Canada’s Debate

So I haven’t been blogging much of late. I’m working a new job which requires me to leave at 7:45 in the morning; and I don’t get back here until around 11 hours later. More importantly (and I’m not necessarily proud of this), the batteries ran out in my keyboard a while back, and I was too lazy/disinterested to replace them. Hard to type without the keyboard…

But I’m juiced up again and running out of excuses; so when I see something irritating (see below) I should be able to point it out for all to see and mock. Like this “letter” in the Toronto Star this morning.

Ian Urquhart hopes we won’t be hearing about electoral reform for a long time. He believes the defeat of the referendum on MMP indicated a willingness to keep heading down the same road we are on. But he missed the most important fact about last week’s provincial election: Half the population were so turned off, they didn’t even bother to vote.

Democracy is the responsibility of citizens, no doubt about it. But if Urquhart’s democracy is so good, why did half the population stay home?

Say what you will about MMP; I’m not a fan. The fact of the matter is that democracy is only as vibrant as its citizens, and you need look no further than that for the cause of participation ‘woes.’ We all view our governments as impositions on our lives instead of the wonderful and unique institutions that our ancestors fought so hard for… and that is WHY half the population stays home. Does the author of this letter really expect me to believe that a population that is generally too lazy to sort its own recycling is put off of democracy because of the way that votes are proportioned?

Need proof? Lets look at some countries with MMP. Surely, if it’s the SYSTEM that’s the problem, with the introduction of MMP those countries should evince upswings in participation. I’ve culled three examples from my half-assed research on the subject. Germany, Italy and New Zealand. In Germany the voter participation rate has hovered between 72-75% since 1987. In Italy turnout has dropped every election from 1987; from 95% in 1987 to about 84% now. In New Zealand turnout peaked in the early 80’s around 89%, dropped to 81% by 1987, and now sits around 72% after a steady decline. Now in Canada, we have seen about a 10% drop since the mid 1980’s, with a four percent surge in the last federal election.

What do these numbers tell us? That participation is declining across MMP democracies the same way it is in our FPTP democracy. They also suggest that what REALLY drives interest in politics is the people we vote for. Look at the last federal election: two new party leaders (and one who was still fresh) and turnout surged 4%. They also tell me one more thing; the author of that letter is full of shit.