Regardless of what you think of the Longest Ballot Committee’s call for Canadian electoral reform, you have to admit that Elections Canada’s solution yesterday to the mischievous addition of more than 200 names to the by-election ballot in the Battle River-Crowfoot federal riding was elegant and decisive.
It’s OK, you can believe that electoral reform would be good for Canadian democracy and still think the Longest Ballot Committee’s antics are annoying and ultimately potentially quite harmful, no matter which electoral alternative you prefer.
Be that as it may, by using a write-in ballot on Aug. 18 instead of the conventional Canadian ballot and accepting reasonably clear versions of candidates’ names, and by not diddling around for weeks or months trying to figure out what to do, Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault has pretty well blown the group’s irritating tactic to smithereens.
Unless, of course, the LBC could find a way next time dredge up someone named, say, Pierre Poilievre to run as an independent – and don’t say it couldn’t happen, leastways, I’m pretty sure there was another Tom Campbell on the ballot in one of the three elections won by the Vancouver mayor of the same name who served from 1967 to 1972. Alas, I can’t prove it today with a shallow dive on Google.
However, yesterday was the last day anyone could throw their hat in the ring, so that’s off.
Mr. Perrault’s solution was certainly superior to the one proposed by the sole Mr. Poilievre running in the by-election that was called as quickly as possible after the April 28 general election in which the federal Conservative leader lost his seat in his long-held Ottawa-area riding of Carleton.
The Longest Ballot Committee got up to the same trick then as well, although Mr. Poilievre would have lost to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy regardless without them. While the reason for his loss can and will be debated, it seems pretty clear that Mr. Poilievre had become a crappy constituency MP who had lost touch with what his own voters wanted.
And that, it is said here, is one of the strengths of the single-member plurality voting system, better known as first-past-the-post, that the LBC so dislikes.
Now, Mr. Perrault reports directly to Parliament and is thus completely independent of the government of the day. Nevertheless, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that Prime Minister Mark Carney appears to be as anxious as his Conservative rival to get Mr. Poilievre back into the House of Commons as quickly as possible.
Again, we can argue about whether not the Liberals are right if they assume Mr. Poilievre is more of a liability than an asset to the federal Opposition party, but it sure seems clear that’s the principle on which they’re operating.
I’m inclined to think Mr. Carney is right about Mr. Poilievre. Likely some Conservatives do too. So the conventional wisdom is that if Mr. Poilievre doesn’t do as well as did Damien Kurek, who won the riding on April 28 with 82 per cent of the vote and immediately agreed to give up the seat for Mr. Poilievre, pressure will build within their quarrelsome party to give the leader the heave-ho.
But the only candidate likely to give Mr. Poilievre a run for his money on Aug. 18 is an independent candidate not associated with the committee, Bonnie Critchley, who has run a creditable campaign assailing Mr. Poilievre for being a carpetbagger and defying the will of Battle River-Crowfoot’s voters. “We’re spending another $2 million to vote in the angry guy from Ottawa who doesn’t know jack about this area!”
Be that as it may, though, such second chances for leaders are a venerable part of the Westminster Parliamentary system, and Mr. Poilievre is likely to win, almost certainly decisively.
As for the merits of electoral reform, it’s obviously true that first-past-the-post has serious effects on election outcomes that, it is often argued, are not particularly good for democracy.
It rewards the most successful national party with more seats that it could expect to get in a system that required an MP to achieve a majority to be elected, sometimes creating majority governments that clearly don’t reflect the will of most voters.
It reduces the influence on government of smaller national parties like the NDP, even though they may enjoy a significant nationwide popular vote.
It helps parties whose support is concentrated in one region, encouraging regionalism and, arguably, separatism. As the Conservative party has grown more influenced by the American MAGA movement, it has increasingly appeared to be on its way to becoming a Western regional party. Mr. Poilievre’s choice of a comeback constituency seems to reinforce this perception.
All true. Also true, though, is that every other system introduces its own biases into electoral results. We can save a discussion of that for another day, but let’s just remember that the good people of Carleton couldn’t have gotten a more attentive MP in a pure proportional representation system, because they wouldn’t have a local MP.
The fact is, our system is unlikely to change because the parties that profit from it form government most often, and because it’s easy to explain to voters.
