Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Two/three/four Canadas ? Two Ontarios !
From: emd@ham.almanac.bc.ca
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 92 21:05:16 PST
Distribution: can
Organization: Robert Smits

ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay) writes:

> In article <ZuuVTB1w164w@ham.almanac.bc.ca> emd@ham.almanac.bc.ca writes:
> >The major problem with FPP or STV is that a sizeable minority of the 
> >population is prevented from having a voice in the nation's affairs. 
> >While Ross correctly notes that parties have more, not less influence 
> >under PR, on the whole I think this is balanced by allowing ALL 
> >viewpoints to be represented in Parliament, not just the popular ones.
> 
> I think it is more accurate to say simply that there is no one in the
> parliament who holds those particular minorities' points of view. The
> way in which minorities have a electoral voice in these systems,
> however, is by lining up with whichever of the larger blocs more
> nearly serves their interests.
> 
Well, if there is no one in parliament who holds their point of view, 
then their views are not being properly represented. In many cases, the 
closest idealogical block simply does not have the same view, or even an 
approximation of the minority point of view.

The Greens, for example, are probably closest to the NDP in idealogical 
terms, but many environmentalists are single issue oriented and despise 
the NDP. Yet, it is very difficult for them to elect a candidate of their 
own under the FPP system, in spite of having (probably) sizeable support 
- say 5 - 10 %. 

> An example from the U.S. of how this works is the way that the
> religious right-wingers were able, especially in the 80s, to get the
> Republican party to incorporate some of their views into its policies,
> in effect as a price for their support.
> 
> If it weren't for the presence of one of these interest groups, the
> positions of the larger blocs would shift in the opposite direction.
> On a crude model, if the 5% who are most extreme in some view were to
> "disappear", then balance point, the median, would shift to where the
> 52.5 percentile now is. The major parties are always balancing between
> losing the support of these groups, and losing the support of people
> who are in the middle or at the other extreme. The balance constantly
> shifts one direction or the other.
> 
> Of course, this is still regarded by many as constituting unfairly
> weak representation for those interests outside of the
> middle-mainstream. The fairness of voting systems is the subject of
> substantial debate. (There are books on this-- Dummett's
> _Voting_Systems_ just to name one). I think that "prevented from
> having a voice" is an exaggeration, however.
> 

While it's true that the inclusion of a minority view will shift one of 
the larger parties one way or the other, there is absolutely no guarantee 
that the larger party will provide a suitable idealogical home for the 
minority. In fact, they will often do their level best to keep the 
minority point of view from being heard in their party at all.

> In a sense, these non-PR voting systems are a way of enforcing a form
> of compromise, at a stage *before* the legislature is formed. One has
> to be willing to live with having representatives who are somewhat
> nearer to the main-stream than the population itself is, of less
> wide-ranging views, whether for good or ill. This has a "channeling"
> effect on views- it tends to drive opinions toward a middle ground.
> 

What they really do is to shut out all the voters in each riding who 
don't support the winning party. They slow the process of change within 
society by stifling debate within our national institutions, and by 
refusing any representation to all but the most mainstream views.



emd@ham.almanac.bc.ca  (Robert Smits, Ladysmith B.C.)

The way to get things out of a government is to back them to the wall, 
put your hands to their throats, and you will get all that they have. 
- Agnes McPhail
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