Topic: Electoral Reform (Senate, Commons, & Gov Gen)

[E.R. Campbell]

Another appropriate cartoon:


Source:  http://www.artizans.com/image/MAY2845/stephen-harper-needs-seats-to-accommodate-clowns-in-commons-color/

[Thucydides]

Edward, next time you have Conrad Black over to your place, invite us too!

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/11/05/conrad-black-playing-the-monarchist-game-of-‘what-if’/

Conrad Black: Playing the monarchist game of ‘What if?’
   
Conrad Black  Nov 5, 2011 – 7:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Nov 4, 2011 5:08 PM ET

The proposed changes to the rules of British Commonwealth monarchic succession and marriage raise some interesting reflections on the past and future. Henceforth, if these changes are adopted, the eldest shall succeed regardless of sex. This is not only right in itself, but responds to the fact that British reigning queens have on average been more talented than the kings. Mary I was problematic; Mary II and Anne were adequate; Victoria and the present Queen are generally reckoned to be highly distinguished, and Elizabeth I is usually regarded as the greatest of all British sovereigns, and superior to almost all its government leaders also. (Having William Shakespeare as chief publicist has undoubtedly helped, but this is far from solely responsible for her prestige.)

If this proposed reform had been put in place in Victorian times, Princess Victoria and not Prince Albert Edward (Edward VII), would have succeeded; and as she died soon after her mother, the erratic character known to history as Kaiser Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria’s grandson, would have followed as King William V of Great Britain and Emperor William II of Germany (and India). In the circumstances, he might not have been tolerated by the British Parliament and public, but he might also have modified his behaviour as the potential accumulation of crowns impended, and been a unifying force. As it was, the British considered him a rather dynamic man until his addiction to Teutonic bumptiousness and his endless slights to Britain and his naval ambitions produced widespread hostility to him that crystallized in World War I as the mass British demand to “Hang the Kaiser!” (which of course, did not happen).

The proposed reforms also permit the monarch to have a Roman Catholic spouse. It is one of the many anomalies that survive from the tumult of Henrician times that this remains a problem. Henry VIII seized the Church’s property to pay for conducting a war in France, and set up the Church of England with himself as its head, ostensibly because under the influence of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the pope denied Henry an annulment from the Emperor’s niece, Queen Catherine.

Henry so enjoyed the title “Defender of the Faith,” given him by the pope in gratitude for a paper ghostwritten for him by Erasmus, that he had his puppet Parliament reconfer it, and it remains on some Canadian coinage (although Anglicans are fewer than 20% of Canadians).

Henry thus sundered the Christian Church in the British Isles, and married Anne Boleyn, but soon beheaded her on a false charge of adultery, in part for failure to produce a male heir, though the heir she did produce was the future, glorious Elizabeth I. Elizabeth had to wait out the proverbially bloody incumbency of her older half-sister, Mary, as the realm see-sawed back and forth with Rome over its adherence, and the Anglicans began a long self-examination, still not resolved, over whether they are Protestants or Catholics (though they have been quite consistent that they are not Roman Catholics).

If the paranoid official reaction to Rome had not arisen and persisted, the so-called (by MacAulay and the other utilitarian Whig myth-makers) Glorious Revolution of 1688 would not have occurred. The pig-headed James II was sent packing by his ungrateful daughters, scheming son-in-law, and the Duke of Marlborough, because he scandalized the Anglican establishment with his proposal of a Toleration Act for Roman Catholics, Jews, low church Protestants and non-believers, a concept 200 years ahead of its time. If the Stuarts had not been evicted, religious pluralism would have come earlier and the Hanoverians would not have been sent for.

This is all to say that these proposed reforms are desirable, but insufficient in themselves. The British monarch is not and never was a religious leader; the ecclesiastical differences between the Anglican and Roman Churches are subtle and could be bridged with a little flexibility on both sides. The Maronites and the Unionates (who have married clergy) are in communion with Rome and there were more obvious obstacles to those reconciliations than there are between Rome and Canterbury now.

Even those in the ostensibly Christian West who are not religious believers should recognize the positive and distinguished social and philosophical legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And the last decade of warfare should make it clear to everyone that before the West goes completely into the secular deep end it should cover the sectarian-spiritual flank with respectable religious institutions and beliefs adequate to acquit us all of this insufferable Islamist charge of being a material-obsessed society of fools and infidels. Christianity reigned for centuries before the versatile (but apparently infrequent flyer) Gabriel was reported in the Koran to have appeared on behalf of Muhammad. Militant Muslims are perfectly entitled to the practice of their faith, but not to the continuous and uncontradicted disparagement of the traditions of the West (especially when they have sought admission to that society).

Republicans in the Commonwealth have dismissed these proposed changes as anachronistic nonsense, but they speak too loudly and too soon. It is republics with ceremonious presidents that are nonsense. In Germany and Italy, the presidents are just stand-ins for the Hohenzollern and Savoy monarchs dispensed with after failed wars, and the parliamentary leaders (Chancellor Merkel and Premier Berlusconi) direct the governments. Those countries would do at least as well with royal families in honorific positions, as they retain considerable public interest, as coverage of a recent Hohenzollern wedding, and as the Cambridges and the younger Spanish and Dutch and Swedish royals have lately shown. Retention of any interest at all in government institutions in these times of generally (though not in relatively well-governed Ottawa) inept government is a signal achievement.

Republics with presidents who are both chiefs of state and heads of government, like the United States and Brazil, where there is no prime minister, have seriously taken their distance from monarchy, other than in the extent to which the trappings of the presidency and personality of the president replicate a monarchy. (Franklin D. Roosevelt, for instance, was in all but name a monarch, albeit an elected one.)

As for Canada, its problem with the monarchy is that it is non-resident and, literally, un-Canadian. If the Cambridges were here for one or more five-year terms, they would be a smash, not least as ambassadors for Canada opposite other countries. (This is no rap on David Johnston, an outstandingly qualified Governor-General in every respect.)

If for any reason, some such idea as this is not a runner, the governor general should become a co-chief of state with the monarch, and not just a stand-in. A serious country cannot have a viceroy as its chief of state other than for two weeks every three years or so when a monarch from overseas, however distinguished, and who is officially shared with other countries, is physically present in Canada.

We have good people and good institutions. What is needed is a little creative thinking. The republicans, pounding the table and just demanding the abolition of the monarchy, are not contributing much to what should be an interesting and certainly is a timely, discussion.

[E.R. Campbell]

Politically it is, I think, better to take away QC's right duty to be humiliated.

This gives them just a sliver more share of seats (23.28) than they have of population (23.22). Québec's share of seats has declined from 24.59% to 23.28%, that's sufficient. In a near perfect world Québec will get at least one more seat at the next (2016?) redistribution while AB, BC and ON each get several more.