In the meantime, while that big question continues not to be settled, perhaps Mr. Perrault could turn his attention to finding a way to make it easier for legitimate independent candidates to run.
As Brent Rathgeber, the Conservative and later Independent MP for Edmonton-St. Albert, used to justifiably complain, Canada’s election financing rules are quite unfair to independents. There are no transfers of funds from party headquarters, after all, when there’s no party headquarters to transfer funds!
I made fun of Mr. Rathgeber in 2014 for suggesting he might have to start his own political party to remain in politics. In the event, he was defeated in the 2015 general election by his replacement as the Conservative Party’s candidate and outpolled by the Liberal as well, so the Big Lake And Sturgeon Ticket (BLAST) never became a thing.
Still, let’s agree that Mr. Rathgeber was onto something that needs fixing.
In addition to Mr. Poilievre, Ms. Critchley, and the Gang of Circa 200, the Battle River-Crowfoot by-election is also being contested by Liberal Darcy Spady and New Democrat Katherine Swampy.
Would that be a clean armpit display by our Carleton Cowboy reject?
Whatever it takes to retain the Stornoway privileges.
I do feel the feisty conservative-ish independent Critchley has Poilievre a bit worried. Otherwise, why would he already be complaining so about the long ballot, as if to justify in advance a less stellar than expected win?
Now to be fair, Poilievre has spent a long time in Ottawa and so not much in rural Alberta over the last few decades. Also it can be hard to click in such places, where they don’t always warm quickly to outsiders.
It also probably doesn’t help that Poilievre doesn’t have the charm or warmth of say Mulroney who also could at least have claimed to go to university in the safe rural Nova Scotia riding he first ran in. One of the strengths of our first past the post system is generally most candidates running live in the area and so have some knowledge of it. Mr. Kuriek seems to be that type of person, who in addition to running for the right party was well regarded and seemed to connect with his constituents.
So it will be hard for Poilievre to do as well and in his haste to get back to Ottawa he probably hasn’t got to know the locals as well as he should. Oh he will probably still win, likely by a comfortable margin as well. However, if he falls too far short of Kuriek’s impressive result, Conservatives may start to wonder about Poilievre even more.
Was reading about Chritchley and she doesn’t sound bad. Given I’m on the left side of things if I had to choose between her and PP, I’d vote for Chritchley. I’ve never been keen on the loose the vote and move to another constituency to get back into office. I’m also a firm believer in first past the post. Some may say its not fair to some parties, groups, but living in B.C. I’ve seen some interesting results and yes a small party with less money can win. It does take extra hard work, but it can be done
The write on the ballot which candidate you’re voting on, is a very smart decision and sends a message to the group. I’m not impressed by their plan and it disrupts the election process.
Living in Vancouver during the Tom Campbell years, I don’t remember much, but he wasn’t a good mayor and actually was a jerk. Yes there was some one who ran against him using the same name. Don’t remember anything about that candidate but remember laughing about it at the time. Anything to get rid of Campbell.
There is a way to help independent candidates like Bonnie Critchley. Canadian voters like me, who have long felt disenfranchised in their own ridings, can donate to her campaign in Battle River-Crowfoot under Elections Canada rules. Many did likewise for Bruce Fanjoy, who had the backing of a federal party. It helps to know that even though your vote might never count in your own riding, you can have some influence in the end by backing someone who does have a horse in the race. So all is not lost for those who see a need for electoral reform but don’t necessarily agree with long ballots. Donate where it matters. Help candidates who are willing to put in the work in their ridings.
Abs…Bonnie ” the Breaker” Critchley (the Dragons Own), on with Nate, said she prefers using the axe rather than the sword ( injury to wrist) going after Mr Axe the tax…..lol . I honestly can’t see him wearing 90 lbs of armor…
From the debate, in her closing statement ” I firmly believe that Mr Poilievre is too busy with his personal ambitions to give a rat’s backside about us”…
—-Nailed it —-
Thank you longest-ballot- committee, for annoying people in order to raise awareness of the very annoying FPTP voting system.
You hit the nail on the head with the comment about “easy to explain to voters.” Beyond the self-interest of the currently elected, complexity has been the biggest impediment to electoral reform.
