Every once in a while you hear a hue and cry for election reform, usually shortly after an election when the ones who want it the most are those whose candidate was not successful.
In Canada, our electoral tradition has primarily been one of first past the post; winner take all, regardless of the percentage of votes he or she managed to get. Over the years, I have generally been in favour of that, as I believe have most Canadians. Recently, however, I have been rethinking this whole issue.
One reason for this is that I have always believed that a basic tenet of democracy is that the majority wins. To me, that means 50 per cent plus one.
Another reason is the recent mayoral election in Toronto, with the fourth-largest government in Canada in terms of population. Only the government of Canada and the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec are larger.
In that election there were 102 candidates for mayor, the vote was hopelessly split and the winner, Olivia Chow, received the support of 15 per cent of eligible voters. In his last election for mayor, John Tory received the support of 17 per cent of eligible voters.
So, those of you that are jumping to the conclusion that this is all about Olivia Chow, it is not. I have no reason to believe she will not be a good mayor. In fact, I knew her when she was a Trustee on the Toronto School Board, years ago when the Board was a client of our firm. I even received an invitation to her wedding when she married Jack Layton. It was on one of the Toronto Islands and I was told to bring a bike. It was kind of come one, come all. I didn’t go.
To get back to my point, the reason for my change of heart is that the Toronto election opened my eyes to the ridiculous lengths that a first-past-the-post election can go, with unlimited candidates and no possibility of the winner getting a strong mandate.
To me, strong mandates matter, and so, I have come to the conclusion that we need electoral reform that honours this. Also, effective electoral reform does not have to be one size fits all, in fact, it shouldn’t be. In all elections, I believe the winning candidate should receive 50 per cent of the vote, plus one. There are different ways to achieve that.
For large municipalities, say with a population over 100,000, I believe run-off elections are appropriate for the position of mayor when no candidate receives the majority of votes cast in a general election. The two top candidates in that election would then run off against each other a month or so later and the one who gets more than 50 per cent of the vote wins with a strong mandate.
With very few exceptions, municipal politics are different than provincial or federal politics as candidates generally do not run as members of a partisan political party, and most do not vote in blocks. In my view, it is therefore important that the leader of a municipal government should have a strong and direct mandate.
Another option, of course, is ranked ballots for everyone. But in larger municipalities, where there can literally be a hundred people on the ballot going after the top job, a ranked ballot can be quite confusing and not very effective. That is why I think a run-off election for mayor in large cities is appropriate when required to achieve a majority for that position. Ranked ballots, in my view, are appropriate for all other municipal offices.
I do not think a ranked ballot would work well in provincial or federal elections. These elections are partisan in nature and voters with strong party affiliations would have trouble selecting a candidate from another political party as their second or third choice. In my view, therefore, the winning candidate should get a clear direct majority of at least 50 per cent, plus one and if that takes a run-off election, then so be it.
I am aware that such a process has a real potential for increasing election costs. But it makes for a better democracy when the winning candidate gets a majority of the votes cast. Surely that is more important than some expenditures we see being made by governments of all stripes.
As long as we are talking electoral reform, there are others that should be considered. I believe that every member of a political body should be elected by a constituency of voters and not appointed. That goes for the Canadian Senate which is currently a dysfunctional body beholden to the government that appointed them, no matter their pretense of being independent.
It also goes for the Chair of the District Municipality of Muskoka. That municipality has more than 740 employees, likely the largest employer in Muskoka. It has an operating budget of $151,932,153.00 plus a capital budget of $35,950,606.00. Yet the head of the District of Muskoka, earning a six-figure salary, can be chosen by as few as 12 District councilors.
Meanwhile, the mayors of all six municipalities in Muskoka, making much less money, and having smaller budgets, all have to run for election and be accountable to voters. There is something wrong with that. The District of Muskoka Chair should be elected at large and accountable to the electorate in the same manner as mayors are. Premier Doug Ford was wrong to back away from that commitment.