The political point, I believe is to keep QC's share of seats at or just above its share of population while, gradually, moving the other provinces (even PEI) closer and closer to their fair shares. That works for me.

Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition must propose improvements, and it does, according to this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, by suggesting that Québec should have seven new seats:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/three-extra-seats-not-enough-for-quebec-ndp-tells-tories/article2228008/

Three extra seats not enough for Quebec, NDP tells Tories

JANE TABER
OTTAWA— Globe and Mail Update

Posted on Monday, November 7, 2011

The NDP is demanding Stephen Harper respect his own 2006 motion that recognized Quebeckers as a nation within a united Canada by changing its new bill to give the province more than three seats in an expanded Commons.

“That motion meant something. It was meant to mean something to the people of Quebec,” Opposition democratic-reform critic David Christopherson told The Globe recently. “But it will only mean something if they see that the House is respecting the spirit of what that was.”

Mr. Christopherson and the NDP are disputing the government’s so-called Fair Representation Act, which seeks to increase the number of seats in the House of Commons by 30 to recognize growing populations in certain regions of the country. Fifteen news seats would be added to Ontario’s current complement of 106; six each would go to British Columbia and Alberta, which have 36 and 28 seats respectively; and Quebec would add three more to its 75.

The NDP, however, wants Quebec’s representation to be set at 24.35 per cent of total Commons seats – which was the percentage it held in 2006 when the Prime Minister tabled the motion recognizing Quebec nationhood. (In an expanded 338-seat House, that would give the province 82 MPs instead of the 78 apportioned by the current Tory legislation.)

“That gives some meaning and effect and shows that we just weren’t talking about respect but were willing to show respect for the uniqueness of the Quebecois nation within a united Canada,” Mr. Christoperson said.

The Official Opposition represents 58 of the existing 75 federal seats in Quebec. To emphasize their concern with the province’s, New Democrats did not support the Fair Representation Act when it came to a vote in the Commons last week.

Nevertheless, armed with a majority, the Conservatives passed the bill easily to committee. Mr. Christopherson and his team hope to be able make changes there, but they’re suspicious about how the government arrived at its seat count.

The Hamilton MP said he will ask the Conservatives why they chose not to use the new census figures for the seat allotments. The government had previously based its formula on “something called the provincial population estimates, which is a number used in calculating transfer payments,” Mr. Christopherson explained.

“We want to know if this is really an improvement ... or was that the figure they needed to put into their calculations to give them the seats they wanted at the end of the process?”

The current legislation is the Harper government’s third attempt at reforming the Commons. It is quite different from the previous bills, which gave Ontario more seats and did not include any addition representation for Quebec – which proved to be a stumbling block.

Mr. Christopherson, however, said he remains “optimistic” and “open-minded” the bill can be changed in committee. His hope is that those hearings result in legislation all parties can support.

The NDP has to do this; they, more than any other party, represent Québec in Ottawa and this - maintaining more than a fair share of seats, is Québec's position. It will not cost them anything in ROC. I'm not sure that the Liberals are on as 'safe' a course in threatening to sue the government over hiring a unilingual Auditor General - that may not play as well in ROC.

[Thucydides]

A proposal from 308.com

http://threehundredeight.blogspot.com/2011/11/proposal-for-house-and-senate.html

A proposal for the House and the Senate

The Conservatives, Liberals, and New Democrats have all proposed changes that could be made to how seats are allocated and distributed in the House of Commons.

The Conservative proposal aims to improve representation by adding 30 seats to the House, while the New Democrats have proposed to give Quebec more seats than are being offered by the Tories in order to keep the province at the same level of representation it had when it was recognized as a "nation within a united Canada."

The Liberals then came forward with a proposal to keep the number of seats in the House at 308 to reduce costs, and change the allocation of seats within that 308 to improve representation. They are the only party to suggest removing seats from certain provinces.

All of these proposals are aimed at improving representation, but all of them fail to give each province proper representation. Due to the senatorial clause requiring that a province have at least as many seats in the House of Commons as they do in the Senate, changes of real substance are impossible. In order to give each province proper representation but keep Prince Edward Island at four seats, the number of MPs needs to be increased to over 900.

In other words, all of these solutions are temporary, incomplete solutions that pass the problem on to the future. If we want proper representation in the House of Commons (and that is up for debate as well), something bolder needs to be attempted.

If there was no senatorial clause and no fear of removing seats from a province, proper representation could be easily achieved. But those are two major obstacles.

In order to get the senatorial clause off the books, the provinces would need to agree. As there are a lot of provinces that stand to lose seats for no other gain that is a non-starter.

To make a change to representation in the House of Commons requires a removal of the senatorial clause, and in order to remove the clause something needs to be given to the provinces in return. Taking this into consideration, here is my humble proposal and I invite readers to pick it apart.

I should point out that this is my proposed solution to this particular problem, if it is a problem that needs a solution. I am not advocating that either the House or the Senate needs substantial reform. It just seemed like an interesting puzzle to tackle.

Firstly, let's look at how to change the House of Commons formula for allocating seats. We will assume that the senatorial and grandfather clauses have been negotiated away (more on that later).

The proposal is a simple one. Every ten years, the number of seats each province receives is determined based on the newest data from the last census.

The proportion of the national population made up by each province and territory is calculated, and then applied to the number of seats in the House of Commons at the time of the re-distribution. In other words, there are 308 seats in the House now and if a province has 10% of the country's population, the province receives 30.8 seats. All decimals are then rounded-up, so this would give the province 31 seats. Using the latest estimates from Statistics Canada, this would give us the following seat distribution:

There are two reasons for rounding-up across the board. For one, it ensures that the territories would each have at least one MP. Secondly, it increases the size of the House incrementally every ten years, ensuring that MPs aren't representing huge ridings several decades from now but also ensuring that the House isn't growing by 30 seats every ten years.

Now, to the Senate. In order to get this kind of change approved by some of the provinces that stand to lose seats using this new formula, they need to be given something in the Senate. My proposal envisions a complete overhaul of how senators are chosen.

There would be 100 senators in this new Senate, with 10 from each province. This is similar to the U.S. Senate, where each state is represented by two senators. In this proposal, the House of Commons provides representation by population while the Senate is our chamber of second thought - an assembly of the provinces.

Senators, however, are not simply appointed by the federal government in this proposal. To get representation by population in the House, the federal apparatus gives up a little power in the Senate. In this proposal, the federal government chooses 40 of the senators while the remaining 60 are chosen by the provincial governments.

But in order to give the Senate a longer view towards the legislation it reviews, senators are not chosen en masse.

Each province would appoint two senators after each provincial election, meaning that senators would serve for three "terms". Each term begins and ends with a provincial election. This means senators would be entering and leaving the Senate at different times. A string of majority provincial governments would mean a senator's term could last 15 years (or 12 in the case of fixed-election provinces), while a string of minority governments could reduce a senator's term significantly. With each new provincial election, two new senators are appointed by the provincial government and the two longest serving senators from that province are dropped.

