Earlier this year, we wrote about Justin Trudeau’s regret at failing to deliver electoral reform during his near decade as Canada’s Prime Minister, despite first coming to power with a manifesto commitment to end First Past The Post (FPTP) for Canadian federal elections.

A lot has happened in Canadian politics since then. Trudeau has been replaced as Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister by Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England.

Carney has gone on to call a federal election for Monday 28 April. As we wait for the outcome, it is worth looking back at past Canadian federal elections and highlighting where FPTP has produced odd outcomes.

1993: Governing Progressive Conservative Party almost wiped out

One of the most infamous Canadian federal elections and perhaps one of the most startling election results anywhere, ever. At the previous federal election in 1988, the Progressive Conservative Party won 169 MPs (57.3% of seats) and formed a comfortable majority government. At the 1984 federal election, they had won 211 MPs (three-quarters of all seats). In 1993, they were virtually wiped out, with just 2 MPs being returned to the House of Commons.

The 1993 election saw both an increase in support for the biggest centre-left party, the Liberals and the emergence of a new right-wing party, Reform. This proved a disastrous combination for the Progressive Conservatives under FPTP. Reform won 18.7% of votes nationwide and picked up 52 MPs (17.6% of seats), mainly in the West of Canada. The Progressive Conservatives’ vote share fell to 16.0% but despite getting only slightly fewer votes than Reform, they barely clung on to representation in parliament.

Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, provides an example of how and why this happened. In 1988, the Progressive Conservatives won 46 of Ontario’s 99 seats. In 1993, they won no seats in Ontario, with the Liberals winning 98 of the 99 seats, from around 53% of the votes cast in the province. Reform picked up the other seat in Ontario, from around 20% of votes, with the Progressive Conservatives on 18%. Right-leaning voters in Ontario spread their support almost evenly between two parties, which FPTP translated into almost zero representation.

2011 & 2015: Single-party majority governments with under 40% of votes

In the past one hundred years, stretching back to 1925, Canadian federal elections have resulted in single-party majority governments on sixteen occasions. On thirteen of those occasions, the party that formed the single-party majority government got over 40% of votes nationwide and sometimes over half the votes cast.

However, the two most recent single-party majority Canadian governments have been formed by parties that received fewer than 40% of votes. In 2011, the Conservatives (formed from a merger of the Progressive Conservatives and Reform in the early 2000s) won 53.9% of seats with 39.6% of votes. At the following federal election, in 2015, the Liberals won 54.4% of seats with 39.5% of votes.

This reflects a long-term trend seen in a number of democracies, including the United Kingdom, for voters to increasingly support a wider range of parties, with votes less concentrated in two big parties.

Perhaps 2025 and the shock impact of Donald Trump’s Presidency on its next-door neighbour may see an increase in the ‘big two’ vote share. However, there is every chance the long-term trend could reassert itself, as it appears to have done in the UK, following the ‘big two’ surge at the 2017 and 2019 general elections, which followed the Brexit shock.

2019 & 2021: ‘wrong winner’ elections 

At both of the most recent Canadian federal elections, in 2019 and 2021, the Conservatives received more votes than the Liberals, albeit by a small margin on both occasions. However, at each of these elections, substantially more Liberal MPs were returned to parliament. In 2019 the Liberals led the Conservatives by 36 seats (157-121) and in 2021 the Liberals increased their lead to 41 seats (160-119).

This highlights another aspect of FPTP that prioritises some voters over others. Under FPTP it is not just the level of support for a party that matters but where that support comes from. If two bigger parties receive roughly the same level of support, but one party’s support is more concentrated in heartland areas, racking up massive majorities in some constituencies, but the other party’s support is more ‘efficiently’ spread across a wider range of areas, then the latter party is likely to win out.

This can be seen in action at the most recent Canadian federal election of 2021. The Conservatives were the only party to win over half the votes in any province, doing so in the Western provinces of Saskatchewan (59% of votes), where they won all 14 seats and Alberta (55% of votes), where they won 30 out of 34 seats.

However, in Ontario (where 36% of Canadian MPs are elected), a narrow 4-point lead for the Liberals over the Conservatives in terms of votes (39%-35%) translated into more than double the number of MPs (78-37). This 41-seat Liberal lead across Ontario matches the 41-seat Liberal lead across Canada as a whole. In Canada’s most populous province, the Liberals managed to get 64% of seats from fewer than 40% of votes.

First Past the Post has been a real engine of chaos in Canada, randomly throwing up parliaments that bear little resemblance to how Canadians voted. It doesn’t have to be like this, a system of proportional representation (PR) would end this postcode lottery where the location of a party’s support can matter more than its overall level of support.

Would you like to see Westminster adopt a fairer voting system?

