Making Parliament Proportional
by Michael Urban
Rhodes scholar completing a doctorate in international relations, Oxford University.
- First Posted: Jul 28 2009 09:33 AM
- Updated: 11 months
In an age of chronic minority governments, where no party has enough support to maintain a majority, proportional representation makes more sense than ever.
In a recent piece in The Globe and Mail, former Conservative Party advisor Tom Flanagan claims that, as of 2004, we have entered a period of chronic minority parliaments. Canada’s electoral map, Flanagan argues, is simply too divided for any single party to gain the support needed for a majority government – a situation he sees continuing into the future.
As Flanagan correctly notes, the obvious consequence of this state of affairs is that in order for Parliament to accomplish anything of substance, our political parties will need to cooperate more regularly and effectively than they are accustomed to.
In this vein, he points to the recent Harper/Ignatieff “power-sharing” agreement to study employment insurance as an important step towards the type of sustainable cooperation he believes is needed. Flanagan ends his piece by expressing a hope that this sort of cooperation will continue in the months, and indeed years, to come.
While Flanagan’s analysis of Canada’s contemporary political geography is correct, his conclusion – in which he adopts a strangely Pollyanna-esque prescription for the future – does not follow. Whatever he may hope for, Flanagan ought to know that Canada’s political system – at least in its current configuration – is systematically biased against inter-party teamwork. This makes sustained cooperation highly unlikely.
One of the main sources of this bias is our electoral system. By making majority governments a real possibility, our current system creates perverse incentives against cooperation. Essentially, parties are presented with the following questionable choice: why cooperate now – something that necessarily entails compromise and getting less than what one wants – when one can stall progress, allow the situation to deteriorate, blame the other side for the negative outcome, use the unhappiness and anger with the situation to propel one to a majority in the next election, and then do what one really wants without having to compromise?
One does not even need to view parties cynically for this logic to apply. After all, parties believe that their preferred policy option is the best for Canadians, so it is their duty to fight for this option and not compromise. Thus, until parties – at least the dominant ones – realize that a majority government is not in the cards, they have little incentive to cooperate.
This structural bias is exacerbated by the fact that despite claiming to desire more cooperative politics, voters routinely punish politicians when they seek to cooperate.
The 2008 coalition debacle demonstrated that many Canadians, apparently unaware of – or at least uncomfortable with – how our parliamentary system works, opposed an unprecedented level of cooperation that would have installed a government supported by representatives who garnered a greater percentage of the popular vote (53.72 per cent) than any other peacetime government in Canadian history. Granted, some of this opposition was based on certain reasonable objections, but no small amount of it emerged from other mistaken notions that what the coalition proposed to do was somehow unfair or unconstitutional.
Similarly, the critiques of Stephane Dion, and more recently Michael Ignatieff, for supporting their Conservative opponents in parliamentary votes – what cooperation actually looks like in action – show some of the dangers for any politician that seeks to cooperate with another party, even when this cooperation could arguably benefit the country in the long-term.
All of this gives one more reason, though a too-often-neglected one, for electoral reform in the direction of increased proportionality in our electoral system. By creating "false majorities" (majority governments that don’t actually command majority electoral support) our current system has inured Canadians into believing that minority governments are an aberration, and a distasteful one at that, despite the fact that they actually represent a much more realistic representation of Canadians’ preferences.
Indeed, one of the most powerful arguments against increasing the proportionality of the system is that the current first-past-the-post system is more likely to deliver majority governments and "strong government." If we accept Flanagan’s analysis, this trade-off no longer holds and the current system loses one its most important supports.
By removing the lure of false majorities, a more proportional system would force the parties to cooperate and actually work with the preferences expressed by Canadian voters. While it does not completely eliminate the incentives structures I detailed above, it does reduce their salience and introduce more positive countervailing incentives.
Instead of hoping that the parties will change their ways without changing any of the incentives to do so, as Flanagan suggests, proportional representation offers a realistic prescription for more cooperation and more representative public policy.
Comments
Re:Marks
“ Excellent article! Unfortunately, as we get closer to electoral reform, entrenched elites are striking back with increasing ferocity to hold on to their power. Recent referendum campaigns in PEI, Ontario and BC were thwarted by carefully orchestrated and highly effective campaigns of misinformation and fearmongering, as well as the usual government and media indifference. To find out more and get involved: www. FairVote.Ca
Wayne Smith
“ You don't provide clear reasons why the party system is biased against cooperation. I'm guessing you are thinking of the small shifts in popular vote at the riding level that can create large shifts at the national level? This surely results in the perverse incentives you talk about. Also, while voters may punish cooperation, I would disagree that it's routine. Think of the minority governments in the 60s and 70s. There was considerable cooperation between the Libs and the NDP. Are these successive minorities evidence that the voters were punishing this cooperation? What would punishment for cooperation look like anyway? You suggest criticism, but what about at election time? Surely, in the 60s and 70s, it would be to give the Conservatives a majority (or, currently, the Libs a majority). Well, the Conservatives didn't get a majority until 84' and it wasn't because of inter-party cooperation. Anyway, you're right about PR. It does encourage cooperation because it's harder to get a majority at election time; it is also a formalized cooperative arrangement, which creates incentives for the parties in power to maintain the stability of the government.