The purpose of giving the provinces the choice of 60 of the Senate's 100 members is to give them a reason to get on board. Provincial governments would actually have representatives, chosen by the provincial party leaders themselves, in Ottawa. While some provinces would lose representation in the Senate, they would gain influence as those members would be directly responsible to the provincial governments.

It would be the same system for the federal appointees, though they would sit for four terms. After each federal election, 10 federal senators (one from each province) would be appointed to the Senate, with the  longest serving federal senator from each province leaving the Senate.

But the Senate should not be a place to reward political operatives, and it should be accountable to the population. To reflect this, in addition to nominating candidates in provincial and federal ridings, parties would be required to nominate the people they would appoint to the Senate during an election campaign. This would prevent defeated candidates for the House of Commons being appointed to the Senate, since both riding candidates and senatorial candidates would need to be named for the vote is held.

For example, in the last election campaign each party would have nominated one senator per province that they would appoint if elected as the government. So, in addition to the 308 candidates they would also have 10 senator candidates. This would give voters an extra thing to consider when heading to the ballot box, and force parties to choose worthy senatorial candidates in order to help their parties' electoral chances.

Provincial parties would do the same during their election campaigns, nominating the two senators they would appoint to the Senate if elected.

One of the objections some provinces have to an elected senate would be removed in this manner. Elected senators would compete with the provincial government as a voice for the province. Provincial senators appointed by provincial governments would not be in competition with their governments - they would be answerable to them.

To avoid cases where senatorial nominees would resign immediately after being appointed in order to give the government in power the opportunity to appoint someone else, first-term senators would not be replaced if they retire. Only in case of death would a first-term senator's vacated spot be filled by the government, while vacancies arising from the death or retirement of two-, three, or four-term senators would be filled by the government in power but these appointees would be considered to have sat for as long as their replacement.

In other words, the replacement of a retiring fourth-term senator would only sit out that remaining term. Of course, the governing party could nominate this senator again in the next election campaign.

This system would retain the long-term view that senators can currently take into account, as terms could be as long as 16 years for federal senators. It would also make the make-up of the Senate different from the House, giving it a different point of view, both in terms of the staggering-in of appointees and the different parties represented.

Assuming that no senators would have died or retired and that this system had already been in place for the last four federal elections and three provincial elections, the make-up of the Senate would be as follows:

This would certainly give a lot of legislation sobre second thought, particularly considering that the voting blocks would not be as monolithic as they are now. The 56 Conservative/Progressive Conservative/Saskatchewan Party senators, along with the six B.C. Liberals, would be expected to vote together on a lot of legislation, but if the federal government is proposing things that are not in line with the interests of, say, Atlantic Canadian provinces, the coalition of 62 conservatives could fall apart. If the 16 Progressive Conservatives from Atlantic Canada voted with the opposition, for example, they could send a bill back to the House for revision.

In this way, the Senate would be more useful and also more accountable, as senatorial nominees would play a role in ensuring that their provincial or federal parties have success in elections and they would also play a role in ensuring that they can be joined by like-minded senators in subsequent elections. A senator that enrages the population may hurt his party's chances in the next election, meaning the balance of power within a provincial delegation could be changed. But at the same time, as a senator is in for at least three terms, they would be able to do what is right rather than what is popular from time to time.

By giving the provinces an incentive to remove the senatorial clause, this proposal improves representation within the House. It also makes the Senate a potentially more effective chamber with far more diverging points of view and senators not accountable to the federal government. It also has an aspect of electoral support thrown in, giving senators greater legitimacy.

Is our current system dysfunctional? Perhaps not, and these changes are not required. But it is, I hope, an interesting alternative solution.

Over to you readers for comment and criticism!

[Thucydides]

Here is a really good (if long) article that outlines the roles of the GG and the PM, and clarifies a lot of nebulous arguments about reserve powers, who does what and so on:

http://parliamentum.org/2011/11/28/constitutional-scholarship-or-political-activism-the-role-of-the-academy-following-the-coalition-prorogation-crisis-of-2008/

Constitutional Scholarship or Political Activism? The Role of the Academy Following the Coalition-Prorogation Crisis of 2008
Posted on 2011/11/28
     
Introduction

The line between academia and scholarship on the one hand and punditry and activism on the other has become increasingly blurred in Canada, especially in the wake of the coalition-prorogation crisis of December 2008. Recent works like Democratizing the Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government are emblematic of the attempt, as well as the failure, to reconcile the mutually exclusive concepts of political activism and constitutional scholarship.

A spin off of that book, Lori Turnbull’s column “A three-peat for prorogation? Bring on reform” in the Globe and Mail also effectively underscores this problem: sometimes the correct academic argument becomes an obstacle to effective activism. The article makes at least two factual errors and, more broadly, purports a serious conceptual error of interpretation about the nature of crown prerogative and the role of unwritten convention in Canada’s constitution.

Problems with Turnbull’s Column and Democratizing the Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government

On Prorogation and Crown Prerogative

Turnbull argued:

Technically, the power to prorogue belongs to the Crown and can be exercised “officially” by the governor-general alone, but this would never happen without the advice of the prime minister. No Canadian governor-general has refused a prime minister’s advice to prorogue. So history would suggest that the prime minister, not the governor-general, calls the tune, regardless of where the power lies constitutionally. This is not the case in other Westminster jurisdictions.


The Dignified and the Efficient Parts of the Crown

The Supreme Court of Canada recognized in the Patriation Reference that “constitutional conventions plus constitutional law equal the total constitution of the country.” Therefore,  constitutional conventions and the written constitution form equally important parts of Canada’s constitution. The Supreme Court cannot use one part of the constitution (like the Charter) the strike down another part of the constitution (like crown prerogative or parliamentary privilege). The Constitution Act, 1982 mentions that the governor general dissolves parliament, but the Letters Patent, 1947 provide the only complete written instruction that the governor general summons, prorogues, and dissolves parliament. By convention, the governor general cannot exercise any of those powers independently and does so only on the advice of the prime minister. According to the Manual of Official Procedure of the Government of Canada, the governor general’s reserve powers may allow him to reject the prime minister’s advice to dissolve, but not to prorogue or summon, parliament. The rejection of the prime minister’s advice does not equal independent gubernatorial action. Strictly speaking, “the Crown” consists of two parts, what Bagehot called the “dignified” and “efficient” functions, respectively: the Sovereign and governor general, and the prime minister and cabinet. Thus, “crown prerogative” follows this division; the sovereign or governor general possesses “reserve powers” (what I call “royal prerogative”), and prime minister and cabinet control the Governor-in-Council’s crown prerogative.