Add your name to our call for electoral reform

At the beginning of 2025, the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announced his decision to resign. He will stay in office until March 2025, when the Liberal Party selects a new leader, who will also become Canada’s Prime Minister. Trudeau’s successor will have to call a federal election by 20 October 2025, with the Liberal Party trailing the Conservative Party by over 20 points in opinion polls and facing the prospect of a landslide defeat in elections to Canada’s House of Commons.

After announcing his planned resignation, Trudeau said that failing to enact electoral reform was one of the biggest regrets of his nearly decade-long tenure as Prime Minister. How and why did this failure occur and what lessons might it have for us in the UK?

Canada is one of the few democracies that uses the same First Past The Post (FPTP) electoral system that the UK uses for its general elections. This is a system that produced the most disproportional result in history at the 2024 UK general election, meaning the share of MPs received by each party least reflects how people voted since the dawn of universal suffrage in the early twentieth century.

Based on current polling, FPTP looks likely to also produce a very disproportional result in the forthcoming Canadian election. This time it appears that it will be the right-wing Conservatives who will benefit, with CBC’s poll tracker giving them the support of about 45% of the public but projected to win about 66% of seats in the House of Commons. Meanwhile, two centre-left parties, the Liberals and the New Democratic Party (NDP), are both sitting at around 20% public support but are projected to win only around 20% of MPs between them.

If such an outcome did occur, it would be far from the first time that a Canadian government has won a comfortable majority in the House of Commons based on a minority of votes in the country. The last time this happened was in 2015, the federal election that saw Justin Trudeau become Prime Minister for the first time, when his Liberal Party won 54.4% of seats in parliament on the basis of just 39.5% of votes cast.

However, the Liberal Party manifesto produced for that 2015 general election was notable for a commitment ‘to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-past-voting system’.

The manifesto went on to indicate that an all-party parliamentary committee would review a variety of reforms, including proportional representation and that ‘within 18 months of forming government, we will introduce legislation to enact electoral reform’.

What went wrong?

Following the Liberals election victory in 2015, a House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform was established, with members appointed on the basis of party vote shares at the 2015 federal election. The Committee launched a national consultation that included a ‘cross-Canada tour to consult broadly with Canadians to identify viable alternate voting systems to replace the first-past-the-post system’.

The Committee presented their final report to the House of Commons in early December 2016. One of its key recommendations was that the government should select a proportional representation system (excluding pure party list systems) and ask the Canadian people to chose between the PR system and FPTP in a referendum.

Unfortunately, despite the Liberal Party’s manifesto commitment to enact electoral reform and end FPTP, the government’s response was to reject the Committee’s findings, with the Minister of Democratic Institutions stating that “there isn’t a consensus on how to move forward”.

It became clear that Trudeau was only willing to consider his preferred form of electoral reform – Ranked Choice Voting, or as we refer to it, the Alternative Vote (AV). AV is not a proportional voting system and therefore would not have met the criteria for the Committee’s recommendation for the government to select a proportional alternative to FPTP.

It is very disappointing that Trudeau was unwilling to consider proportional representation options for electoral reform, having first become Prime Minister on a platform that included ending FPTP for Canadian federal elections.

Given the fact that support for proportional representation has received the backing of the Labour Party conference and polling shows that PR is far more popular than FPTP among the general public, we think it would be wise for Keir Starmer to reconsider his position on PR, so that he does not end up with the same regret as Justin Trudeau.

Would you like to see Westminster adopt a fairer voting system?

Add your name to our call >

Back in 2018 we reported on the excitement in Quebec which was set for a move from First Past the Post (FPTP) to proportional representation, following a commitment from the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, to the same method of mixed member proportional representation (MMP) as in Germany, New Zealand and the UKs devolved parliament in Wales and Scotland.

Campaigners for electoral reform in Quebec highlighted the following benefits to a move away from FPTP:

• MMP is fairer as every vote carries an equal weight.
• MMP could allow for smaller parties, with sizeable voting shares, to translate these votes into seats in the National Assembly.
• MMP could increase the influence of minority communities. e.g., Under the current system, the votes of English-speaking and Allophone communities are concentrated in a small number of ridings, giving them less weight in the overall results.

In May 2018, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), the Parti Québécois, Québec Solidaire and the Green Party of Québec signed an electoral reform pact pledging to implement Mixed Member Proportional (or the Additional Member System as it is known in the UK) representation, if elected.

Except for the Liberals, all main parties promised to scrap First Past the Post.

And the day after the election, Premier-designate François Legault of the CAQ pledged to reform the voting system and committed to tabling a bill within a year. With 71% of voters backing a party that signed the pledge to bring in electoral reform, the plan was not conditional on a referendum.

