The Leveller Vol. 8, No.2 Feature
1
T he 2015 election is being spoken of as the most pivotal election in recent history. The Harper government, by many accounts, is leading this country to a destination undesired by growing numbers of Canadians. Diverse activist and community groups have arisen to promote and defend the rights of refugees, immigrants, Indigenous peoples, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and others, in the face of concerted attacks levied from the chambers of Ottawa’s political institutions since the Conservatives consolidated power in 2006. Part of the reason for this increase in activism is a response to the right-wing attack on progressive values in an era when certain binary views can no longer accommodate the diverse reality we live in. In many cases, such as Harper’s newly extended deadline for reducing carbon emissions, the Conservative government opts for long term strategies that put the onus on future generations and governments without meeting the immediate needs of these communities in crisis. This election may be one of the turning points that comes to define this country’s future. There are a number of critical election issues that will decide Canada’s trajectory for years to come. While it is your right to either abstain from complicity with the system or to attempt to effect change through voting, it is important for this decision to be an informed one. With this in mind, the Leveller has compiled a report on some of the issues that are important to remember when you are marking your ballot this election. With a focus on women’s rights, Indigenous rights, LGBTQ+ concerns, and electoral reform, the Leveller covers how the major parties have addressed (or not addressed) the issues that affect the diverse peoples who live within the borders of the Canadian state. T his year’s election campaign was supposed to hold the first nationally broadcast leaders’ debate on women’s issues since 1984. Ultimately, since two men, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, declined to take part in the debate, it never happened. Up for Debate, an alliance of over 175 women’s organizations across Canada, was to organize the leaders’ debate. Instead, Oxfam Canada and Alliance for Women’s Rights, in association with Up for Debate, broadcast interviews with four of the federal party leaders to an online audience on Sept. 21 from the University of Toronto. Justin Trudeau, Tom Mulcair, Elizabeth May and Gilles Duceppe were each interviewed by journalist Francine Pelletier for the event. Stephen Harper was decidedly absent. In the interviews, leaders spoke to issues concerning missing and murdered Indigenous women, violence against women, childcare, and feminism. Mulcair proudly announced “Je suis une feministe,” and Trudeau did the same: “I am a feminist. I am proud to be a feminist.” Ideology and declarations aside, each party has their own policies regarding women’s issues and here are some to consider when voting in this election: CONSERVATIVE PARTY • 18 per cent of the Conservative caucus is female • Will encourage corporate boards to seek gender diversity • As part of the 2015 Economic Action plan, the party will continue the Action Plan for Women Entrepreneurs, which has made a $700 million fund over the course of three years ($233.3 million/ year) available for female-owned businesses • Low taxes and income splitting for families • Fighting for women’s rights abroad by fighting ISIS LIBERAL PARTY • 31 per cent of the Liberal caucus is female • “Immediate” call for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women • Trudeau: “50 percent of our cabinet will be women.” • Investing in and partnering with municipal governments • All party members are to support women’s abortion rights • Ensure the proper use of gender- based analysis (GBA) in all government departments. Since 1995, all government departments have been required to run policies through GBA. However, in 2009 the Auditor General stated that the majority of government departments do not use GBA. • Support women’s choice to wear what they choose, be that covering all but the eyes or not, when being sworn in as Canadian citizens. • Agreed to participate in the Up for Debate women’s issues debate NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY • 42 per cent of NDP caucus is female • Call a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women • Call for a national action plan to end violence against women. Mulcair: “Nothing less than completely eliminating the problem would be acceptable to us.” • $40 million in funding towards women’s shelters • Will create 1 million new childcare spaces • $15/ day affordable, quality childcare • A commitment to mandate that the board of directors, across all federal agencies, must be 50 per cent female. This will include crown corporations. • Tom Mulcair refused to participate in any debate where Stephen Harper is not present. This means he declined the women’s issue debate based on this principle. GREEN PARTY • 32 per cent of Green party caucus