Given the role of convention in Canada’s constitution, I disagree with Turnbull’s assertion that the governor general can “officially” summon, prorogue, or dissolve parliament independently. Turnbull states correctly that no governor general has ever rejected the prime minister’s advice to prorogue. Based on my analysis above, I find the next statement problematic: “So history would suggest that the prime minister, not the governor-general, calls the tune, regardless of where the power lies constitutionally.” (Isn’t the idiom ‘to call the shots’?) The “power lies constitutionally” in both the governor general and the prime minister, who in effect jointly exercise this crown prerogative.

This over-simplification of crown prerogative and the role of convention in Canada’s constitution probably resulted from the constraints of the newspaper column. In any case, I would have attempted to re-phrase the nature of crown prerogative more effectively, perhaps as:
The crown’s prerogative powers to summon, prorogue, and dissolve in fact rest with both the governor general and the prime minister because the former only acts on the advice of the latter. Any attempt to alter formally and substantively this relationship between the governor general and the prime minister – the crown as a whole – would require an amendment to Section 41 (a) of the Constitution Act, 1982 (“the Office of the Queen, Governor General, and Lieutenant Governor of a province”), which requires the unanimity of the Parliament of Canada and all 10 provincial legislatures.

But more fundamentally, I disagree that the crown prerogative on prorogation should be eliminated and the power vested in the legislature, and ironically, this system would detract from the House’s”basic functions, including holding the government to account.” The government introduces most legislation, for which the opposition holds the government to account. The Prime Minister normally advises prorogation upon the completion of his government’s legislative program; the House’s basic function of holding the crown to account for its expenditures does not include the determination of the end of the government’s legislative agenda.

Jarvis and Turnbull acknowledge in the conclusion of Democratizing the Constitution that their plan to eliminate the crown prerogative of prorogation and vest it in parliament via a two-thirds supermajority would require a formal constitutional amendment, but I think that they have greatly underestimated the difficulty in achieving unanimity under Section 41 (a) of the Constitution Act, 1982.

Nevertheless, in her individual column, Turnbull argues that the Standing Orders of the House of Commons could formally constrain or eliminate the crown prerogative on prorogation.

A political prorogation is a blatant abuse of a prime minister’s access to the Crown’s prerogative powers. As citizens of an elected democracy, we should not tolerate it and, with a few basic changes to the House rules, we wouldn’t have to [emphasis added].     

I guess that Turnbull forgot about the arguments and political activism contained in her own book? Maybe Turnbull should have talked to Jarvis before submitting this column, and then he could have reminded her about the book that they wrote together, and how it was more accurate about this particular subject…

“Other Westminster Jurisdictions”. Which Ones? Please Elaborate!

Turnbull argues : “So history would suggest that the prime minister, not the governor-general, calls the tune, regardless of where the power lies constitutionally. This is not the case in other Westminster jurisdictions.” In which other Westminster jurisdictions has the crown prerogative on prorogation been eliminated? As I explained in the entry on Alex Salmond’s vision of an independent Scotland, the Scottish Parliament has eliminated the crown prerogatives on the summoning and dissolution of parliament by codifying the fixed elections to and automated summoning of parliament in the Scotland Act, 1998. However, the Scotland Act makes no mention whatsoever of the words “prorogue” and “prorogation”, which means that rather than eliminating the crown prerogative on prorogation, it eliminated prorogation itself. I explained in my entries on fixed-elections in the Commonwealth that the Westminster Parliament has devised the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, which eliminates the crown prerogative on dissolution. The Act also says in Section 6, Paragraph 1 that “This Act does not affect Her Majesty’s power to prorogue Parliament.” The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, 2011 does not affect prorogation at all. The New Zealand Cabinet Manual and the website of the Governor-General of New Zealand indicate that the Governor-General summons, prorogues, and dissolves parliament on the advice of the Prime Minister. The website of the Governor-General of Australia shows that the Australian viceroy carries precisely the same functions. None of the Canadian provinces have eliminated crown prerogative on prorogation either. I’m quite certain that all six Australian states also preserved the traditional standard.

So what other Westminster jurisdiction operates on the Jarvis-Turnbull principle that only a supermajority of two-thirds of the MPs in the lower house can sanction prorogation? I’ve only looked to the core Commonwealth, but I really wanted to know! Maybe Tuvalu or Jamaica do? And what does Turnbull mean by “Westminster jurisdiction”? I suspect that the phrase would only include legislatures within the 16 Commonwealth Realms that recognize Queen Elizabeth II as their Sovereign, but the vague term could also conceivably include any parliament within one of the 54 member-states (this figure includes the 16 Realms) of the Commonwealth of Nations, since they were all once part of the British Empire. Surely, the editors of the Globe and Mail could have accommodated a few extra words that elaborate on this argument.

Prime Minister Harper Has Thus Far Advised THREE Prorogations, Not Two.

Compared to the aforementioned significant conceptual errors, this statement seems minor. But surely, a Professor of Political Science should still have avoided making such a careless error. The Parliament of Canada provides an excellent repository of information on all of Canada’s 41 Parliaments, called ParlInfo. It compiles all statistics on the life of all 41 Parliaments, including every summoning, adjournment, prorogation, intersession, and dissolution in the history of the institution.

Turnbull argued: “If the rumours are true, this would be the third time that Mr. Harper has prorogued Parliament. The first occurred in December, 2008 [...].” This is incorrect. According to ParlInfo’s statistics on the 39th Parliament, Prime Minister Harper advised that his first prorogation occur on 14 September 2007, and the 2nd session of the 39th Parliament then convened on 16 October 2007 with a Speech from the Throne. Harper subsequently advised prorogation twice in the 40th Parliament. The first prorogation of the 41st Parliament will be the Harper government’s FOURTH, not third. Perhaps Turnbull meant, “the first prorogation of the 41st Parliament will be the Harper government’s third controversial prorogation.”

More fundamentally, now that the PM Harper leads a majority government, why would he advise a prorogation before the completion of his legislative agenda? Turnbull’s column never adequately responds to this point. The Prime Minister will not advise a prorogation until his current legislation program has passed both Houses of Parliament and received Royal Assent. Turnbull herself acknowledges that “[Routine prorogations] occur when the government has fully implemented its current agenda.” Perhaps Turnbull fears that the intersession of the prorogation would become too long. But in a majority parliament, the Harper government would never employ what she terms a “political prorogation” in order “to muzzle opposition criticism, to escape parliamentary scrutiny.” Her argument breaks down at this stage, because the Prime Minister clearly would not request a prorogation in a majority parliament until his legislation program has received Royal Assent, and because the opposition cannot truly threaten the viability of the government; only the Conservative backbenchers can in this majority parliament.

Turnbull continues:

The 2012 prorogation would be substantively different. First, there is no obvious political land mine to avoid. Second, the Conservatives have demonstrated how majority status confers an immunity of sorts from even the most scathing criticism from the opposition benches. These factors make a potential upcoming prorogation less necessary from a political standpoint, but the fact remains: We live in a country where a prime minister can shut down the House, the pre-eminent institution of our parliamentary democracy, on a whim, for no particular reason.

