Re-energizing the Polis
The Polis. That’s the Greek word for our collective political unit: Canada. All of us, along with our parties, interest groups, lobbyists, institutions, activists, radicals, etc. combine to form the Polis. Our Polis is somewhat repressed, I would say. We vote every once and a while, and are largely disenfranchised in the in-between time. We leave things to our “representatives.” I’d like to have more say, but people like Jeffery Simpson don’t think I should.
In his column today Simpson addresses proportional representation. He doesn’t like it. He thinks it prevents governments from being able to take “hard decisions” because including small parties in the mix creates a muddle: coalitions and negotiations and messiness. He doesn’t like the fact that in Germany, their PR system means, post-election, they have to negotiate between elected parties to form a government.
So, if you like minority/coalitions that give disproportionate power to small parties, you’ll prefer PR. That’s why Canada’s NDP favours it. Whatever PR’s intrinsic virtues, it patently favours small parties by giving them a chance to influence or exercise power as coalition partners, something mostly denied them under Canada’s system.
PR’s great in good times when tough decisions can be avoided; it’s lousy when hard decisions must be made, as in Germany today.
The wind is up for PR in Canadian provinces. A Commons committee is supposed to start investigating PR systems. Watch the haggling and negotiating ahead in Germany and New Zealand. Then watch the composition of multiparty coalitions that might or might not be stable. They’ll be strictly representative all right; they also risk not being terribly effective.
That’s a version of the Canadian future if we embrace PR.
Simpson is fear-mongering: our wonderous Candian political system will be thrown into jeopardy if we opt for more of a spectrum of voices in our Parliament, legislatures and city halls. His premise is that the system works better if government is less representative. Government works better if we have more absolute power in the hands of the government. He argues that a governing party with less than 50 percent of the popular vote is not “disproportionate” in its exercise of power, but any involvement of a small party in policy making - as in the small but significant concessions won by Jack Layton this spring - would be. Simpson is clearly not thinking this through.
How effective have recent Liberal Governments in Ottawa, or the Bush/Republican majority administration in the US been in “making the hard decisions” we all need in todays world? Not very. The Arctic ice-cap is still melting at an alarming and increasing rate. This single issue shows the complete bankruptcy of the majoritarian system Simpson adores. If our system was well-tuned for making hard decisions, that issue would have been dealt with.
Certainly in the abstract government does work more smoothly if there is absolute power. Strict party discipline means power is dressed in empty process. But “smoothly” does not equate with “better”. It is sometimes harder and messier to get a better result, and this is where Simpson’s logic falls apart. I submit that the better result comes from the harder process, just a fair trial occurs when the investigation is thorough, all witnesses are called, and all evidence heard.
Often the “fringes and splinters” are where the most serious and thorough thought and analysis occurs. It can also be where the crackpots live, but we all have the ability, if we want, to distinguish between the two, and our current system certainly is no prophylactic for the ascendancy of crackpots.
Simpson doesn’t want to have to make the effort needed for more representation and a more diverse Polis. He thinks people want efficient government above all, and that the internal politics of a governing party that wants to stay in power will suffice to ensure “good” government. This is yet another instance of a faulty transposition of business culture onto government, and besides, the evidence contradicts his position. The hard decisions have not been taken. Instead, unrepresentative governing parties have dithered on difficult problems while pushing through an economic agenda demanded by their biggest financial supporters.
Electoral reform is the single most important issue facing our Polis. People want to have more say, but they are in despair under the current system. Despite the fact that we vote out of a sense of duty and respect for those who died to ensure our right to do so, many of us feel an affinity for the old adage “don’t vote it only encourages them”.
Politics and civil service have been discredited by an unresponsive, unrepresentative political system that leads to abuse, cronyism and paralysis on the difficult issues of the day. It needs to be fixed by reforming representation, increasing opportunities for participation, removing special interests from the equation in campaign funding, getting rid of the disgusting lobbying system and instituting appropriate remuneration for public servants so we can attract the quality of people we need for good government.
This may impact some peoples’ golf schedules.