is female • Call a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women • Call for a national strategy and a “zero-percent tolerance” for violence against women • Re-establish funding for women’s rights organizations • Pass amendment to the Human Rights Act, protecting citizens from discrimination based on gender identity • Pay equity for women in the federal sector • Creation of a universal childcare program • Job re-entry programs for mothers returning to work • Promise to apply a gender-based analysis (GBA) to all decisions made in the House of Commons and by government departments. • Elizabeth May re-instituted the women’s caucus in parliament, which includes all women in Parliament and the Senate. The women’s caucus has addressed sexual harassment and sexism in the House, giving suggestions for proper conduct on the part of male MPs and Senators. • Agreed to participate in the Up for Debate women’s issues debate BLOC QUÉBÉCOIS • 27 per cent of the Bloc Québécois caucus is female • No official childcare policy • Disagrees with Liberals, NDP and Green party on the niqab issue. Duceppe says that women should not cover their faces and allow themselves to be “hidden” when being sworn in. • Little information is available for Bloc Québécois women’s issue policy • Agreed to participate in the Up for Debate women’s issues debate *All quotations noted have been taken from the Up for Debate event held on Sept. 21 at The University of Toronto. If the Conservatives were looking to send a message to LGBTQ+ communities, the empty chairs reserved for them at the Toronto and Ottawa LGBTQ+ debates certainly said plenty. Perhaps this is simply the less damaging course of action in their eyes. After all, it was not long ago (Oct. 6) that Conservative candidate Jagdish Grewal was dismissed after publicly defending the practice of anti-homosexual therapy: another page in the book of Conservative party embarrassments. Grewal, it seemed, was in disagreement with a bill proposed by the NDP which denied public funding for groups working to change or “correct” one’s sexual orientation. This bill was approved unanimously in June 2015. A drop in the ocean at this point, the Conservatives’ decision to avoid these debates has provided further opportunities to criticize their strategies, an opportunity that the opposition candidates have taken full advantage of. It was such a talking point, that it often dominated the debate topics. When there are more crucial events to discuss, such as an important piece of legislation that was left to die in the senate at the end of the last session of parliament, it would have been better to let the empty seat speak for itself. The death of C-279, the NDP’s attempt to combat discrimination against transgender people by adding gender identity to the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act, has been a major concern. The passing of this bill was undermined by a Conservative amendment that would have essentially given operators of gender specific facilities the potential power to overrule a person’s gender identity. The resulting debate delayed the passing of this bill, “gutted” as it was, and left it trapped in a senatorial limbo until it died. Ottawa candidates at the National Gallery debate made promises to reintroduce this legislation but NDP candidate Paul Dewar was the only one to truly focus on the issue. After the necessary promises were made, Liberal and Green party candidates Catherine McKenna and Tom Milroy used the topic to once again critique the Conservative party’s lack of presence. LGBTQ+ foreign policy, as described in the Dignity Initiative’s Call to Action on Sept. 24, has also become an issue. This report, endorsed by over 120 civil society organizations from across Canada, describes the effects of Canada’s foreign policy regarding LGBTQ+ communities around the world. According to Dignity Initiative’s report, “more than 80 countries and territories worldwide criminalize the expression, identity, or existence of [LGBTQ+] people.” This Call to Action is asking the federal government to divest from “organizations that promote or support legislation criminalizing LGBTQ+ people or that encourage hatred or violence against LGBTQ+ people.” The candidates present at these debates were receptive to the recommendations included in this report. Craig Scott, NDP MP for Toronto-Danforth, affirmed that his party was committed to following through with these recommendations should they form the next government. Bill Morneau, the Toronto Centre Liberal candidate, agreed with this renewed focus on global human rights as well but did not go so far as to say how his party would accomplish this task. When the issue of HIV criminalization was raised at the Toronto debate by an audience member, Craig Scott was the only one to remain unphased; Green and Liberal candidates Chris Tolley and Bill Morneau were not actually familiar with the law in question. While there is an obvious message in the Conservative party’s lack of presence at these debates, the other parties who