Another needed reform, in my view, is the requirement for a candidate to be a resident or property owner in any municipality where he or she wants to be a candidate. What does that really mean? It has all sorts of holes in it. In my view, there should be some genuine commitment to the constituency one wants to represent. It stretches the bounds of credibility when the current Chair of Muskoka is a resident of Barrie and only qualified to run for office here by having his name registered as a co-owner of his parents’ cottage just one day before he submitted his papers to run for District chair.
That’s just not right. Let me be clear here, my criticism is not about the current District Chair, who I really do not know, and I bet most of you don’t either. It is about the system and the electoral process that I believe needs to be changed.
At the end of the day, it may be that electoral reform is not at the top of most people’s agenda. I admit, it wasn’t on mine but so much in the world is changing that we need to be sure that we have a democratic voting system that really works.
Our democracy depends on it.
Hugh Mackenzie
Hugh Mackenzie has held elected office as a trustee on the Muskoka Board of Education, a Huntsville councillor, a District councillor, and mayor of Huntsville. He has also served as chairman of the District of Muskoka and as chief of staff to former premier of Ontario, Frank Miller.
Hugh has also served on a number of provincial, federal and local boards, including chair of the Ontario Health Disciplines Board, vice-chair of the Ontario Family Health Network, vice-chair of the Ontario Election Finance Commission, and board member of Roy Thomson Hall, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Locally, he has served as president of the Huntsville Rotary Club, chair of Huntsville District Memorial Hospital, chair of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation, president of Huntsville Festival of the Arts, and board member of Community Living Huntsville.
In business, Hugh Mackenzie has a background in radio and newspaper publishing. He was also a founding partner and CEO of Enterprise Canada, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm established in 1986.
Currently, Hugh is president of C3 Digital Media Inc., the parent company of Doppler Online, and he enjoys writing commentary for Huntsville Doppler.
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The District of Muskoka must be reformed. Not just the Chair and his dubious qualifications.
You might think elected councillors would make the decisions here based on documented facts from those with competence and then direct staff what to do.
Nope.
It seems unelected staff make the decisions and councillors blindly rubber stamp whatever they decide.
This Council, unlike an earlier enlightened council, will be known as the one that destroyed the airport’s future, destroyed the historic Norwegian grass runway, reduced safety and usability forever and reduced the viability of existing businesses at the airport that have operated here for 50+ years.
All for no reason at all. Simply build beside instead of on top of a runway as the latest and an earlier consultant laid out and recommended. Snake oil salesmen know better according to this Council.
To be fair they were prepared to reopen the grass runway last year when they were made aware the alternate runway 12-30 was never viable. Councillors were not happy airport staff wasted their time on 12-30 for 2 years. Then they forgot about all that in May this year. Fish have longer memories.
For more details go to:
https://doppleronline.ca/huntsville/speak-up-huntsville/
Scroll down to the snake oil salesmen.
Are all District decisions based on bunk?
“… I believe the winning candidate should receive 50 per cent of the vote, plus one. There are different ways to achieve that. ”
I agree Hugh. How this is accomplished I am not sufficiently educated on this to comment intelligently. Huge budgets are involved, often many millions (billions?) of dollars are at stake. To have someone with only 15% of the vote be the head person directing these expenditures and influencing long term policies is not right. No criticism of Ms. Chow intended, but she does not have a mandate. Without some kind of runoff no-one could possibly have.
Another area of elections is ‘honest elections’. Both actual and perceived. In a previous ‘Commentary’ some months back I made the observation that when I voted in the last provincial election my paper ballot was fed into a Dominion Computer. Why? Are the paper ballots being compared to computer results??? I cannot find any info regarding this in Canadian elections? Are our media sleeping? Are the winners actually winners or prearranged placements?
Anyone who has done any serious research knows that the Dominion Computer Machines are extremely controversial in the US. It has been proven they can be hacked. It has been proven that they can be programmed to flip votes. In the US this is a huge controversy, yet this is a Canadian company based in Toronto and we Canadians are not questioning this at all that I can see.
I have found the Western Journal quite credible https://www.westernjournal.com/government-admits-dominion-voting-machines-vulnerable-hacking-16-states/
I think (could be wrong) we are being way too complacent here.
Doug Beiers