After much debate and the introduction of electoral reform legislation to parliament, François Legault, stated any change to the voting system would now be put to a referendum in 2022 – however, this has not materialised and his party, Coalition Avenir Québec, have dropped plans to change the current system.

The 2022 general election was held on the 3^{rd of} October using FPTP. Unsurprisingly, this election culminated in another set of unbalanced and inequitable vote/seat share outcomes for the people of Quebec.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Quebec_general_election

The incumbent party, Coalition Avenir Québec took 41% of the votes which translated into 72% of the seats (90/125), leaving only 35 seats for the remaining 59% of the votes. Québec Solidaire and Parti Québécois each gained 15% of the votes which translated to 11 seats (9%) and 3 seats (2%) respectively, whilst The Liberal Party gained 14% of the votes but succeeded in holding 21 seats (17%) in Parliament.

The party with the majority of the seats didn’t get the majority of the vote. The party that came 4^th in the vote came second in seats and a party that won 12% of the vote won no seats at all.

The make-up of parliament shouldn’t depend on the fluke outcomes of an antiquated electoral system. Every country with first past the post has campaigners working to remove it – hopefully, this warped result will provide fire and momentum to power the campaign for proportional representation in Québec.

Many countries use a bicameral political system – meaning that they have two chambers in their parliament. These parliaments are comprised of a lower house where the government is formed and day-to-day politics is carried out, like the House of Commons, and an upper house that scrutinises and revises legislation, like the House of Lords. Upper houses are sometimes referred to as second chambers or senates.

But while all lower houses in democracies share broadly similar functions and are elected with an equal as possible ratio of voters to representatives across the country, the same is not true of upper houses. Not only do they vary in terms of powers and functions, from the powerful Senates of Italy or the United States to the weak and overridable House of Lords or Austrian Federal Council, but the methods by which they are chosen differ enormously.

Some Upper Houses are directly elected

One way that an upper house is chosen is through direct popular election, though usually with a different method to that used for the lower house.

A common change in method is a different voting system. Australia, who use the majority-based Alternative Vote to elect their House of Representatives, use the proportional Single Transferable Vote to elect their Senate. While the Czech Republic, Poland, Spain and Switzerland all choose their upper houses with a non-proportional voting system in contrast to their proportionally elected lower house. There are also some, like Italy or Japan, that use the same voting system for both chambers, with some small adjustments.

Many directly elected second chambers, including Australia, Spain and Switzerland, have followed the US’s model of giving subnational units (states, provinces, etc.) equal representation regardless of population. This is designed to give less populous units a stronger voice and prevent their interests from being overridden by more populous areas. But ‘territorial representation’ can be done by other means. The Italian Senate is focused on regional representation, but it is done in proportion to population.

Elections to upper houses usually take place at the same time as elections to the lower house. Some do have longer terms, but it is by no means a universal feature. Many of those that do achieve longer terms by electing only a portion of the chamber at each election as in Australia, the US, the Czech Republic or Japan – though the latter two are elected on a different cycle to their respective lower houses.

The obvious reason for directly electing the upper house is to give it a greater level of democratic legitimacy, which enables it to better assert its own authority. It is thus not surprising that most of the more powerful upper houses are directly elected – especially those that are ‘incongruent’, i.e., have a substantively different partisan make-up to the lower house.

But the legitimacy gained through popular election is often lost through the method of election. Equal representation for subnational territories may give smaller areas parity to larger ones, but it can give a minority of the population a veto over a much larger majority – in the US Senate, small, largely rural states with one-sixth of America’s population have the same representation as the remaining five-sixths. Using a plurality or majority voting system over a proportional one also makes the chamber less representative and thus lessens its democratic legitimacy.

Upper houses that use indirect election

The other common method of choosing upper houses in Europe is through indirect election by subnational political units – often state or regional parliaments (e.g., Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands), but sometimes lower-level bodies like local councillors (France). The purpose of such chambers is often to directly represent and protect the interests of regional governments at the national level.

Although indirectly elected chambers lack the direct mandate of a popularly elected one, they are still chosen by directly elected politicians and, given the design and purpose of such political systems, it is best to think of their mandate as an extension to the one given to the regional parliaments. Most indirectly elected chambers are also appointed proportionally – both in party and population terms – avoiding some of questionable methods used to choose some directly elected upper houses.

Unlike directly elected chambers, which are often relatively powerful, there is little consensus on the strength of indirectly elected chambers. Austria’s Federal Council is very weak – other than on certain constitutional matters, it can only delay legislation as the lower house can simply override it with a simple majority vote. The Dutch Senate, on the other hand, has a full veto over the House of Representatives that cannot be bypassed.