Conclusion

Essentially, the last quoted paragraph says, “I don’t like Stephen Harper, and therefore the rules by which prorogation is carried out should be changed.” This is what I mean by political activism as opposed to constitutional scholarship. The political activists use emotive words and phrases with negative connotations like “abuse”, “acting in bad faith”, “shutting down parliament”, etc. in order to justify their arguments and, more importantly, in order to portray anyone who disagrees with them as enablers of this “abuse.” This method therefore assigns a negative moral judgement to all those who disagree with the political activist’s arguments and attempts to portray those opposed as deceptive at best and evil at worst. This political activist’s tactic subtlety attempts to limit the parameters of acceptable discourse from the outset; in contrast, a true constitutional scholar would “follow the logos”, acknowledge the fair points of opposing arguments, and draw conclusions after examining all available evidence. The political activist defines his position and dismisses competing views as not only factually incorrect or conceptually flawed, but as morally wrong. In so doing, the political activist attempts to frame the debate and market his ideas in the media and to anyone who will listen.

Ultimately, academics must choose: will they engage in true constitutional scholarship, or will they descend into punditry and political activism? In addition, once they have chosen, will they masquerade thinly veiled political activism as having produced true constitutional scholarship? As I described in the “about” section of this blog, the Coalition-Prorogation Crisis of 2008 galvanized me and motivated me to learn more about Canada’s constitution. At the time, the Conservatives made incorrect and inaccurate statements about the legality of coalition governments in the Westminster system; and the Liberal-New Democratic coalition that the Bloc supported made incorrect and inaccurate statements about prorogation, crown prerogative, and what constitutes a loss of confidence in the government. I reserve criticism for both sides. In “No Discretion”, Nick MacDonald and I offered a novel interpretation of prorogation and the nature of the reserve powers of the crown, which I hope has enriched the overall scholarship and academic literature. However, in the conclusion, we acknowledged the normative nature of some of the arguments and that they contradict how some of the events unfolded in reality– because that piece intended to offer novel constitutional scholarship that challenged the prevailing orthodoxy through an historical analysis, rather thinly-veiled political activism designed as a call to reform the system.

While researching for my individual paper that contributed to “No Discretion”, a wise historian told me that in the wake of the Coalition-Prorogation Crisis of 2008, many scholars have conflated the political with the constitutional (in other words, used their political views in order to make an interpretations of the constitution) and thus failed to maintain the distinctions between the two. I could not agree more, and I would extend the distinction to one of constitutional scholarship vs. political activism.

[E.R. Campbell]

Good news about new seats in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/adding-seats-to-house-of-commons-a-political-windfall-for-tories/article2271940/

Roll on 2015!

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post is a good graphic showing the details of the (pending) new seat redistribution:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/15/graphic-renovating-the-house-of-commons/

[Rifleman62]

The next major renovation for the parliament building will be the removal of all the desks in the House of Commons, as like the UK.

[E.R. Campbell]

The next major renovation for the parliament building will be the removal of all the desks in the House of Commons, as like the UK.

I agree with you because if we are ever going to get anywhere near something like "rep by pop" (excepting for the three Territories, PEI and Newfoundland and Labrador which, for constitution reasons must remain badly overrepresented in a house with less than about 900 seats) then we need, by 2019, to have a HoC with 399 seats distributed as shown below (assuming the provincial shares (for eight provinces) of the national population remains the same as now).

[E.R. Campbell]

Seven new (Conservative) senators, according to this article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pm-appoints-seven-new-senators-many-with-tory-ties/article2294404/

PM appoints seven new senators, many with Tory ties

GLORIA GALLOWAY

OTTAWA— From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jan. 06, 2012

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has further assured the allegiance of the Red Chamber with the naming of seven new senators, many of them with strong ties to his Conservative Party.

The group includes a former Conservative MP, a failed Conservative candidate and a Conservative organizer. Also included is Betty Unger, who ran unsuccessfully for the Canadian Alliance and placed second in a Senate election in her home province of Alberta in 2004.

“I look forward to working with these talented individuals in Parliament,” Mr. Harper said in a news release issued late on Friday afternoon when the appointments were made public.

Mr. Harper came to office in 2006 vowing not to appoint unelected senators. But he reversed that position in late 2008, naming 18 people, most of them known for their service to the Conservative Party.

Charlie Angus, the NDP critic for democratic reform, whose party would like the Senate abolished, said it is clear that Mr. Harper is intent on filling the Chamber with Tory partisans. “It seems the only qualification to get a job in Ottawa is to have flipped pancakes at Conservative fundraisers,” he said.

Daniel Lauzon, a spokesman for the federal Liberals, said appointments announced late on a Friday afternoon speak for themselves, and that the backgrounds of the appointees demonstrate that they are intensely partisan.

All new senators have pledged to support legislation to limit term lengths and encourage the provinces and territories to hold elections for Senate nominees. They are:

JoAnne Buth in Manitoba. Ms. Buth is president of the Canola Council of Canada, a group that has received millions of dollars from the federal Conservative government.

Norman Doyle in Newfoundland. Mr. Doyle entered federal politics as a Progressive Conservative MP in 1997. He served in Newfoundland’s House of Assembly from 1979 to 1993, holding several cabinet portfolios.

Ghislain Maltais in Quebec. Mr. Maltais worked as a contractor for the Conservative Party of Canada from 2006 to 2007, and has been the director of the Conservative Party in Quebec since 2009.

Asha Seth in Ontario. Dr. Seth is an obstetrician and gynecologist in Toronto and is best known for her philanthropic endeavours. She founded the NIMDAC Foundation, which has raised funds for organizations such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Betty Unger in Alberta. Ms. Unger has been a “senator-in-waiting” since 2004, when she placed second in an election to Bert Brown, who was appointed to the Senate in 2007. She was a candidate for the Canadian Alliance in Edmonton West in the federal election of 2000, but lost to Liberal cabinet minister Anne McLellan.

Vernon White in Ontario. Mr. White has been the Chief of Police in Ottawa since May, 2007. He has also been head of the Regional Police Service in Durham, Ont., and spent more than 20 years with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, leaving as an assistant commissioner.

Jean-Guy Dagenais in Quebec. Mr. Dagenais was the Conservative candidate in the riding of Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot in last year’s federal election. He worked as a peace officer from 1972 to 1996 at the Sûreté du Québec. His appointment will take effect after he clears up some legal formalities, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

[ballz]

So, I'm confused... I thought PM Harper was appointing Senators before so he could get a majority in the Senate, in order to reform it... "playing at their own game" so to speak....

Is it really necessary, now that he has a majority in the HoC and a majority in the Senate, to appoint 7 more? Seems like a lot of extra cash being spent for no reason, by a self-proclaimed "fiscally responsible" government...

