There is much talk in the current federal election campaign about so-called vote splitting, a.k.a. people voting for the person they want to win. The way I see it, Canada actually has two voting problems - and neither of them is caused by people voting for the party of their choice.
Problem No. 1 is our archaic first-past-the-post voting system that often results in election outcomes the very opposite of what the majority of voters want. Problem No. 2 is that some 40 per cent of eligible voters don’t vote.
To a large extent Problem No. 2 is caused by Problem No. 1; many non-voters don’t bother because they figure - correctly - that their votes won’t matter.
In the Yukon the Green Party is routinely blamed for Ryan Leef being elected in 2011 with a paltry 36 per cent of the vote. For those who know that the Green Party was the first federal party to make voting reform an issue and part of their platform, it is painfully ironic that the party is now somehow blamed for the flaws of the existing system.
Whoever you vote for on October 19, let your candidate know that before the next election, Canada must have electoral reform.
Lenore Morris
Whitehorse