Other Methods

Given the powers and purposes of upper houses vary so much, it is unsurprising that there are some election methods that don’t fit neatly into two categories. There are hybrids – such as the Spanish Senate, which combines direct and indirect election. The ‘unusuals’ – like the Irish Seanad, which is part indirectly elected ‘experts’, part Prime Ministerially appointed, part elected by graduates. Then there’s Germany’s Bundesrat which, although sometimes grouped with indirectly elected chambers, is appointed through state governments rather than state parliaments.

There is also the Canadian Senate, which, being entirely appointed by the Prime Minister, is probably one of the most similar to Westminster’s House of Lords. It does, however, have a fixed size of 105 and a mandatory retirement age of 75, meaning a new Senator can only be appointed when a vacancy arises. New appointments must also be made on a regional basis – with each state holding a fixed number of seats. Though there are still calls for reform, the Canadian Senate is at least not ever-expanding in size and is not dominated by certain parts of the country like the House of Lords.

And there are, of course, some countries that simply choose not to have an upper house, instead opting for a single legislative chamber. This is called ‘unicameralism’, in contrast to bicameralism, and is typically the case in smaller countries, such as New Zealand, where there are no strong subnational identities or powerful regional governments.

All 82 Free Democracies

Parline classification of principal method of delegation of upper house in the 82 countries classed by Freedom House as Free Democracies.

A Democratic Second Chamber for the UK

Around the world, countries have found different solutions to balancing democratic legitimacy and the powers of their second chambers. While the exact way the upper house is filled varies quite significantly from country to country, the one commonality between nearly all Western second chambers is that they are designed in some way to represent subnational units, be they states, provinces or regions, at the national level.

Britain remains the odd-one-out. It lacks the democratic legitimacy afforded by elections, whether direct or indirect, virtually nullifying the extent to which it can successfully exercise its scrutinising and revising functions. And it completely fails to represent the UK in all its diversity, overrepresenting some territorial units (especially London and the South East) to the detriment of the other nations, regions and localities.

Instead of a house of powerful regional representatives, we have an antiquated chamber whose membership is chosen partly by aristocrats, partly by the Church of England and largely by Prime Ministers rewarding donors and allies. We need to reform our upper house so that it can have the democratic legitimacy to do its job properly.

Sign our petition for a democratically elected House of Lords

There are ‘status quo’ elections and then there’s this week’s 2021 Canadian federal election – where every party’s seat total is no more than two seats different from what it was last time.

Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called this snap election in the hopes of bettering the minority government he won just two years ago. Instead, he is just a single seat better off and has provided Canadian electoral reformists with yet more evidence of the need to ditch First Past the Post (FPTP). So let’s take a look at some of the key electoral issues thrown up by this election.

Results of the 2021 Canadian Election

Disproportionality

It’s not at all surprising that a FPTP election would deliver a skewed and unrepresentative result, but, with a vote-seat deviation score of 18%, this election is the least proportional Canadian election in 21 years and the sixth least proportional since 1945.

The Liberals are again the main beneficiary, taking 15 percentage points more seats than they would be entitled to under a fully-proportional voting system. The Conservatives and regionalist Bloc Québécois will also have marginally more than their fair share of MPs, while the social democratic NDP is left noticeably underrepresented. The right-wing populist People’s Party will have no representation despite winning just over 5% of the vote, enough to win at least one seat in most of western Europe.

Although this election is above average in its disproportionality, Canadian voters have had to get used this level of distortion of their votes. The previous 24 post-war elections have an average vote-seat deviation score of 15.0%, slightly less than Britain’s average 15.5%, but still meaning that nearly 1 in 6 votes are usually misallocated. The instability of the Canadian party system has meant that every key party has at some point been severely underrepresented, though for the NDP it is the norm rather than the exception – with them losing out on over 150 seats across the last 20 years due to FPTP.

Canada does have some wildly different sized constituencies sizes which also play a role. The less populous provinces have a few more ridings than their population would suggest, and the more heavily populated have fewer. This is because a formula is applied when the number of ridings in each province is calculated.

Minority Government

With no party winning an overall majority, this election will likely lead to a minority government. This is not unusual for Canada – nearly half of their elections since 1945 have created hung parliaments and they have traditionally eschewed coalitions. While minority governments are not inherently unstable, the Canadian reaction to them is less than ideal. Not just are coalitions not formed, but formal Confidence and Supply arrangements are also a rarity. Instead, minority governments in Canada typically have to win support on an ad hoc basis – perpetually placing government stability at the whims of opposition parties, with them perfectly happy to give a vote of no confidence if their demands aren’t met. Unsurprisingly, Canada is the home of snap elections, with the average parliament fulfilling less than two-thirds of its permissible term.