[recceguy]

So, I'm confused... I thought PM Harper was appointing Senators before so he could get a majority in the Senate, in order to reform it... "playing at their own game" so to speak....

Is it really necessary, now that he has a majority in the HoC and a majority in the Senate, to appoint 7 more? Seems like a lot of extra cash being spent for no reason, by a self-proclaimed "fiscally responsible" government...

Seriously?

The NDP would do exactly the same thing given the chance.

The liberals always have anyway.

It's an opportunity to hamstring future opposing governments.

It's called politics.

If provinces elected their Senators, like Harper has asked, he'd pick from them, no matter their stripe. Maybe he's fed up asking and is intent on forcing them.

[ballz]

Seriously?

The NDP would do exactly the same thing given the chance.

The liberals always have anyway.

It's an opportunity to hamstring future opposing governments.

It's called politics.

If provinces elected their Senators, like Harper has asked, he'd pick from them, no matter their stripe. Maybe he's fed up asking and is intent on forcing them.

Yes, seriously, I was asking for an analysis of what he's doing... I don't care what other parties "would do," that's not a good excuse to make the same mistake and it's not why I voted for the Tories. If I wanted what the Libs would do, I would have voted for them.

If it's all part of the political process to actually end up with Senate Reform, fine, I'd just like to have an idea of how this ties into it. I don't understand a lot of the "political games," but quite frankly I would hope it's for a better reason than the reasons the Libs were stacking the Senate before (aka, to hamstring the Tories when they are in government).

If I'm going to complain when a party I didn't vote for does it, I better complain when the party I voted for does.

[E.R. Campbell]

I think the PM might be on constitutionally shaky ground were he to stop appointing senators for no good reason. The Senate is a legislative body; it does have a role; its members, the senators, are a legitimate part of our process - someone has to represent the provinces. The PM should keep the Senate "up to strength," or near there.

I do not see Stephen Harper doing anything radical, such as I have proposed many pages back. Changes to the Senate will be incremental until Prime Minister Harper is gone.

[GAP]

Although some seem to backtracking, all the new appointees have committed to an eight year term.....now if the LPC gets back into power, it would be amusing to watch how many say....who, me? uh uh....never heard of that!....it's 75 or bust!!

 

[E.R. Campbell]

More on the Senate, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/appointments-give-harper-upper-hand-in-senate-reform-battle/article2297093/

Appointments give Harper upper hand in Senate-reform battle

JOHN IBBITSON

Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2012

With seven new senators – all appointed by Stephen Harper last Friday and all reliably Conservative – soon to join the Other Place, we can make this out-on-a-limb prediction: The next senators from Saskatchewan and New Brunswick will be elected.

Last week’s appointments should be sufficient to overcome resistance to the Senate Reform Act from within the Prime Minister’s own Senate caucus, which means the bill will almost certainly become law, probably in the first half of next year.


It’s a long road for legislation that Mr. Harper has been pushing since he first came to power in 2006. But the end of that road is finally in sight.

The Conservatives thought they would have an easy time with Senate reform once they had their majority government. They hoped that a bill limiting senators to nine-year terms, and allowing provinces to hold senatorial elections – with the Prime Minister promising to respect the outcome of those elections – would be in place by last Christmas.

The Tories’ own ranks proved to be an emerging new threat to the legislation, however. Some of the Conservative senators started having second thoughts about giving up their jobs so quickly, arguing that they’d be forced to leave just as they began to get the hang of things. With the Liberals solidly opposed, it wasn’t clear that the government had a majority for the bill in the Red Chamber.

So the Conservatives decided to introduce Bill C-7, the Senate Reform Act, in the House instead, where it is currently awaiting a vote on Second Reading.

All the Conservative MPs who were to speak to the bill have spoken to it. But the Liberals and NDP appear determined to have every MP contribute to the debate, which is delaying the vote.

The Conservatives do not intend to impose closure on the bill. House Leader Peter Van Loan insists that time allocation was only imposed last year on bills that were crucial priorities and key elements of the Conservatives’ election platform. Besides, bringing the hammer down on something as fundamental as changing the rules of Parliament would look just awful.

Nonetheless, sometime before June the opposition is expected to run out of MPs to throw into this mini-filibuster. Once it passes second reading, the bill will go to committee, and then return to the House for third and final reading.

Perhaps that final vote will come before Christmas; perhaps it will come in Spring 2013. But it will come. Then the legislation will head to the Senate. Thanks to those seven new Tory senators, it is certain to pass there as well.

In the meantime, six senators will retire this year, four of them Conservative and two Liberal, having reached the age limit of 75.

One retiree represents Saskatchewan; the other New Brunswick. Both provinces have committed to holding elections for future senators. The word is that Mr. Harper won’t appoint senators for those two provinces, waiting instead for them to vote a nominee. So we should be welcoming elected senators from the Prairies and the Maritimes in the not-too-distant future.

The Quebec government is vowing to challenge the Senate Reform Act in court. As the Supreme Court’s December ruling on a proposed national securities regulator revealed, Tory assumptions that their agenda is judicially bullet-proof may prove to be premature.

But barring a judicial veto, as of next year, senators will have only nine-year lives, and provinces that want to can begin holding senatorial elections as vacancies crop up.

By the next election in 2015, we may already have a sense of whether the whole thing was a good idea.

I have, previously, expressed my views on how the Senate can and should be reformed without amending the Constitution ~ elect senators, on a pure proportional representation system, during provincial general elections and, maybe, enlarge the senate to give more seats to the Western provinces.

I did a quick survey of the most recent provincial general election results and this is what my Senate would look like right now, assuming all senators were elected as described:

BQ/PQ:                  8
Conservatives:     29
Liberals:              38
NDP:                   19
Other QC Parties:  4
Others:                 3
Sask Party:           4
TOTAL:              105


But I had to revise my numbers because it is not clear that, for example, all BC and QC Liberals would caucus with the Liberal Party of Canada. Some, in fact, would likely choose to sit with the Conservatives, as would the Sask Party senators.

My revised standings are:

BQ/PQ:               8
Conservatives:  40
Liberals:            33
NDP:                 19
Others:               5
TOTAL:            105

[RangerRay]

In the next while or so, it may be easier to differentiate between liberals and conservatives in BC.  Recent polls show the BC Conservatives are tied with the BC Liberals, as former BC Liberal supporters abandon the party in droves.

[MCG]

It seems the Liberals are in favour of a preferential ballot:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/01/15/pol-liberal-convention-sunday.html?cmp=rss

...

Finally, Liberals also voted 73 per cent in favour of a preferential balloting system. The motion titled states that the party "implement a preferential ballot for all future national elections."
 
Quebec Liberal MPs Justin Trudeau and Stephane Dion spoke in favour of it. Dion said the motion would lead to a "more civilized debate in our country."

