Every Vote Should Count: Why Voting Liberal or Conservative in the 2025 Election Perpetuates a Broken Democracy
As Canada heads to the polls in April 2025, we face a critical choice about the future of our democracy. Both Liberals under Mark Carney and Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre continue to block (or is ambiguous on) proportional representation (PR), ensuring millions of perfectly valid ballots will have no effect on election outcomes.
The Liberal Record on Electoral Reform
- Liberals have campaigned on proportional representation since 1919 (starting with Mackenzie King)
- In 2015, Justin Trudeau promised 1,800+ times that it would be “the last election under first-past-the-post”
- After forming government, Trudeau abandoned reform when he couldn’t get his preferred non-proportional system
- In 2024, Trudeau admitted that Liberals were “deliberately vague” about electoral reform to appeal to PR advocates
- Mark Carney has been noncommittal on PR despite his economic expertise, claiming to be “open” while avoiding firm commitments
The Conservative Position
- Conservatives consistently favour maintaining FPTP
- Pierre Poilievre shows no interest in changing the system that benefits his party
- The current electoral system enables single-party rule with a minority of votes
- Both parties benefit from false majorities delivered by our broken system
Why This Matters in 2025
Canada’s democracy faces mounting threats, from foreign interference concerns to polarization. A truly representative system would provide the strongest defence:
- In Hastings-Lennox and Addington during the 2025 Ontario election, 51.6% of voters had no representation in Queen’s Park
- Meanwhile, Germany’s 2025 election under PR saw voter turnout hit 83%
- Research examining 36 democracies from 2000-2019 shows countries using PR have lower polarization than those with winner-take-all systems
- Only 6% of the world’s population lives in full democracies, and most use PR systems
When you vote Liberal or Conservative in April, you endorse a system where millions of votes make no difference to election outcomes. You endorse a system where parties that receive minority vote shares regularly wield 100% of the power.
Only the Greens, NDP, and smaller parties like the Revolution Party of Canada consistently support PR. If democracy matters to you, shouldn’t your vote reflect that?
Yes it sucks because Carney looks like it’s just Truduea in a new suit. Since he seems to be keeping a lot of the same people on. And Pierre no thanks. So really I have no one to vote for who matters.
Honestly, just vote for parties supporting PR. It’s not vote splitting, because the LPC is still projected to win.
It literally is vote splitting. Your even using the classic “they are going to win anyways”. Like, what? Lmao
Ok, let’s get real.
The concept of “vote splitting” only exists within winner-take-all systems like FPTP. It’s a logical fallacy created by the broken system itself.
“Vote splitting” assumes your vote belongs to a particular party unless you “waste” it elsewhere. But your vote belongs to you, not to any party. It’s meant to express your democratic will.
Under proportional representation, there’s no such thing as vote splitting because every vote counts toward representation. When you vote for what you believe in, you’re not splitting anything - you’re exercising your democratic right.
If you’re concerned about “strategic voting,” consider this: continuing to vote strategically for parties that refuse to implement PR perpetuates the very system that forces you to vote strategically. It’s a vicious cycle.
The only wasted vote is one cast for a party that won’t fix our democracy.
“They’ll win anyways”, is a fallacy. You don’t know that.
No matter the mental gymnastics, you’re advocating to split the vote, which only benefits conservatives, using unprovable arguments.
You are right first past the post is a problem. But splitting the vote is not the answer.
The “they’ll win anyways” wasn’t my primary argument - it was an aside. My central point is that we need to break this cycle of strategic voting that keeps us locked in a broken system.
Let’s examine your premise: when you say “splitting the vote only benefits conservatives,” you’re making two assumptions:
- That preventing Conservatives from winning is the primary goal
- That there’s a meaningful difference between Liberals and Conservatives on democratic reform
But here’s the reality: Liberals have promised PR since 1919 without delivering. Trudeau explicitly broke his promise after getting elected. Why would Carney be different?
As for “mental gymnastics” - the real gymnastics is convincing yourself that voting for a party that consistently blocks PR will somehow get us PR. That’s like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.
The mathematical reality is that our current system distorts representation. Until we implement proportional representation, we’ll be stuck in this strategic voting trap.
Look at our effective number of parties (2.76 in 2021) - it’s declining due to Duverger’s Law. We’re heading toward American-style two-party polarization unless we change course.
The real question is: how many more elections will you vote for parties that block PR before realizing they’ll never deliver it?
You’re preaching to the chorus my guy. I know you’re technically correct and you can use a lot of long words.
But the reality is that, the way things are right now, taking the actions you are suggesting people take makes it more likely that Conservatives win, and that makes it less likey that the changes you want to see get implemented.
It’s not that ti don’t believe you. It’s that I don’t believe the solution is “let’s convince half the population to change their voting preferences”.
A realistic, not Ideologic, solution needs to work within the boundaries of things as they are, not as you wish they were.
I appreciate your pragmatism, but let me approach this differently.
You’re suggesting we need to work “within the boundaries of things as they are” - but that’s precisely how we’ve been trapped in this cycle for over a century. Since 1919, generations of Canadians have made the exact same strategic calculation you’re making now. The result? A democracy that’s growing increasingly dysfunctional.
This isn’t about ideology - it’s about results. The “realistic” approach you advocate has been tried for decades and has consistently failed to deliver reform. At what point do we acknowledge that this strategy simply doesn’t work?
Consider that 76% of Canadians support proportional representation. The barrier isn’t popular will - it’s political inertia.
Strategic voting creates a psychological trap where we’re perpetually choosing “the lesser evil” while never building momentum for the change most Canadians actually want. It’s like staying in an unhealthy relationship because you’re afraid of being alone.
Look at countries like New Zealand that successfully transitioned to PR. They didn’t get there through incremental compromise - they built momentum for real change.
I’m not asking half the population to change overnight. I’m suggesting that those who already believe in PR should vote their conscience. If even a quarter of strategic voters did this consistently, we’d create the political pressure needed for reform.
Sometimes the “realistic” path forward requires breaking old patterns that have consistently failed us. Isn’t continuing to do the same thing while expecting different results the definition of insanity?
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