What can we do to prevent a future elected dictator?
“Apparently, not a single bloody thing!”, to quote Doug Martens of Teslin. Doug is absolutely right, unless we improve our voting system.
With the help of our present voting system, any political party with less than 40 per cent of the votes can elect a majority of members, which gives them 100 per cent power.
Over half the voters had no effect on the outcome of former elections under our present voting system. If you didn’t vote for the winner in your riding, your vote had the same effect as if you hadn’t voted. This happened to voters of all political parties.
What are the effects of this voting system?
Federally, we recently had the 425-page Bill C-38, the omnibus budget bill, pass through Parliament without one word changed.
Many sections of Bill C-38 were not related to the budget. Not one of the 871 amendments suggested by the opposition were passed. To pass, an amendment would have required 13 out of 166 members of the government to vote with the opposition on it.
Territorially, we had the joint Peel plan rewritten by the government alone. These types of unfairly elected dictatorships would not happen with a better voting system.
Would you like to live in a representative democracy with a balance of power where your vote has a good chance of counting in a meaningful way? If you would, ask your MLA why our legislature is not making it happen.
The government has the power and time in its term to have a better voting system in place before the next election, if they don’t wait too long to start working on it. If the government waits too long, you will be shown the value it places on your vote and true representative democracy.
You can do something to prevent a future elected dictator. Ask your MLA if the government and opposition can work collaboratively for a better voting system.
Dave Brekke
Whitehorse