It's official: Ontarians will vote in a referendum on October 10 of this year on whether to radically alter the Westminster-style, first-past-the-post electoral system to incorporate some measure of proportional representation.
This measure is bad for many reasons, all of them noted by the National Post here except for one: the proposed measure will increase the number of MPPs in the Ontario legislature by 25%. Ontario does not need 25% more MPPs. One of Mike Harris' first acts as Premier in 1995 was to reduce the number of MPPs from 125 to 103 so that provincial riding boundaries mirrored the federal ones. Things have worked just fine since then, as far as I can tell.
Despite Andrew Coyne's clamouring, PR would end the (basically) two party system, create endless minority and coalition government situations, destabilize the legislature, create gridlock and force more frequent elections. And whatever legislation does managed to get passed will almost always be watered down.
The system we have now isn't perfect, but it's the least bad of all the options.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:16 AM