Questionable Mandate

The issue of Canadian insistence on single-party government is compounded by the increasing lack of support that those single parties command. Trudeau may claim that the voters have given him a ‘clear mandate’, but this is now the second election in a row where the winning party received less than one-third of votes cast, and no party has managed more than 40% in the last 20 years. Whether or not a party wins a majority in the House of Commons, no recent Canadian government has been endorsed – explicitly or even implicitly – by anywhere close to a majority of voters. Instead, policy is decided solely by a party that twice as many people voted against than for.

Wrong Winner

Aside from the high level of overall disproportionality, this election has resulted in one of the gravest forms of misrepresentation that any electoral system can commit – it has produced a so-called ‘wrong winner’ result.

The Conservatives won nearly 2% points more votes than the Liberals, but the latter have been rewarded with 12% points more seats. This is the fourth post-war Canadian election and second in a row where this has occurred – with the Conservatives’ less effective vote distribution meaning they now have to win the popular vote by several points just to draw level with the Liberals in seat terms. The Canadian Conservatives pile up large majorities in seats they win, while the Liberals tend to win with slimmer margins.

Minority government on 32% of the vote is one thing, but it is another when it isn’t even the most popular minority that gets to be in charge.

Enjoy this article? Why not join the ERS

Find out about ERS membership

This month has seen a renewed interest in proportional representation internationally. Willie Sullivan backed up the case for a fairer voting system in Canada, drawing on his experience in Scotland. “If you want a system of government that is better able to deal with divisions, you need a system that is based on consensus and representation of different views. Not just a black or white, wrong or right, we’re up-you’re down type of politics,” he told Canadian news outlets.

In New Zealand, ERS election research was cited as highlighting the true dangers of winner-takes-all – in contrast to PR. The election showed the value and power of equal votes.

ERS’ blogs were also picked up by the Guernsey press as they held a FPTP-on-overdrive election.

In the UK, the ERS were the only ones to draw the link over unfair distribution of Towns Fund spending, where millions were recently handed largely to marginal seats.

And we explained Labour’s newly-adopted STV voting system, as members pick the new National Executive Committee.

Voter ID back on the agenda

As the government confirms it plans to push ahead with mandatory voter ID, we put the issue back in the spotlight, as featured in the I newspaper.

We also brought together a coalition of organisations to explain the issue in this in-depth Byline investigation.

We’ll be following the conversation around voter suppression in the US with interest, with a large number of states having strict and often partisan ID policies in place this election.

Private member’s club

Darren Hughes spoke to GQ (sadly not about fashion trends) on the need for an overhaul of the second chamber. “You can understand why so many people feel ignored,” he said. “This pressure is going to come to the surface. Why not tackle it proactively and positively rather than deal with disaster and acrimony when people are fed up?”

Support for Lords reform came from all places, with Lord Jack McConnell saying he was ashamed of being part of the chamber, amid growing calls for it to be reformed. Several pieces such as this quoted our Survation poll which found just 12 percent of those polled back the Lords in its current state. In contrast, 43 percent say it must be reformed, while 28 percent say it should be scrapped altogether.

National spotlight

ERS Cymru re-launched their manifesto for Wales’ Senedd elections next May, with a full page spread in the Western Mail backing STV, greater diversity, and more resources for the Welsh Parliament.

October also saw ERS Cymru back calls for a return to virtual proceedings in the Senedd – a call that was heeded as Wales headed in to its ‘fire break’ lockdown.

In Scotland, Willie Sulilvan shined a light on corporate lobbying amid fears over legal loopholes.

Campaign rules

We kept pushing the crucial policies from the Democracy in the Dark report throughout October, as the Electoral Commission published new figures on spending which we pre-empted in our findings.

The ERS also spearheaded a letter in the FT marking the launch of the Centenary Action Group’s new report. We want to see greater transparency over candidate diversity.

And we kept working behind the scenes on vital consultations such as the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s review of the role of the Electoral Commission. UCL’s Constitution Unit drew on our evidence in this piece – well worth a read.

The pandemic has continued to highlight the dangers of hyper-centralised Westminster politics. ERS policies would go a long way to handing power back to voters across the UK. Over the next couple of months we’ll be reflecting on the US’ winner-takes-all system, exploring the need for virtual Parliament proceedings, sounding the alarm on voter ID, and continuing to push for PR both in Westminster and at a local level. Make sure you’re signed up for ERS updates so you can hear it first.

You can help get the case for reform in front of millions by supporting the work of the ERS media team – with membership of the ERS.

Become a member of the ERS today

This election’s televised leaders debates have taken place against a backdrop of endless rows over who should be allowed to take part, in what has become a recurring feature of our election campaigns.