The most thorough examination of the question that I’ve seen was the 2004 report, VOTING COUNTS, by the Law Commission of Canada. The analysis of issues was excellent, but the recommended system of mixed-member proportional representation (similar to a system used in Scotland) was apparently too complex and too radical to get the serious consideration that the rest of the report deserved. By attempting to satisfy too many constituencies and arguments, the commission produced a “camel” — a horse designed by a committee.
Nevertheless, any serious discussion about reform should begin with the body of the commission’s work, which included careful analysis of the various options and the experience of other democracies. The 230-page report is available here: https://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/J31-61-2004E.pdf
No option is perfect, but the ranked-choice ballot has the virtue of simplicity and has now been used in enough North American jurisdictions that it would not seem alien or radical. It would, at least, ensure that the winners have the support of 50 percent of the voters.
The law commission has had a rocky history. It was known as the Law Reform Commission from 1971 to 1992, resurrected from 1996 to 2006, and resuscitated again since 2021. I wonder if it should be asked to re-examine its voting reform research in light of more recent experience.
Here’s the thing: the argument that other voting systems like MMPR and ranked ballot are “too complex” is insulting to Canadians. It is predicated on the notion that Canadian voters are too stupid to figure out an electoral system that is in common use in many other parts of the world. Are Canadian voters really stupider than Australian voters, New Zealand voters, German voters, etc?
There are valid arguments for and against champions our electoral system. But this isn’t one of them.
Blast! Typo. My penultimate sentence was meant to read, “There are valid arguments for and against changes to our electoral system.” Not sure how that got changed. Sometimes autocorrect seems to have AI-like “hallucinations”.
Not Tom Terrific. It was Sam Sullivan who (allegedly) ran a candidate named James Green in a Vancouver mayoral race. Sullivan’s main opponent was a COPE stalwart named Jim Green. Confusion reigned and Sullivan won.
Hip: I’m, going to dig deeper into this when I get a chance because I still think there was another Tom Campbell who ran against Tom terrific – although, of course, I am willing to be proved wrong. In addition, as someone pointed out somewhere, a John Turner once ran against John Turner. When I ran for city council in St. Albert years ago, I was astounded at how many people asked if I were my second cousin, the eye surgeon David B. Climenhaga. DJC
yes another Tom Campbell ran against Tom Terrible. It gave a lot of us living in Kits a good laugh.
While I’ve long been an advocate of proportional representation, I’ve come to accept that Canadians will most likely never buy into it. So I’ve come to prefer a system such as that used in France for elections to their lower house, the National Assembly. There, they hold genuine runoff elections in seats where no candidate gets a true majority of votes cast. The bar to be included on the ballot on the second round is a minimum of 12.5% of eligible voters – not just votes cast. The second round operates like FPTP, but with far fewer candidates.
The system ensures virtually every member is elected with a majority of votes. Otherwise, it isn’t much more proportional than our system. But it might be the only tweak to our system that Canadians would accept.
For more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_France and https://electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/two-round-system/.
This by-election just gets better and better.
How many are going to write in Stephen Harper, because he was the best PM since Jesus — or at least Viktor Orban?
At the very least, CON voters won’t have to scan the ballot and read every candidate’s name, because reading is hard. And tiring. And gay.
But the question is how many can spell Skippy’s name? I mean, that’s a damn French name, and many CONs believe they will go to Hell if they utter anything in French?
So, how do they spell his name? Imagine if ballots for Poilievre are spoiled because his name was misspelled?
Mo’ popcorn.
Just– PP , Skippy, Jeff ? Harper’s Chihuahua?
Or as was just brought up on social media ” Carpetbagger”
— a political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections.
“The fact is, our system is unlikely to change because the parties that profit from it form government most often, and because it’s easy to explain to voters.”
Reminding of Ockham, there is a simpler reason why single-member-plurality, or “First-Past-the-Post”, is unlikely to change anytime soon: Canadian voters in a number of provinces have consistently rejected changing the electoral system at referendum.
In BC we’ve had three Referenda over the last decade-and-a-half asking voters if they would like to switch from FPtP to some sort of proportional representation system, and the status quo has prevailed each time.