Erin Penner
“ A thoughtful piece. Now let's imagine a future where we do in fact have some form of PR. The structural incentives of our voting system, Parliament, and let's even assume Cabinet-making (where the real policy-making power lies, if not more and more in the executive/PMO) have changed so that coalition, multi-party governments are possible. What are readers' thoughts about how our political culture and the public’s perception of politics would adapt to this scenario? With a long-standing focus on Question Period, adversarial politics and increased partisanship, I have to wonder if our political parties and those who are our MPs are capable of the kind of compromise, bridge-building and "public policy first" mentality it would take to make PR work on the ground. The public, too, is very oriented towards a party view of politics. Where, the pubic might ask, is responsibility for policy? With individual Ministers, the PM, the Cabinet as a whole? I think Canadians are likely more political mature and astute than our parties-- how often have we heard Canadians say about things like food safety, 911 coverage or crime and safety issues "I just want Parliament to get it done, party lines be damned"-- but I put the question out there. Are Canadians ready for a PR/coalition federal government? Great food for thought Mr. Urban. And for those looking for more reading on PR, go to the Ontario Citizen Assembly Library: http://www.citizensassembly.gov.on.ca/en-CA/The%20Classroom/The%20Library/The%20Stacks.html
Mara Johnson
“ Erin: I think Michael was pretty clear as to why the current system discourages cooperation: 1) in the eyes of a political party (Grits and Tories in particular), majority governments are considerably more powerful and thus more much more desirable than any other form of government; 2) the degree to which parties desire majority governments leads them to pursue them at all costs; 3) the party in power is generally rewarded if parliament is (perceived to be) functioning, but punished if is not; 4) the governing party is thus encouraged to cooperate while opposition parties are not (hence Flanagan's *current* viewpoint); 5) since opposition parties will, by definition, control a majority of seats in a minority government, such governments are doomed to inaction and defeat The obvious exception to this are the two "coalitions" in the 1960s under Pearson. While you maintain that the Tories should have benefited from such cooperation, this is not necessarily true; the Tories would only benefit if the government was seem to have been unproductive. In fact, those coalitions are credited with introducing a number of popular measures (the flag, universal healthcare, the CPP) and the reward for this cooperation went to the party of the prime minister, the Liberals. (There was of course comingling with Trudeau-mania but there are only so many samples in the laboratory of political history.) On the other hand, while the NDP made some modest gains, they did not and never have made the electoral breakthroughs for which they hoped.
Dana Gregoire
“ Hi Dana, I understand the incentives parties have to want majority governments, but I disagree that Michael explicitly said *why* majorities are more possible in the current system than in others. Majorities are not just possible because they are desirable - there is other structural stuff going on outside parliament that makes them more possible (enter the electoral system). Also, I actually don't maintain that the PCs should have benefited from the Pearson (and Trudeau) minorities. I'm saying that if voters routinely punish cooperation, and Michael suggests, one obvious way to punish would be to give the non-cooperative party a majority - which voters didn't do. Remember, too, the longest minority in Canadian history - King sustained on and off for about 4 years via cooperation with opposition parties. So, if one looks at Canada's minority governments, cooperation has tended not been 'punished' but has worked out reasonably well. I think the Harper govt is the exception and not the rule. Clark is really the only minority leader (besides Harper) who refused to cooperate and we all know what happened there.
Erin Penner
“ ..."King WAS sustained"...argh
Erin Penner
“ I read the piece by Urban and was not at all impressed. Given that your publication presents him as a Rhodes Scholar and PhD candidate at Oxford, I would have expected an op-ed with more insight than that which could easily have been written by a fourth year political science student for an assignment in Canadian Political Parties (which probably wouldn't garner him/her a coveted "A" at any decent university). I found the analysis rather glib and in some areas misleading. For example, you make no mention of the extreme difficulties in implementing a system of proportional representation at the federal level. Voters in British Columbia (twice) and Ontario have voted heavily against electoral reform -- even when multiple options are presented. A referendum on electoral reform was scuttled in New Brunswick due to doubts of success by the then newly elected Liberal government. Further, this piece is lacking in recognition of the democratic difficulties posed by PR coalition policy swaps, whereas voters, let alone party members, have very little control or input into the trade offs made between party leaders when forming a partnership government. Finally, a nod to some recent political analysts regarding the argument that we are entering into a new party system whereby majority governments will become increasingly difficult to achieve due to regional fragmentation and the coalescing of the conservative movement into a viable opponent to Liberal rule is a striking absence to this piece. Perhaps the next columnist The Mark enlists to take Tom Flanagan "to task" (who is formerly a tenured professor in Canadian politics at U of C) could at least be a student of Canadian politics and not international relations.
K.P. Yeoman