Arguments over format can partly be explained by the fact that they have a relatively short history in the UK, and don’t have the same kind of history and precedent to draw on like other aspects of our political campaigns. Despite the idea first being mooted in 1964, the first TV debate only took place during the 2010 general election.

Organising TV debates is still largely ad hoc, and the exact shape and format the debates take varies from election to election. It remains reliant on backroom negotiations between parties and broadcasters.

Despite some initial criticisms about adopting ‘US-style’ debates, we now know TV debates are an important source of information for UK voters. In 2017 ERS research found that 56% of people believed that leaders’ debates were important in helping them make their decision.

Over four million people tuned into the BBC Question Time debate during the 2017 election campaign, with over a third of viewers saying that it influenced their vote. Similarly, the Hansard Society found that 74% of those surveyed said that leaders’ debates and political interviews were at least ‘fairly important’ in deciding how to vote in the 2017 general election.

Today, many parliamentary democracies across the world have TV debates. One of the most interesting examples is that of Canada, where an independent Leaders’ Debates Commission was set up in 2018 to organise the debates for the 2019 federal election.

TV debates have a much longer history in Canada, having taken place since 1968, traditionally in both English and French. Until the 2015 federal election, a consortium of broadcast media organisations would organise the debates and negotiate with parties to determine format, dates and other formalities – very much like here in the UK.

From the 1990s onwards, however, the fragmentation of the party system and media landscape meant that organising TV debates became much more complex. Growing public dissatisfaction about the closed-door negotiations culminated in the 2015 federal election, when then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decided not to take part. The election debates themselves became the story of that election, leading the new PM, Justin Trudeau, to review how the contests were organised and run.

The independent Leaders’ Debates Commission was established with to organise debates between party leaders during the 2019 federal election, and to improve ‘Canadians’ knowledge of the parties, their leaders, and their policy positions’.

The Commission is headed by the former Governor General of Canada, with a former journalist as its executive director, and overseen by a seven-person advisory board comprising former parliamentarians, academics, and other stakeholders.

The Commission sought submissions from broadcasters and media organisations who wished to organise TV debates and hosted roundtables with experts and practitioners to decide on their format, structure and style.

The roundtable participants recommended that the Commission should be fully supported by public funds; be a permanent operation; have broad support from political parties; and report to the public, not government.

The Commission clearly set out and enforced the criteria for inclusion in TV debates, with parties having to satisfy at least two of the following three criteria to take part:

1. A party must have at least one MP elected under the party’s banner in the House of Commons at dissolution.
2. A party must run candidates in at least 90% of all constituencies.
3. A party must have obtained at least 4% of the vote at the previous election, or be considered by the commissioner – on the basis of public opinion polls – to have a legitimate chance of electing some of its members to the Commons.

Following the 2019 election, the Commission is due to present a report to parliament with recommendations on how to organise debates in future elections.

Though it was faced with some challenges (primarily relating to the effectiveness of the format of the English-speaking debate), Canada’s experience shows how, even in a multi-party parliamentary democracy, a Debates Commission can help parties and media outlets reach agreement – shifting the focus of TV debates away from arguments about their format, to the important role they play in informing voters and helping them make their choice on election day.

Democracy relies on voters being able to make free and informed decisions on who to vote for – for which having access to information they can trust is vital. With the rise of micro-targeted dark ads and information overload, TV debates offer a rare shared opportunity for voters to hear directly from those wanting to lead the country. An independent Debates Commission would help enshrine TV debates as part of the UK’s electoral framework and guarantee voters the right to informative, vibrant debates.

It looks like Justin Trudeau has narrowly secured his second term as Canada’s Prime Minister. But his party lost out on a majority of seats as well as the popular vote.

It was a tough election for the party, but under First Past the Post the  Liberals managed to come close to a majority with just 33% of the vote. he party is 13 seats short of the 170 needed for a parliamentary majority, meaning Trudeau  will work with smaller parties in a minority government.

[bctt tweet=”There was considerable criticism of Trudeau for abandoning a commitment to electoral reform during the last Parliament.” username=”electoralreform”]

Back in 2015, Trudeau vowed to overhaul the existing voting system and declared that the federal election of that year would be the final one conducted under the a winner-takes-all system.

However, in what could be good news for those who support a fair, proportional voting system, the Liberal leader will now have to rely heavily on smaller, pro-PR parties such as the New Democratic Party (NDP) and Greens to pass legislation in Canada’s House of Commons.

The NDP led by Jagmeet Singh had a surge in polls in the final weeks of the campaign but were unable to transfer this into electoral success. The NDP have previously noted that First Past the Post politics ‘allows a party to win more than half the seats in parliament’ with fewer than half the votes.

