The Debate and Proportional Representation

The debate was pretty typical. The minority parties claiming Harper is a wannabe Bush and Harper trying to convince them that he is also in favor of government intervention and wealth redistrobution so they have nothing too worry about. Some things never change. Seriously, Harper wants to shower us with small five and dime tax cuts that amount to squat. You want to help a family stay independent of the proverbial teat then Why not income splitting? Reduce the overspending so we can have some meaningful tax reform. Then there is Layton who, as usual wants to completely regulate the economy-- buy Canadian (see principle of Comparative Advantage). Dion was Dion-- the Liberals only agenda is power, hence fearmongering and an all over the map plan for the country. These guys hate intellectual consistency. And Elizabeth May was a shrill harping thing, not really concerned with things green, but instead political funding. Once again a minority party clamouring for political funding-- proportional representation. I am staunchly against proportional representation.

Here are the top 8 reasons Canada should never have Proportional representation.


1)Minority party votes are constantly sold for funding towards whatever special interest the selling party represents.

2)The proportional representation methodology increases voter apathy as it quickly becomes a system where votes must be bought in order to form a coalition government which has consequences.

3)It validates the public’s sense of government corruption as it’s an electoral system that favors and demands political deals.

4)The ridiculous amount of compromise eradicates ideology and makes long term vision impossible

5)Essentially you move from an electoral system where the majority party determines policy into one in which the party with the fewest votes does.

6)The proportional system is in fact less proportional as it has the uncanny ability to lock old political hacks into their position.
When a party receives 10 percent of the vote they allowed to choose which members of their party will represent their party in legislature, which is good for longtime serving senior party faithful, but is counterproductive to getting new blood and ideas into government.

7)Proportional representation is inherently against principles making it range of the moment pragmatic whim worship. Long range vision requires principle

8)Once Proportional Representation has been legislated further electoral form becomes next to impossible. Picture Canada’s attempt at negotiating a charter between three regionalized interests, and the endless amounts of stalling, compromise and redundancy, and ultimately futility involved that process. Imagine trying to agree on similar monumental reform with over 100 special interest groups being represented. Change would only happen through revolution. Reason would be invalidated as a political tool and thus parties world switch to force when trying to mandate change.