MATT LEROUX
NEWS REPORTER
Plummeting voter turnout in federal elections has led to calls to change the way both MPs and senators are chosen.
“Under the current system most of us vote for people who don’t get elected and our votes don’t have any effect,” said Wayne Smith, executive director of Fair Vote Canada, a non-partisan group advocating electoral reform.
“That discourages people from voting because their votes don’t make a difference. It turns off all people, not just young ones.”
Smith’s Toronto-based group wants to see Canada move from the first-past-the-post system – where only the winner in each riding goes to the House of Commons – to proportional representation, where a party’s share of votes across the country also counts.
Under proportional representation, a party’s standing in parliament would more closely reflect their share of the nationwide popular vote.
“Most developed countries use proportional voting systems and have for most of the last century.
Countries that have proportional voting systems get higher voter turnout,” he said.
The idea resonated with at least one Humber student.
“I think it would be good,” said Andrew Wood, 22, a second-year television production student who does not plan to vote on May 2.
“The struggling parties need it – let the runt of the litter get their chance.”
The other chamber of Parliament has been under attack for decades, with many across the country demanding that senators be elected instead of chosen by the prime minister.
“We definitely support Senate reform and the move to a democratic Senate,” Colin Craig, Prairie director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said from Winnipeg.
“It’s 2011, we’re a democratic country and there’s no reason why we should have a [Senate] that is appointed by one person.”
Some senators agree.
“There has been support for this nationwide for over a generation,” Bert Brown, an Alberta Conservative sent to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007, said from Calgary “There are a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the media has spent the last 75 years saying the Senate is illegitimate because it is not elected.”
Brown is a champion of Bill S-8, which would establish senatorial election guidelines for each province and territory.