...

It would certainly be interesting to see the results of such a system in place.  While it would correct for vote splitting within a given riding, it would not do the same at the trans-riding level.  In other words, those parties competing for the split vote would win more ridings collectively but they would still split the total ridings between eachother. The years of huge Liberal majorities while the right was split would instead have been Liberal minority governments (or Conservative/Alliance coalition governments), and the current Conservative majority would likely have been another minority.

If one believes the role of the MP is to contribute to the empire of the party, then this would be an unfavorable idea.  However, since the role of MP is to represent the riding, a preferential ballot or transferable vote would ensure the MP is more representative of the riding.

[Thucydides]

As a small "l" libertarian I find this article quite refreshing, as the closure of debate is quite objectionable, but the SuperPAC model is simply silly:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/01/20/andrew-coyne-a-less-comedic-balance-for-the-political-marketplace/

Andrew Coyne: A less comedic balance in the political marketplace
Andrew Coyne  Jan 20, 2012 – 7:33 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 20, 2012 7:40 PM ET

For once, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have met their match. If you’ve not been following, Stewart has taken over control of Colbert’s “Super PAC” — a private, supposedly independent fundraising organization, or “political action committee” as they’re called in the States — while Colbert runs for “President of South Carolina.” The two comedians make an elaborate show of not communicating with each other, in obedience to U.S. election law, even as they are very obviously communicating with each other.

But nothing they could do could top the act being put on by Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Each protests loudly at the millions of dollars the other’s Super PAC has spent on advertising attacking him. Each professes not to have seen his own Super PAC’s ads, then defends their contents as true, then piously asserts that if they contain any allegations that are false they should of course be corrected — all the while insisting he has had no communication with the organization responsible.


It’s the U.S. campaign finance laws, in other words, that have become the biggest joke. Whatever restrictions the candidates and parties are under as to how they raise and spend funds, the Super PACs can raise funds in any amount from virtually any source and spend it in any way they see fit, to exactly the same purpose.

At the other extreme, there is Canada. If independent advocacy groups are, absurdly, under no restriction in the U.S., in Canada they are absurdly restricted. While the political parties were limited to spending roughly $21-million each in the last federal election campaign, so-called “third-party” groups were confined to just over $180,000 — less than one one-hundredth as much. The appearance last week of a single ad, available so far only on YouTube, criticizing the Liberal interim leader, Bob Rae, was enough to prompt demands for draconian curbs to be imposed on such expressions of political opinion, even between elections.

At which point things become not so much absurd as chilling. It’s fair to say the ad’s sponsor, the National Citizens Coalition (president emeritus: Stephen Harper), is more or less shilling for the governing Conservatives. But what if they weren’t? What if they were just a group of people who wanted to make their views known?

Still, the concern is not entirely illegitimate. We don’t have to look to the States for examples of unregulated third-party spending run amok: in Ontario, whose electoral laws are nothing like as strict, the Working Families Coalition — a front for the province’s unions, and by implication the governing Liberals — spent millions of dollars before and during the last election attacking the provincial Conservatives.

Are those the only two options, then? Either auction political office to the highest bidders, or reserve the right to speak freely on political matters to the political parties — and the media? No. There’s a third way.

The purely libertarian view, as set out by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision that opened the Super PAC floodgate, is that “money is speech”: to prevent people from spending money to express a view amounts to preventing them from expressing it. Up to a point, that’s a reasonable position. And to a point even our Supreme Court agrees. Hence what was previously a total ban on third-party advertising here was rolled back to the present near-total ban.

But even the U.S. Supreme Court would probably accept the legitimacy of limiting contributions to political parties, insofar as these could otherwise come to resemble bribes. So the slightly-less-libertarian position would permit limits on spending for private political advocacy, the more nearly it resembled a direct contribution to a party: ads that explicitly supported or opposed a candidate or party, for example, rather than a cause or view.

What might such a regime look like? Start from first principles. It is widely agreed that every citizen should have equal ability to influence the outcome of an election at the ballot box: one person, one vote. It follows they should have roughly equal ability to do so in the course of the campaign. In terms of the present argument, they should each be able to spend roughly the same amount on it. That suggests a system based on individual contributions — no union, corporate or government money — and individual contribution limits, much as we have now.

How each chooses to participate, however, should be up to the individual. In particular, whether he chooses to contribute to a political party, or to an advocacy group, or to spend his money directly, it should be no business of the state. Rather than have one system of contribution limits for political parties and another for advocacy groups or individuals, that suggests they should all come under the same umbrella: a global, annual ceiling, say $10,000, on the amount an individual could spend on political advocacy — through whatever vehicle. Ideally, you’d donate via the income tax return; even more ideally, anonymously.

Because it did not discriminate between types of political participation, such a system would be self-equilibrating: the more you gave to one group, the less you’d have left to give to another. Indeed, since all spending on political advocacy — again, here defined as explicitly supporting or opposing a candidate or party — would have to be financed in this way, there would be no need for further limits on campaign spending, such as we now impose. Because (back to first principles) it’s not equality between parties we want to protect, but equality between individuals.

Pure libertarians won’t like it. But this strikes me as a better way to balance freedom and fairness in the political marketplace than either country has managed to date.

[OTBthinker]

I'm new to this forum so I haven't had time yet to read all the posts, but has anyone discussed the possibility of a mixed electoral system using our current constituency-based system and incorporating elements of proportional representation to it?

The advantages of a mixed system would be that it would be easy for the electorate to understand since they would be voting in exactly the same way, but the results would more closely match a proportional system.

[RangerRay]

In my opinion, there are many things wrong with mixed proportional systems.

The constituencies become much larger.  This may not seem like a problem in relatively homogenous urban areas, but when you merge 2 to 5 rural areas into one super-riding, you lose representation, especially if the super-riding is dominated by a medium sized city 3 hours away.  Rather than having an MP to represent, for example, 100,000, that MP will represent 300,000 or more.

You still have "list candidates" not voted directly by constituents, but elected via proportional representation.  In other countries, these pols may be unpopular amongst the voters, yet due to their ties to the party, they could be the first candidate on the list to be elected on proportional lists.

You also get the fringe party tail wagging the mainstream party dog.  In many countries, mainstream centre-left and centre-right parties have to form coalitions with extremist parties to form government.  This often ends up with small unpopular extremist parties getting disproportionate power in setting policy relative to their popular vote with predictable results.

Talking to people in New Zealand where they have MMP, most said they would like to go back to the old First Past the Post system.  They say government has become a gong show since they adopted that system because every special interest group now has a party and it is relatively easy to get at least one seat in Parliament.

IMHO, our system isn't perfect, but it's better than the others that have been tried.

[OTBthinker]

In my opinion, there are many things wrong with mixed proportional systems.

