Article by Randy Hillier and Reply from Fair Vote's Steve Withers on MMP Electoral Reform

Randy Hillier authored a letter which appeared in the Napanee Beaver, in opposition to the proposed electoral reform.

Steve Withers replies from the Yes side below. Published here from e-mail liststerv with Steve's permission

Politicians who don't do their homework are the problem - Steve Withers

Reading Conservative Party candidate, Randy Hillier's letter, it seems to me he is attempting to peddle vague, voluntary "democratic reform" instead of understanding and endorsing the compulsory improvements the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) system certainly will impose on our MPPs if adopted on October 10th. Mr Hillier's voluntary, "let's all play nice", substitute for real change has been tried before in Canada and proven to be hollow promises every time. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

At risk of seeming harsh, having read Mr. Hillier's claims about MMP, he clearly hasn't done his homework. I say this because I've spent the last 11 years living under a very similar MMP system used in New Zealand. I'm from Ontario, but have spent many years there. In fact, I like MMP so much as a citizen and voter, I've returned to Ontario to share the good news with my fellow Ontarians. I would hate see people not support MMP, a very worthwhile improvement to Ontario's democracy, having been mislead by the flatly wrong assertions made by people like Mr. Hillier.

So how does MMP really work in actual practice? Nothing like what Mr. Hillier says. Let me tell you about where I live.

I live in the Otaki riding on the west coast of the North Island, New Zealand. Otaki is a mainly rural riding. The locally elected MP is Labour's Darren Hughes.

Not far away, in another riding office is Nathan Guy. He is a list MP for the Opposition National Party. Mr. Guy came second to Mr Hughes in the local race, but was high enough on the party list that he was also elected by his party's vote nationally. Far from being a "loser", Mr. Guy is a popular local Councilor and is a very popular MP, despite not getting quite as many votes as Mr. Hughes locally.

But wait, there's more. Sue Kedgley, a list MP from the Green Party, also serves the Otaki electorate as well as the other 9 ridings of the Wellington region. Her ads are in the weekly give-aways inviting Otaki voters to talk to her on issues of concern.

All of these MPs were democratically chosen as candidates (list or local) by the votes of party members prior to being elected by voters generally. None are party hacks chosen by party bosses in back rooms. That isn't how MMP really works. Voters and party members wouldn't stand for it if they tried. Mr. Hillier would know this had he bothered to check it out. He clearly didn't. So what is Mr. Hillier trying to tell us? Will his Conservative party choose its list candidates in back rooms and without consulting party members? Is he saying his party will be corrupt and undemocratic? I hope not. They won't get many votes under MMP behaving that way!

Under MMP, each of us will get two votes. A local vote to keep our local MPP in line and a party vote to keep the party we support in line. We don't have to mix the two functions in in one vote, as we do now. Even better, the party vote decides how many seats each party gets overall AND it counts toward representation no matter who won our local seat or where we cast it. Under MMP, because very party vote counts, the whole concept of appealing to swing voters in marginal seats becomes obsolete. Every voter is a swing voter.

If Mr. Hillier's party insisted, despite good advice to the contrary, on offering us corrupt old party hacks chosen in back rooms, as he claims we will certainly see, then the good news is that under MMP, we don't have to vote for any of them. We will have several other viable choices. Mr. Hillier would, in effect, have us believe that voting for just one candidate in just one riding out of 103 is as good as democracy can get. Never mind that the other 102 MPPs are utterly unaccountable to each of us. Never mind that our favoured candidate very likely didn't win and we elected no one anyway with our one vote.

Whereas under MMP, my party vote will apply to the entire province for the party I cast it for. Not just one riding. The whole province. My party vote helps decide the total number of seats my party will get. Not just one.

Mr. Hillier talks about paralysis under MMP. He clearly hasn't done any homework at all. More than 80 countries use proportional voting systems and they get along just fine. In New Zealand there is no paralysis. The economy is booming. Unemployment is the lowest in 35 years. The annual operating surplus of the NZ government during the past 5 years has been at times over NZ$11 billion on a NZ$35 billion annual budget. These surpluses are going to be used to fund the state-funded pension needs of baby boomers. That sounds like good management and growing prosperity, to me, not paralysis.

I could go on, but I think I've already demonstrated very clearly that Mr. Hillier needs to go back and do some homework before he risks further damaging his credibility by saying things publicly that are flatly wrong.

-- Steve WithersVote for MMP on Oct 10thhttp://www.VoteForMMP.caPh: +1-416-644-1034 (option3)Mo: +1-519-282-1078mhtml:%7B0CBA0CBD-644A-4808-9DAD-FCA138344C39%7Dmid://00000095/!x-usc:mailto:steve.withers@fairvote.camhtml:%7B0CBA0CBD-644A-4808-9DAD-FCA138344C39%7Dmid://00000095/!x-usc:mailto:sbwithers@gmail.com