Singh has voiced that one of his key commitments is to change the voting system to proportional representation (PR). Fair Vote Canada – an activist group pushing for PR for nearly 20 years have highlighted Singh’s comments:“Bringing in a proportional system with adequate local representation will be central to our work in our 2019 campaign”. Singh added “I believe in giving power to the people” and “the first past the post system creates false majorities which is wrong”.

Given the NDP’s new position in the hung parliament, Singh could try to push for electoral reform and make it a necessary condition for alliance or support in a minority government. Polling from Angus Reid also shows that a large proportion of Canadians support a move towards proportional representation, and believe Trudeau was wrong to break his previous pledge.

If the NDP followed through with their commitment for both local and proportional representation under a ‘Mixed-Member’ system. It would not be put to a referendum but passed into law before the next election. After two consecutive elections under this new system, a referendum would be held for Canadians vote on whether stick to the proportional model or go back to the old system.

Canada is one of the last countries among advanced democracies to still use FPTP for its main elections – a legacy of British rule. There is now hope for positive reform, if other parties co-operate on implementing proportional representation. Is this the last call for FPTP in Canada?

Sabine McGinley is a Communications Placement Student for the ERS, from the University of Nottingham. 

We’ve covered the exciting moves towards fair votes in British Columbia and Prince Edward Island – two Canadian provinces looking to ditch the broken ‘Westminster model’. But the usefulness of First Past the Post has been questioned in other Canadian provinces as well.

Ontario – Canada’s most populous province – held a referendum on electoral reform in 2007. The impetus for the change was the experience of two majority governments elected with less than 50% of the popular vote.

Similarly to British Columbia, Ontario’s referendum process followed the recommendations of a Citizens’ Assembly comprised of 103 randomly selected citizens, the great majority of which (84%) advocated the adoption of Mixed Member Proportional representation (MMP).

When ordinary, randomly selected citizens have the time to discuss and understand the options, they overwhelmingly support electoral reform.

[bctt tweet=”When ordinary, randomly selected citizens have the time to discuss and understand the options, they overwhelmingly support electoral reform.” username=”electoralreform”]

In Canada’s largest region by population, voters were asked ‘Which electoral system should Ontario use to elect members to the provincial legislature? The existing electoral system (First-Past-the-Post) or The alternative electoral system proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly (Mixed Member Proportional)’.  

As in British Columbia, in order to pass, MMP needed to gain 60% of support in the province and a simple majority in 64 of the 107 ridings. Unlike British Columbia, however, the impetus for reform was weaker – only 37% of voters chose to switch to MMP.

Reasons adduced for this result include the lack of adequate information and understanding of the proposal. As Cutler and Fournier found: “Just before voting day, two-thirds were aware that a referendum was taking place and the same proportion said they knew something about MMP. But useful knowledge about the proposal was rare. Less than one-third knew MMP makes multiparty governments more likely. Less than half were aware that MMP makes votes and seats proportional, that it would give seats to more parties, and that it involves two votes.”

Much like in the UK’s Alternative Vote (a non-proportional system) referendum in 2011, low levels of political knowledge helped the pro-First Past the Post campaign.

Furthermore, two features of the proposal had not been well-received: the increase in the number of members in the legislature and the fact that parties would control the composition of party lists. These are both problems that could have been fixed, as around the world there are MMP systems where parties don’t control the lists and the size of the chamber could have been capped. 

Though electoral reform is not officially back on the agenda in Ontario, some think that the outcome of the latest provincial election could change that.

[bctt tweet=”Though electoral reform is not officially back on the agenda in Ontario, some think that the outcome of the latest provincial election could change that.” username=”electoralreform”]

In that election, the Progressive Conservatives, led by Doug Ford (the brother of Toronto’s crack-smoking former mayor), won 60% of the seats on 40% of the vote and 52% of voters essentially elected no one at all. This makes the province prime hunting ground for activists hoping to reform the electoral system.

Québec has a more limited experience with electoral reform and no referendums have been held on the topic, though two minority governments have been produced by First Past the Post since 2007 (the UK has also seen two Parliaments with no single winner in that time).

The election of 1 October 2018, however, is seen by some as a major step towards a fairer voting system. With the exception of the Liberals, all main parties promised to scrap First Past the Post.

In May 2018, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), the Parti Québécois, Québec Solidaire and the Green Party of Québec signed an electoral reform pact pledging to implement Mixed Member Proportional (or the Additional Member System as it is known in the UK) representation, if elected.

And the day after the election, Premier-designate François Legault of the CAQ pledged to reform the voting system and committed to tabling a bill within a year. With 71% of voters backing a party that signed the pledge to bring in electoral reform, the plan is not conditional on a referendum.

