extremist for being opposed to it? Out of curiosity, were the 40% who voted to return to FPTP in New Zealand also extremists?
Or do you not understand what extremism is? You seem to use the word like trump uses rigged, everything you don’t like is extremism.