The reason our electoral system is unlikely to change is, more simply, because voters don’t want to change it and have demonstrated that time and time again.
So the voter has to remember the correct name of his/her preferred candidate and write it down almost correctly. Will there be battles between scrutineers over 5 correct letters versus 6? Vote Rhino!
Two things too dangerous for many rural Albertans: guns, and ballots. All said.
Telling his constituents in Ottawa that the criminal Convoy Truckers were heroes and he was proud to buy them coffee and donuts wasn’t very smart. Especially after they had to deal with terrified young children because of the horns blowing all night, and lack the of sleep they endured , but the main source of his stupidity was the lack of concern he showed for the $7 million debt they created and the $6 billion economic disaster they are responsible for, proving there was nothing conservative about him.
I hope Bonnie wins.
Our edition of democracy with street gang parties and corporate pandering is laughable. Tens of thousands of people being represented on everything by an unaccountable meatsack 4 years into the future is absolutely ludicrous. Every decision, every choice every opinion taken from you with no recourse. Voluntarily stripped of all your decisive powers in the navigation of your countries destiny as you hand it over to an always unknown actor.
“Citizen congresses, specifically the Basic People’s Congresses, were the fundamental units of government in Muammar Gaddafi’s Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, designed to implement a system of direct popular democracy where authority was held by the people, exercised directly through these congresses. ”
Basically every citizen was given all the perks politicians receive with the requirement of being politically knowledgeable and involved. The almost pure democracy we helped the u.s. bomb back to the dark age to maintain oil on the u.s. dollar rather than on gold.
We may never become the 51st state but we always acted like it.
David, before I provide answer to two of your implied questions, thanks for a richly informative column on how Elections Canada, through the commonplace write-in ballot, as used in mail-in ballots, has popped the balloon of the longest ballot’ s diversionary stunt theatrics. Even more importantly and thereby as well refocused attention on the very purpose of the $2 million BRC by-election PP has foisted on us. Namely the citizens right within a democracy to choose a fellow Canadian as our personal local district specific legislative representative!
To also expand upon your column, thanks further for drawing attention to several of the myriad ways in which party leaders across the political spectrum, but I would add especially Harper and JT recently, with PP and Carney currently, actively abuse their top-down concentration of powers in order to add barriers to the possibility of truly independent candidate’s elections!
Then as well, with all that I have found out within my research about electoral reform, I’m fully with you in your encouragement that “perhaps Mr. Perrault could turn his attention to finding a way to make it easier for legitimate independent candidates to run”, in the face of the very real political obstacle that “our system is unlikely to change because the parties that unfairly profit from” our “single-member plurality voting system” more commonly described by the exceptionally misleading euphemism “First Past The Post”.
However in answer to your two just stated aspirations let’s refocus again, but more closely to “The fact is, our system is unlikely to change because the parties that profit from it form government most often, and because it’s easy to explain to voters.”
In practical terms at the voter level, filling out a ranked ballot requires much less effort than our single-x ballot. First, for anyone who can count, even to as little as 10 or 20, filling out a ranked ballot requires very little, if any additional cerebral capacity. However ranking as many candidates as the voter wishes requires much less effort then when the more informed voters try to get more value out of our dysfunctional single-X mark ballot through any of the strategic voting practices in order to collapse one’s choices to a single X. And with many fingers crossed hope we got it right as there are many examples of strategic vote failures. None of this speculative effort is necessary with a ranked ballot as a voter, totally independent of all fellow voters, simply needs to just rank the various candidates, as the counting method takes care of determining the most preferred candidate actually is.
Much more importantly instead of concentrating the vote on one of the two lesser of two evils, when a majority of voters happen to prefer a much better candidate than either of these two lesser of evils, first there is no risk of a votesplit allowing one of these to slip up the middle and secondly other lesser party candidates and independent candidates actually have much greater possibilities of being elected under a ranked ballot than our current system!
It also bares adding it’s quite odd how many PR supporters including first and foremost the longest ballot activists position themselves and advocates for electoral reform, but instead of providing more power to the citizenry through their wish list of electoral reform almost never support the ranked ballot but wish to make our electoral system more biased towards party rule such as, referred to as proportional systems such as in Germany or New Zealand.