The constituencies become much larger.  This may not seem like a problem in relatively homogeneous urban areas, but when you merge 2 to 5 rural areas into one super-riding, you lose representation, especially if the super-riding is dominated by a medium sized city 3 hours away.  Rather than having an MP to represent, for example, 100,000, that MP will represent 300,000 or more.

True, constituencies do become larger but it doesn't mean less representation. Under the mixed proportional system that I'm proposing, ideologically divided ridings could be represented by more than one MP (2 or 3 MPs per "divided" riding; I'll describe this system in a bit more detail below). Plus, look at our present system; sure your MP might represent only 100,000 people, but if you didn't vote for that MP does that MP really represent you and your political views. And if that MP got elected with only 40% of the vote, how well does that MP represent the majority of electors in the riding who didn't vote for him or her? Now they want to add more seats; this will only add to the number of backbenchers who really don't do much; how well do you think backbenchers represent the people in their ridings, even within their own party caucus?

You still have "list candidates" not voted directly by constituents, but elected via proportional representation.  In other countries, these pols may be unpopular amongst the voters, yet due to their ties to the party, they could be the first candidate on the list to be elected on proportional lists.

I agree with you there, lists are not the way to go, but proportional representation does not necessarily mean lists of candidates. Under the mixed system that I would propose, winning candidates would gain their seats just as is done today under our existing system, and the remainder of the seats would be filled using those candidates that did not come in first place in their ridings but who nevertheless got the most votes for their party. In other words, in a highly contested riding, two or three candidates might still end up with seats; one for winning the election in the riding, and the other(s) to make up a party's proportion of seats because they got the most votes for their party. Highly divided ridings get more representation while highly homogeneous ridings get 1 MP because they don't need more. Compared to party lists, under this system that I am proposing, people actually have a say as to whom might represent them one way or the other.

You also get the fringe party tail wagging the mainstream party dog.  In many countries, mainstream centre-left and centre-right parties have to form coalitions with extremist parties to form government.  This often ends up with small unpopular extremist parties getting disproportionate power in setting policy relative to their popular vote with predictable results.

A mixed system would still favour the more popular parties as fringe parties would sort of get the left overs. Also, the more people realize that their vote counts for something - as under a system that features proportional representation - the less likely they are to vote for fringe parties.

Talking to people in New Zealand where they have MMP, most said they would like to go back to the old First Past the Post system.  They say government has become a gong show since they adopted that system because every special interest group now has a party and it is relatively easy to get at least one seat in Parliament.

The major drawback of proportional systems has always been minority governments and in many parts of the world this means instability. But this is not true everywhere; there are some countries where minority governments are a fact of life but they are still able to make accommodations and function effectively. The most important thing is leadership; a minority government lead by an able leader can find accommodation with other parties and make government work. And this is exactly what Canadians want from their political leaders. We are an idealogically diverse nation and we want that diversity to be represented in the House of Commons, but we also want our leaders to work together to find common ground. What we don't want is one "minority" group ruling over the others for four to five years.

IMHO, our system isn't perfect, but it's better than the others that have been tried.

IMHO, our present electoral system is far from perfect, and not everything has been tried. What I'm proposing is not really a radical change, simply a change for the better.

[WeatherdoG]

The major drawback of proportional systems has always been minority governments and in many parts of the world this means instability. But this is not true everywhere; there are some countries where minority governments are a fact of life but they are still able to make accommodations and function effectively. The most important thing is leadership; a minority government lead by an able leader can find accommodation with other parties and make government work. And this is exactly what Canadians want from their political leaders. We are an idealogically diverse nation and we want that diversity to be represented in the House of Commons, but we also want our leaders to work together to find common ground. What we don't want is one "minority" group ruling over the others for four to five years.

IMHO, our present electoral system is far from perfect, and not everything has been tried. What I'm proposing is not really a radical change, simply a change for the better.

The key advantage to our system as it stands is that under a majority government things that need to be done can be done without all the political games such as the ones being played south of the border. Sure the PM has powers not far short of a dictator for the four years they hold the office, but if they piss off enough people they get turfed at the next election. Not having the threat of an election hanging over the head of the government at all times also allows them to govern with an eye to slightly longer term goals.

[MCG]

I'm new to this forum so I haven't had time yet to read all the posts, but has anyone discussed the possibility of a mixed electoral system ...

We've discussed a lot of things.  Multi-member constituencies, preferential ballots/transferable votes, proportional systems, constituency systems, hybrid systems, and so on, and so on, ...

Have a look:  http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,25692.msg200633.html#msg200633

One of the concerns with a proportional system is that it makes representatives answerable to the party more so than now, and to the electorate less so than now (because under such a system it is the party that owns the seats).  It also means the end of independants sitting in the house.

[OTBthinker]

The key advantage to our system as it stands is that under a majority government things that need to be done can be done without all the political games such as the ones being played south of the border. Sure the PM has powers not far short of a dictator for the four years they hold the office...

I agree that politicians who play political games do so at the detriment to the country. But majority governments rarely form their majorities with a majority of the votes; when such governments get things done "that need to be done," that's according to a minority of people while the majority thinks it's to the detriment of the country. Regardless of the outcomes of what these governments do, acting that way is a detriment to this country.

Sure the PM has powers not far short of a dictator for the four years they hold the office, but if they piss off enough people they get turfed at the next election. Not having the threat of an election hanging over the head of the government at all times also allows them to govern with an eye to slightly longer term goals.

Ever notice how these majority governments make all the unpopular decisions at the beginning of their mandates hoping that the electorate will forget by the time they're up for re-election, and how they play it safe and make all kinds of nice promises near the end of their mandates trying to 'buy' our votes? Whether they be Liberal or Conservative, majority governments all govern with a four to five year goal: to change the country as much as they can to the way they want and still get re-elected.

[OTBthinker]

We've discussed a lot of things.  Multi-member constituencies, preferential ballots/transferable votes, proportional systems, constituency systems, hybrid systems, and so on, and so on, ...

Have a look:  http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,25692.msg200633.html#msg200633

One of the concerns with a proportional system is that it makes representatives answerable to the party more so than now, and to the electorate less so than now (because under such a system it is the party that owns the seats).  It also means the end of independants sitting in the house.

I would agree with you that PR makes representatives answerable more to the party than the electorate under a 'list system', but that's not what I would be proposing. You can have PR where the parties owe their standing to their elected representatives that got them the votes. Also, I would say that elected representatives today, under our current system, are more answerable to their party than to their constituencies. Rarely will an MP vote against the wishes of his party though his constituency might want them to do so; when they do it's usually political suicide and there are many recent examples that prove this point. The mere existence of "party whips" proves this point. The only way around this, whether in a PR system or our FPTP system, are party leaders who trust their fellow party members and allow them to represent their constituents and/or vote according to their conscience as much as possible.

As for independents, it's already hard for them to get elected. A PR system wouldn't necessarily make it harder, especially in a mixed system.