attended do not get an immediate gold star. For an election that seems to have gone on forever, there have only been two candidate debates focused on LGBTQ+ rights. While the party representatives who attended the debates have enjoyed sitting on their high horses, the fact remains that these parties still have ground to cover before they become the “champions” of LGBTQ+ concerns that Morneau says they should be. The Harper government’s disdain for and approach towards Indigenous peoples has created a crisis in the Canadian political landscape. Two recent set of events – the Idle No More movement and the Elsipogtog- led anti-fracking resistance in New Brunswick – have called into question the violence of Canada’s colonial present and the need to reimagine a nation-to-nation relationship. Harper’s legislative assault in the form of Bill C-45 on Indigenous rights and the environment sparked Idle No More, which over the 2012- 2013 winter months saw hundreds of protests and the demand from Chief Teresa Spence, on hunger strike on Victoria Island in Ottawa, to meet with the Crown and Prime Minister to discuss the treaty relationship. Harper rebuffed. Later that year, conflict erupted in eastern New Brunswick after months of resistance to fracking company SWN Resources’ attempt to locate shale gas. The armed RCMP raid on an anti-fracking camp near Elsipogtog First Nation signalled the Conservatives’ stance and approach to Indigenous-led land defence against resource-based development projects. Recent rumours circulated that the RCMP were planning a raid on the Unist’ot’en camp in central B.C. which opposes the construction of multiple pipelines crossing their territory. The 2015 election campaign has witnessed reference to Indigenous issues being raised now and then, but seldom if at all in the televised leadership debates. This, along with ongoing incidents of violence directed at Indigenous people, prompted Maclean’s to pen an article on Sept. 30 called, “A Deafening Silence on Aboriginal Issues.” To counter the political apathy on Indigenous issues surrounding the election campaign, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) aimed to host a leaders’ debate on Indigenous issues, but Harper declined to participate. As a result, the network will be hosting a series of one-on-one town halls with the other three federal leaders in the week before voting day. The leaders will be asked questions collected from across Canada, according to APTN. Perhaps the biggest issue being raised this election season surrounds missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. In spite of widespread calls for a national inquiry, Harper has continued to evade such requests, something the other parties appear open to. The Liberals have promised $900 million for First Nations education in addition to existing money promised by the Conservatives. The Liberals and Greens have promised to implement all 94 recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The NDP recently unveiled their Indigenous issues platform on Oct. 7 which received backing from the Assembly of First Nations. They call for a new era based on a nation- to-nation relationship, $1.8 billion for education, $68 million towards revitalizing Indigenous languages, and to establish a cabinet committee on Indigenous issues. However, no denouncement of the multiple pipeline projects supported by their political rivals has been put forward. While all parties have announced various amounts for on-reserve infrastructure and clean water, APTN notes that the amounts required according to studies commissioned by the Aboriginal Affairs department – $4.7 billion for water and wastewater infrastructure and $21.3 billion for First Nations housing – far outweigh any promises made by the parties thus far. It would be foolish for Canada’s political leaders to ignore or so easily forget the Idle No More and anti- fracking movements that gripped the national conscience in 2013. These movements, at their core, demanded Indigenous sovereignty and that land rights be respected. If Canada is to break from its genocidal past – with all of the horrific historical and contemporary footnotes – the only way to do so would be a genuine approach to decolonization and emphasis on a nation-to-nation relationship. Canada’s system of governance typically ranks low as a priority for Canadians around election season but the major parties seeking to oust the Conservatives on Oct. 19 are vowing change is imminent. Canada elects members of parliament using the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system, an archaic method adopted centuries ago in England. FPTP implies the “winner take all” principle, where the candidate obtaining the most votes wins that particular electoral riding. Fair Vote Canada, an organization advocating voting system reform, argues that all other votes cast for a losing candidate are “ineffective and wasted” and that these voters go unrepresented. “In a typical federal election, more than 7,000,000 Canadians, or just over ½ of voters, cast