STEPHEN WOODWORTH: Proportional Representation or Democratic Representation?

Describing the basic flaw of Proportional Representation (PR) is challenging because advocates of PR offer at least a half dozen or more PR variations without ever specifying which one they propose should be implemented if we ditch ‘first past the post’ (FPTP), so agreeing to ditch FPTP in favour of adopting PR is like buying a pig in a poke.

That said, PR generally assigns legislators to Parties based on the Parties’ share of the popular vote, in addition to legislators directly elected to represent specific constituents, contributing in at least two ways to increased power to Party bosses. 

First, the extra legislators are accountable mainly to their Party rather than being representatives for any specific electors, since they owe their appointment to their Party. Legislators who act as if they are beholden to their Party rather than to electors are already a huge contributor to lack of democratic legitimacy in Canada’s electoral system today, and the question is whether we want to find ways to reduce that phenomenon or whether we want to normalize that problem with PR.

Second, PR focuses the electorate even more on the selection of Parties than on the selection of quality legislators by institutionalizing and legitimizing the idea that elections are about choosing between Parties rather than being about choosing between individual representatives. PR voting makes every vote mainly (even if not exclusively) about choosing a Party to represent you instead of choosing a local person to represent you, so the merits of the actual legislators are virtually beside the point. 

One can argue with some justification that this misconceived approach to voting already infests Canadian electoral politics but, as noted above, the question is whether we want to correct the problem or reinforce it and cement it into our institutional processes by adopting PR.

In the background there is an even worse implication from PR (from the perspective of maintaining a robust democratic system) that has already been creeping into our electoral politics, namely, that voting is already moving past Party identification to become a popularity contest between Party Leaders. 

This is quite apparent in dialogue about Canada’s current government. If electors had really been concerned with Parties (and their policies), the change of Liberal leadership, without changing Liberal Party goals or policies, would not have saved the Liberal Party. Instead, Canadian electoral politics has unhealthily veered toward personalized Leader selection (the most unreliable form of decision-making). The focus on Leader, without even the constraint of Party policy, and certainly without the constraint of accountability to legislators, is reminiscent of ancient Rome, where a Leader was chosen to be pro tem absolute dictator, albeit for a fixed term. 

Anyway, the implication is that, while PR is, on the surface, about choosing a governing Party, in reality it is about choosing a governing Leader, with appointed Party legislators owing their position to, and being mainly accountable to, not even a Party but the Leader (or those for whom he is a figurehead).

I won’t even go into the fact that the power-sharing arrangements necessary in a legislature with more Parties/Leaders present due to PR concentrate even more discretionary power in the hands of the Party leaders who negotiate those arrangements, even to allowing the very mandates on which they campaigned for election to be set aside for the purpose of securing power.

Do we legitimize, and reinforce, and normalize, and institutionalize, all of that by adopting Proportional Representation, or do we go in the opposite direction by finding ways to institutionalize greater independence, and consequent accountability to electors from elected representatives, by empowering democratic representatives through loosening their Party affiliation? I choose the latter!

The main advocates of PR are found in smaller factions who see appointments from PR as their ticket to greater power, at least putting them on the board. They’ve given up trying to influence collective decision-making by electing quality representatives as legislators. 

Will we put the interests of factional power acquisition ahead of strengthening democratic representation? I surely hope not, but I’m in a pessimistic place right now when it comes to Canadian democracy.


Stephen Woodworth ... served two terms as the Conservative Party of Canada MP for Kitchener Centre (2008 – 2011 and 2011 - 2015)