Dan's Speech

Thanks to the organizers of the event.


Watching CBC last night, I decided to change my talk.  I realized that we have a current example that highlights what is wrong with our voting system and why we need to move to proportional representation. 


In 2008, 940,000 Green Party votes didn't elect anyone.  At the same time, 820,000 conservative votes elected 27 mps in Alberta. 


Now something called “The Consortium” has decided that the Green Party shouldn't participate in the TV debates. The justification used is that they didn't have any seats in the last parliament.


The fact that the Green Party had no Mps is not  a reflection on them but rather highlights what is wrong with our voting system. 


Political parties are the way we differentiate between different ideas on matters of public policy. We pick party A over party B because we agree more with what party A stands for. 


A key principal of democracy is that ideas ie parties should have weight in our national dialogue in proportion to their support in society.


Here we have a set of ideas, what the Green Party stands for, supported by 10 % of the population and they are denied a voice in a key element of the current election.  


I am not a Green Party supporter. I was disappointed when a spokes person for my party,  one that promotes PR, basically characterized this decision as good riddance to bad rubbish!  They heard from Sandra and me, today. I hope my party changes it's position on this, quickly.


If you agree with me, please let your voice be heard. Contact the party you support


On March 26th Fair Vote Canada announced the result of the upcoming May 2nd election.  Some of the Key points are on the slides. 


Highlights


Most Canadians will be “represented” in Parliament by somebody they voted against. 
-The Conservatives will win every seat in Alberta, or all but one, with about 65% of the votes.
-The Liberals will win almost all the seats in Canada’s major cities, with about half the votes.
-The NDP will get one million more votes than the Bloc Quebecois, but the BLOQ will win almost twice as many seats.
-The Bloc Quebecois will win two-thirds of the seats in Quebec with half the votes. 
-Voter turnout will be the lowest in history, or close to it. 


In a nutshell, we won't get the government we voted for. For some reason, we aren't able to get the politicians to enact legislation and create public policy that most of us support on child care, climate change, health care, drugs for Africa and  much much more..


I make a connection that, since most votes don't elect anyone, politicians ignore most voters. The people have little or no voice.


When we move to PR, where  parties and  there  ideas have weight in the legislature proportional to their support in society, and where parties have to co-operate to pass legislation, our democracy will be greatly improved.


PR won't fix our various problems, but it will create the environment where it will be easier to get the legislation & public policies that most Canadians support, and more difficult to pass legislation that doesn't have popular support. 


We have literature.  Our Halton chapter is having a goal setting session on May 14th.


You are all invited. Contact me if you are interested in attending.
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