wasted votes,” they claim. Along with Fair Vote Canada and other civil society groups, the Liberals, Greens, and NDP have positioned themselves for implementing electoral reform should they take office. They all advocate a form of proportional representation (PR), which is a voting system where the number of seats won by a party is proportional to the number of votes received. There are different models of proportional representation used by different countries, including Mixed Member Proportionality (MMP) and Single Transferable Vote (STV). Proponents argue that countries under PR fair better on economic and gender equality, higher voter turnout, and improved environmental performance. The Conservatives, who obtained a majority government in 2011 with the support of only 39.6 per cent of votes cast, have consistently shunned suggestions to change the system. Harper’s minister responsible for democratic reform, Pierre Poilievre, told the Toronto Sun in July that “Our platform would commit to legislation that would ban any government from changing our voting system without holding a referendum to secure the approval of Canadians first.” The party is quoted on Fair Vote Canada’s site as saying, “The first-past-the-post system has a number of benefits and plays an important role in our system of responsible government.” Conservatives also point out that Canadians have rejected calls for change in the recent past. In different provincial referenda – P.E.I. (2005), Ontario (2007), and B.C. (2009) – proposals to alter the system failed, due to varying circumstances. In the 2011 federal election, the Conservatives earned 5,835,270 votes or 39.6 per cent of the 14,723,980 votes cast. Despite the Conservatives receiving only nine per cent more votes than the NDP, the Conservatives took 166 seats to the NDP’s 103. Under a PR model, the Greens would have won four per cent of the total seats. On Oct. 9, the Globe & Mail analysed the most recent polls adjusted to a would-be PR system which yielded 106 Conservative seats, 101 Liberal seats, 91 NDP seats, 16 Bloc Québécois seats, and 15 Green Party seats. POPULAR VOTE SEATS AWARDED
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Transcript of The Leveller Vol. 8, No.2 Feature
The 2015 election is being spoken of as the most pivotal election in recent history. The Harper government, by many
accounts, is leading this country to a destination undesired by growing numbers of Canadians.
Diverse activist and community groups have arisen to promote and defend the rights of refugees, immigrants, Indigenous peoples, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and others, in the face of concerted attacks levied from the chambers of Ottawa’s political institutions since the Conservatives consolidated power in 2006.
Part of the reason for this increase in activism is a response to the right-wing attack
on progressive values in an era when certain binary views can no longer accommodate the diverse reality we live in. In many cases, such as Harper’s newly extended deadline for reducing carbon emissions, the Conservative government opts for long term strategies that put the onus on future generations and governments without meeting the immediate needs of these communities in crisis.
This election may be one of the turning points that comes to define this country’s future. There are a number of critical election issues that will decide Canada’s trajectory for years to come. While it is your right to either
abstain from complicity with the system or to attempt to effect change through voting, it is important for this decision to be an informed one.
With this in mind, the Leveller has compiled a report on some of the issues that are important to remember when you are marking your ballot this election. With a focus on women’s rights, Indigenous rights, LGBTQ+ concerns, and electoral reform, the Leveller covers how the major parties have addressed (or not addressed) the issues that affect the diverse peoples who live within the borders of the Canadian state.
This year’s election campaign was supposed to hold the first nationally
broadcast leaders’ debate on women’s issues since 1984. Ultimately, since two men, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, declined to take part in the debate, it never happened.
Up for Debate, an alliance of over 175 women’s organizations across Canada, was to organize the leaders’ debate. Instead, Oxfam Canada and Alliance for Women’s Rights, in association with Up for Debate, broadcast interviews with four of the federal party leaders to an online audience on Sept. 21 from the University of Toronto. Justin Trudeau, Tom Mulcair, Elizabeth May and Gilles Duceppe were each interviewed by journalist Francine Pelletier for the event. Stephen Harper was decidedly absent.
In the interviews, leaders spoke to issues concerning missing and murdered Indigenous women, violence against women, childcare, and feminism. Mulcair proudly announced “Je suis une feministe,” and Trudeau did the same: “I am a feminist. I am proud to be a feminist.”
