Ontario Electoral Reform Referendum

[Hakluyt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_electoral_reform_referendum,_2007

I will be campaigning in favour of MMP. Although reform contra First-Past-the-Post has been historically motivated by the opposite, urban ridings are currently overrepresented and MMP will increase rural representation. MMP will increase representation for both the Green Party and the Progressive Conservative Party; it will slightly increase representation for the New Democratic Party, and lower representation for the Liberal Party. 50 Conservative, 30 NDP, 30 Liberal and 9 Greens would be an ideal legislature.

[raven]

Every single political party in Ontario (and Canada for that matter) is garbage anyway so it's not as if this kind of electoral reform will improve anything.

[Hakluyt]

It would make it possible for a new party to gain some representation quickly though. 39 out of 129 seats would be list-based in an Ontario MMP, so a party would only need 3% of the vote to get a seat.

[raven]

A new party can gain representation more easily with such a system but are there any in the works? There is talk of a new "ultra-conservative" party but it sounds very tame for an "ultra-conservative" party to me. It might even be illegal considering how stringent the "hate speech" laws are to actually form a real conservative party. Any so-called "ultra-conservative" party that doesn't touch on immigration is just a "Conservative Party Extra Strength" or a "Religious Nut Jobs That Welcome Masses of Third World Immigrants as 'God's Creatures' " Party (like the religious Family Coalition/Heritage parties). I don't care about bringing "God back into Parliament", stopping the downspiral of the Confederation is a lot more important. I've already written off that country. With all the damage made by Pearson, Trudeau and Mulroney, there's no turning back for Canada.

[Hakluyt]

Not yet. But it's important to have the framework in place. European nationalist parties would never have got anywhere without proportional representation/MMP.

[Count Sudoku]

Urban areas are not overrepresented. At least on the Federal level and Ontario's seats are supposed to match the Fed.

On the one hand it would be good to see some fringe parties get some seats, on the other it means we will probably be governed by NDP-Liberal coalitions forever.

Someone should form a Zero Immigration Now party whose main plank is just that.

[Hakluyt]

I meant they are underrepresented in so far as they vote Conservative, and Liberal government (an inevitability for the forseeable future) means overrepresentation for urban ridings. Rural ridings also vote Green to a larger extent than suburban ridings (high density urban ridings vote higher, of course, but they are fewer). Anyway, rural ridings should be overrepresented one way or another for cultural and economic reasons.

[raven]

Lowering representation for the urban areas would make sense. The heavily concentrated urban areas (especially Metro Toronto and Vancouver) are Liberal strongholds. This would set the framework but we still need a party. Canada badly needs a nationalist party. Right now in Canada the status quo is economic materialism and social "liberalism". The type of profile that fits a suburban yuppie. The average Canadian is a modern liberal (note: the Conservative party isn't really conservative) whose main identity is what they consume rather than their ethnicity or race.