|
|
Contents |
Opinion/Articles
Political SystemMMP means Parliament worksNovember 2007 Parliament, not the government, is the body that passes legislation. Our current plurality voting system takes power away from the parliament and gives it to a single governing party. Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) systems put power into the hands of the parliament. A switch to MMP would improve decision making at Queen’s Park and on Parliament Hill. Our system’s chief benefit has been simplicity since its first use in 13th century England. But curious things start to happen when we value simplicity above majority rule. Our current system weighs our votes unequally and allows single parties to win false seat majorities with much less than a majority of votes. But its most important defect is its least understood. The perpetuation of false majorities produces an intense two-party dynamic. This oppositional dynamic hamstrings parliamentary decision making. In this oppositional dynamic, the top two parties are compelled to exaggerate their disagreements—no matter how small—in order to win and be the single party that governs. Parliamentary decisions suffer when the two big parties get distracted by the possibility of achieving the magic 37 or 38 percent threshold of voter support. They ignore the other parties’ input in parliamentary committees in favour of focussing their attention on winning a false majority next election. Since the two largest parties know that either one of them can win a seat majority with as little as 37 or 38 percent of the vote, they’re locked in a dysfunctional symbiosis. Their constant focus on one another legitimates them both and by omission relegates other major parties with substantial support to obscurity. By contrast, MMP is good for public policy because it produces proportional results. Since a single party seldom wins a real majority of votes, it’s very unusual for one party to have government power by itself. Under MMP, parties can cast off their obsession with winning false majorities, since they’re virtually impossible. Parties under MMP focus instead on making decisions that represent the true majority. In order to form government, parties must sit down with possible coalition partners to discuss points of agreement. In the parliament, this creates a more stable consensual dynamic. Parties suddenly prize not only loyal members, but knowledgeable members who can work out the details of these agreements in parliamentary committees. Long term issues like the environment get more attention and real action. MMP as a system is better equipped to produce well crafted public policy that’s sustainable over the long term. The recent referendum made one thing clear. Most Ontarians didn’t know what’s really at stake in deciding whether to switch to MMP—whether to keep power in the hands of one political party with minority support or to put it where it belongs into the hands of all parliamentarians. Greg Laxton |