Ideology and declarations aside, each party has their own policies regarding women’s issues and here are some to consider when voting in this election:
Conservative Party• 18 per cent of the Conservative
caucus is female• Will encourage corporateboards to
seek gender diversity• As part of the 2015 Economic
Action plan, the party will continue the Action Plan for Women Entrepreneurs, which has made a $700 million fund over the course of three years ($233.3 million/ year) available for female-owned businesses
• Low taxes and income splitting forfamilies
• Fightingforwomen’srightsabroadby fighting ISIS
LiberaL Party• 31percentof theLiberalcaucus is
female• “Immediate” call for a national
inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women
• Trudeau:“50percentofourcabinetwill be women.”
• Investing in and partnering withmunicipal governments
• All party members are to supportwomen’s abortion rights
• Ensure the proper use of gender-based analysis (GBA) in all government departments. Since 1995, all government departments have been required to run policies through GBA. However, in 2009 the Auditor General stated that the majority of government departments do not use GBA.
• Support women’s choice to wearwhat they choose, be that covering all but the eyes or not, when being sworn in as Canadian citizens.
• Agreed to participate in the Up forDebate women’s issues debate
new DemoCratiC Party• 42percentofNDPcaucusisfemale• Call anational inquiry intomissing
and murdered Indigenous women• Callforanationalactionplantoend
violence against women. Mulcair: “Nothing less than completely eliminating the problem would be acceptable to us.”
• $40 million in funding towardswomen’s shelters
• Will create 1 million new childcarespaces
• $15/ day affordable, qualitychildcare
• A commitment to mandate thatthe board of directors, across all federal agencies, must be 50 per cent female. This will include crown corporations.
• TomMulcair refused to participatein any debate where Stephen Harper is not present. This means he declined the women’s issue debate based on this principle.
Green Party• 32percentofGreenpartycaucusis
female• Call anational inquiry intomissing
and murdered Indigenous women• Call for a national strategy and
a “zero-percent tolerance” for violence against women
• Re-establish funding for women’srights organizations
• Pass amendment to the HumanRights Act, protecting citizens from discrimination based on gender identity
• Payequityforwomeninthefederal
sector• Creation of a universal childcare
program• Job re-entry programs formothers
returning to work• Promise to apply a gender-based
analysis (GBA) to all decisions made in the House of Commons and by government departments.
• Elizabeth May re-instituted thewomen’s caucus in parliament, which includes all women in Parliament and the Senate. The women’s caucus has addressed sexual harassment and sexism in the House, giving suggestions for proper conduct on the part of male MPs and Senators.
• Agreed to participate in the Up forDebate women’s issues debate
bLoC QuébéCois• 27 per cent of the Bloc Québécois
caucus is female• Noofficialchildcarepolicy• Disagrees with Liberals, NDP and
Green party on the niqab issue. Duceppe says that women should not cover their faces and allow themselves to be “hidden” when being sworn in.
• Little information is available forBloc Québécois women’s issuepolicy
• Agreed to participate in the Up forDebate women’s issues debate
*All quotations noted have been taken from the Up for Debate event held on Sept. 21 at The University of Toronto.
If the Conservatives were looking to send a message to LGBTQ+ communities, the empty chairs reserved for them at the Toronto and Ottawa LGBTQ+ debates certainly said plenty.
Perhaps this is simply the less damaging course of action in their eyes. After all, it was not long ago (Oct. 6) that Conservative candidate Jagdish Grewal was dismissed after publicly defending the practice of anti-homosexual therapy: another page in the book of Conservative party embarrassments. Grewal, it seemed, was in disagreement with a bill proposed by the NDP which denied public funding for groups working to change or “correct” one’s sexual orientation. This bill was approved unanimously in June 2015.
