{"id":643,"date":"2025-05-03T13:34:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T21:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/?p=643"},"modified":"2025-05-03T13:34:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T21:34:29","slug":"ndp-should-demand-proportional-voting-next-election-in-return-for-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theholmteam.ca\/index.php\/2025\/05\/03\/ndp-should-demand-proportional-voting-next-election-in-return-for-support\/","title":{"rendered":"NDP should demand proportional voting next election in return for support"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A solid minority – but a few seats shy of control.\u00a0 Who will the Liberals naturally turn to for support?\u00a0 NDP and Greens obviously.\u00a0 And what should be the price of that support?\u00a0 Liberal commitment to enact, before the next federal election, an electoral system based on a proportional ballot; joining the democracies around the world who rank far above Canada in the 2024 Democracy Index.<\/p>\n

According to Sweden’s V-Dem Institute (University of Gothenburg) Democracy Report 2025:<\/a><\/p>\n

The top five democracies in the world use proportional representation.\u00a0 <\/b>Of the top 20 democracies, 18 use proportional representation. (And of the two countries that don\u2019t, one uses PR for its upper house and many state\/territorial level elections).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Canada, by comparison, comes in at #36 on the V-Dem Index, lower than the United States.<\/p>\n

In countries where votes really count, representative Parliaments and cooperative governments are the outcome.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>Of the top five democracies, three currently have broad majority coalition governments with parties that span the political spectrum, one has a left-leaning coalition, and one has a right leaning coalition. <\/b>The voices of more citizens are represented in Parliament and reflected in policy.\u00a0 In Canada, by comparison, the choice in this election is being framed as between two parties and two men, Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre, either of whom might end up wielding all the power with less than half the vote.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that researchers have repeatedly found that the <\/b>countries with proportional representation have lower levels of \u201caffective\u201d political polarization<\/b><\/a>. This kind of polarization goes beyond disagreements over ideas\u2015it leads people to see those neighbours who hold different political views as morally inferior or dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

If there\u2019s anything we can learn from the Americans, it’s that Canada doesn\u2019t need a two-party system<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n