I am not a big fan of Stephen Harper and his merry band of reactionary pundits which he calls a government.  His

Kittens: Great for Breakfast.

proroguing of  parliament is another bitch-slapping of democracy and the Canadian People.

We need a voting system that better represents the people of Canada.  I am proud to be part of the riding that went to the NDP in the last federal election.  It was a close battle with the incumbent conservative (tough on crime, currently facing drug charges) was beaten by Linda Duncan.  We are the tiny crack in what has been fortress tory Alberta for much too long.  Go to Fair Vote Canada and sign up and let us turf this antiquated and thoroughly anti-democratic First Past the Post system of representation.

Fair Vote Canada has a great FAQ.  I snipped the first two topics off their page.  Read the rest here.

Myths About Fair Voting and Proportional Representation

Rather than defend the glaring problems with Canada’s winner-take-all voting system, critics usually spend more time trying to frighten people about change. Let’s look at some of common myths they promote, compared to the facts.

Myth 1: There are trade-offs between good democracy and good government.

The Facts: In his landmark study, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Democracies (1999), internationally-renowned political scientist Arend Lijphart assessed and compared the performance of majoritarian democracies (associated with winner-take-all voting systems) and consensus democracies (associated with proportional representation systems).

He concluded: “the overall performance record of the consensus democracies is clearly superior to that of the majoritarian democracies” and “the good news is that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, there is no trade-off at all between governing effectiveness and high-quality democracy – and hence no difficult decisions to be made on giving priority to one or the other objective.”

Fair Vote Canada has prepared an 8-page summary of Dr. Lijphart’s key findings.

Myth 2: Proportional representation means coalition governments and that’s bad because it requires deal-making.

The Facts: Governments formed under any voting system are coalitions of different groups who negotiate and make deals. That’s the way democracy works.

In Canada, the two largest “big tent” parties are coalitions of factions which are generally hidden from public view except during leadership races. These internal factions compete with one another and then negotiate and compromise on the party platform and policies.

The primary difference between this and the formation of multi-party coalition governments under fair voting systems are: 1) transparency – coalition negotiations among parties are generally more visible to the public and the compromises are publicly known; and 2) majority rule – under fair voting systems, the resulting coalition or governing group represents a true majority of voters.