A drop in the ocean at this point, the Conservatives’ decision to avoid these debates has provided further opportunities to criticize their strategies, an opportunity that the opposition candidates have taken full advantage of. It was such a talking point, that it often dominated the debate topics. When there are more crucial events to
discuss, such as an important piece of legislation that was left to die in the senate at the end of the last session of parliament, it would have been better to let the empty seat speak for itself.
The death of C-279, the NDP’s attempt to combat discrimination against transgender people by adding gender identity to the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act, has been a major concern. The passing of this bill was undermined by a Conservative amendment that would have essentially given operators of gender specific facilities the potential power to overrule a person’s gender identity. The resulting debate delayed the passing of this bill, “gutted” as it was, and left it trapped in a senatorial limbo until it died.
Ottawa candidates at the National Gallery debate made promises to reintroduce this legislation but NDP candidate Paul Dewar was the only one to truly focus on the issue. After the necessary promises were made, Liberal and Green party candidates Catherine McKenna and Tom
Milroy used the topic to once again critique the Conservative party’s lack of presence.
LGBTQ+ foreign policy, as described in the Dignity Initiative’s Call to Action on Sept. 24, has also become an issue. This report, endorsed by over 120 civil society organizations from across Canada, describes the effects of Canada’sforeign policy regarding LGBTQ+ communities around the world. According to Dignity Initiative’s report, “more than 80 countries and territories worldwide criminalize the expression, identity, or existence of [LGBTQ+] people.” This Call to Action is asking the federal government to divest from “organizations that promote or support legislation criminalizing LGBTQ+ people or that encourage hatred or violence against LGBTQ+ people.”
The candidates present at these debates were receptive to the recommendations included in this report. Craig Scott, NDP MP for Toronto-Danforth, affirmedthat his party was committed to following through with these recommendations should they form
the next government. Bill Morneau, the Toronto Centre Liberal candidate, agreed with this renewed focus on global human rights as well but did not go so far as to say how his party would accomplish this task.
When the issue of HIV criminalization was raised at the Toronto debate by an audience member, Craig Scott was the only one to remain unphased; Green and Liberal candidates Chris Tolley and Bill Morneau were not actually familiar with the law in question.
While there is an obvious message in the Conservative party’s lack of presence at these debates, the other parties who attended do not get an immediate gold star. For an election that seems to have gone on forever, there have only been two candidate debates focused on LGBTQ+ rights. While the party representatives who attended the debates have enjoyed sitting on their high horses, the fact remains that these parties still have ground to cover before they become the “champions” of LGBTQ+ concerns that Morneau says they should be.
The Harper government’s disdain for and approach towards Indigenous peoples has created a crisis in the Canadian political landscape. Two recent set of events – the Idle No More movement and the Elsipogtog-led anti-fracking resistance in New Brunswick – have called into question the violence of Canada’s colonial present and the need to reimagine a nation-to-nation relationship.
Harper’s legislative assault in the form of Bill C-45 on Indigenous rights and the environment sparked Idle No More, which over the 2012-2013 winter months saw hundreds of protests and the demand from Chief Teresa Spence, on hunger strike on Victoria Island in Ottawa, to meet with the Crown and Prime Minister to discuss the treaty relationship. Harper rebuffed.
Later that year, conflict erupted in eastern New Brunswick after months of resistance to fracking company SWN Resources’ attempt to locate shale gas. The armed RCMP raid on an anti-fracking camp near
Elsipogtog First Nation signalled the Conservatives’ stance and approach to Indigenous-led land defence against resource-based development projects. Recent rumours circulated that the RCMP were planning a raid on the Unist’ot’en camp in central B.C. which opposes the construction of multiple pipelines crossing their territory.
The 2015 election campaign has witnessed reference to Indigenous issues being raised now and then, but seldom if at all in the televised leadership debates. This, along with ongoing incidents of violence directed at Indigenous people, prompted Maclean’s to pen an article on Sept. 30 called, “A Deafening Silence on Aboriginal Issues.” To counter the political apathy on Indigenous issues surrounding the election campaign, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) aimed to host a leaders’ debate on Indigenous issues, but Harper declined to participate. As a result, the network will be hosting a series of one-on-one town halls with the other three federal leaders in the
week before voting day. The leaders will be asked questions collected from across Canada, according to APTN.