[bctt tweet=”In May 2018, 71% of voters in Québec voted for parties in a pact that pledged to implement proportional representation if elected.” username=”electoralreform”]

Though both provinces have a more limited experience with electoral reform, developments in Ontario and Québec show that First Past the Post is being questioned across Canada, given dissatisfaction with the results it produces – such as artificially inflated majorities and minority governments.

See the rest of our Spotlight on Canada series

Attempts at electoral reform in British Columbia (B.C.) – Canada’s westernmost and third most populous province – date back more than 13 years. On Monday, voting opens on whether to scrap the all-or-nothing voting system there once and for all.

British Columbia has experienced some of the worst outcomes that Westminster-style First Past the Post voting can produce. In 1996, for example, the Liberals won the most votes (41.8%) but failed to win the most seats. The New Democratic Party, who did obtain the most seats in the lower chamber and went on to form the government, won nearly 40,000 fewer votes.

[bctt tweet=”British Columbia has experienced some of the worst outcomes that Westminster-style First Past the Post voting can produce.” username=”electoralreform”]

A Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform was established in 2003 and tasked with assessing models for electing Members of the Legislative Assembly and issuing a report. The Assembly was independent, non-partisan, and composed of 161 randomly selected citizens. At the end of their deliberations, the Assembly members determined that a form of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) would be the best system for BC. Following their recommendations, a referendum on electoral reform was held in 2005 alongside the provincial general election.

Voters were asked ‘Should British Columbia change to the BC-STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform? Yes/No’. But rather than holding a simple vote, two thresholds were established for the result to be binding: an arbitrary 60% of valid ballots had to be in favour of the change, alongside a majority in 48 out of 79 electoral districts.

A majority of voters province-wide (57.7%) and over 50% of voters in 77 of the 79 districts chose the Single Transferable Vote form of proportional representation. But the referendum failed to reach the required 60% threshold. There was no such threshold for forming the government and at the same election, the Liberals formed a majority government on just 45.8% of the vote.

The government recognised that there had been significant support for electoral reform and that many considered the fact that STV was not implemented illegitimate. The referendum was, therefore, re-run in 2009, once again in conjunction with the provincial general election. The 60% province-wide threshold was kept and a simple majority was required in at least 51 of the now 85 electoral districts. But having lost momentum, STV failed to gain support in the face of a better-organised opposition – only 39% of the electorate supported the change.

Debate has continued in the province, however. In October 2017, the government introduced a bill requiring another provincial referendum to be held on electoral reform. This was followed by a substantial public engagement exercise conducted by the Attorney General – the ‘How We Vote’ consultation – which allowed voters to shape key elements of the referendum, including the ballot question.

As part of this, a public website was set up with information on the characteristics of voting systems in the province and around the world, and where voters could fill in a questionnaire focused on the values and preferences they would like reflected in a voting system. More than 90,000 British Columbians completed the questionnaire.

The referendum itself will take place by postal vote, a method which tends to raise turnout and reduce costs. Voting will be open from 22nd October to 30th November – a long window that should allow for maximum engagement. The government will provide designated for- and against- campaigners with $500,000 to conduct their public information campaigns. Elections BC will provide neutral information about the referendum and proposed voting system.

There will be two questions on the ballot. First voters will be asked whether British Columbia should use the current First Past the Post voting system or a proportional voting system. Second, they will be asked to rank their preferred proportional voting systems, should the province adopt proportional representation. Three electoral systems will be on the ballot: Dual Member Proportional, Mixed Member Proportional (known as the Additional Member System in the UK) and Rural-Urban Proportional.

The referendum will be binding if either option receives more than half the valid votes cast. If a form of proportional representation were to be chosen, it must be in place for the provincial elections due to take place on or after 1 July 2021. If a proportional system were to be adopted, the government has committed itself to holding a second, confirming referendum after two election cycles, where voters could choose whether to keep PR or switch back to First Past the Post after having experienced both systems.

Where the first two referendums on electoral reform used thresholds to make change harder, the current promise of a confirming referendum should make change more likely. As we’ve seen from New Zealand, after voters have experienced a proportional system, they don’t look back.

The experience in British Columbia shows how momentum for electoral reform can be sustained, particularly by allowing for citizen input in democratic reform processes. And while a high turnout is important for the democratic legitimacy of a vote, there are problems with the use of turnout and electoral thresholds. There was broad support for STV in the first B.C. referendum, but this change could not go through given the rigid provincial threshold.

This time however, the democratic approach taken to give people a choice on the options of reform – alongside the vibrant public debate – could set the province on the path to fair votes at last.

This blog is part of our Spotlight on Canada series