Perhaps the biggest issue being raised this election season surrounds missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. In spite of widespread calls for a national inquiry, Harper has continued to evade such requests, something the other parties appear open to. The Liberals have promised $900 million for First Nations education in addition to existing money promised by the Conservatives. The Liberals and Greens have promised to implement all 94 recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The NDP recently unveiled their Indigenous issues platform on Oct. 7 which received backing from the Assembly of First Nations. They call for a new era based on a nation-to-nation relationship, $1.8 billion for education, $68 million towards revitalizing Indigenous languages, and to establish a cabinet committee on Indigenous issues. However, no
denouncement of the multiple pipeline projects supported by their political rivals has been put forward. While all parties have announced various amounts for on-reserve infrastructure and clean water, APTN notes that the amounts required according to studies commissioned by the Aboriginal Affairs department – $4.7 billion for water and wastewater infrastructure and $21.3 billion for First Nations housing – far outweigh any promises made by the parties thus far.
It would be foolish for Canada’s political leaders to ignore or so easily forget the Idle No More and anti-fracking movements that gripped the national conscience in 2013. These movements, at their core, demanded Indigenous sovereignty and that land rights be respected. If Canada is to break from its genocidal past – with all of the horrific historical and contemporary footnotes – the only way to do so would be a genuine approach to decolonization and emphasis on a nation-to-nation relationship.
Canada’s system of governance typically ranks low as a priority for Canadians around election season but the major parties seeking to oust the Conservatives on Oct. 19 are vowing change is imminent.
Canada elects members of parliament
using the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system, an archaic method adopted centuries ago in England. FPTP implies the “winner take all” principle, where the candidate obtaining the most votes wins that particular electoral riding.
Fair Vote Canada, an organization advocating voting system reform, argues that all other votes cast for a losing candidate are “ineffective and wasted”and that these voters go unrepresented. “In a typical federal election, more than 7,000,000 Canadians, or just over ½ of voters, cast wasted votes,” they claim.
Along with Fair Vote Canada and other civil society groups, the Liberals, Greens, and NDP have positioned themselves for implementing electoral reform should they take office. Theyall advocate a form of proportional representation (PR), which is a voting system where the number of seats won
by a party is proportional to the number of votes received. There are differentmodels of proportional representation used by different countries, includingMixed Member Proportionality (MMP) and Single Transferable Vote (STV). Proponents argue that countries under PR fair better on economic and gender equality, higher voter turnout, and improved environmental performance.
The Conservatives, who obtained a majority government in 2011 with the support of only 39.6 per cent of votes cast, have consistently shunned suggestions to change the system. Harper’s minister responsible for
democratic reform, Pierre Poilievre, told the Toronto Sun in July that “Our platform would commit to legislation that would ban any government from changing our voting system without holding a referendum to secure the approval of Canadians first.” The party is quoted on Fair Vote Canada’s site as saying, “The first-past-the-post system has a number of benefits and plays an important role in our system of responsible government.”
Conservatives also point out that Canadians have rejected calls for change intherecentpast.Indifferentprovincialreferenda – P.E.I. (2005), Ontario (2007), and B.C. (2009) – proposals to
alter the system failed, due to varying circumstances.
In the 2011 federal election, the Conservatives earned 5,835,270 votes or 39.6 per cent of the 14,723,980 votes cast. Despite the Conservatives receiving only nine per cent more votes than the NDP, the Conservatives took 166 seats to the NDP’s 103. Under a PR model, the Greens would have won four per cent of the total seats. On Oct. 9, the Globe & Mail analysed the most recent polls adjusted to a would-be PR system which yielded 106 Conservative seats, 101 Liberal seats, 91 NDPseats, 16BlocQuébécois seats, and15 Green Party seats.
POPULAR VOTE SEATS AwARdEd
