Electoral reforms not on the agenda

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/10/2011 (5441 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a particularly weak strategy for a journalist to attack a government for something that was not in its throne speech. But when the leader of that government acknowledges the speech was merely a mash-up of his party’s greatest election campaign hits — as Premier Greg Selinger did Thursday at a news conference — it is fair game to look at what could, and probably should have been in that speech.

In particular, it seems a little odd that the newly elected New Democratic premier did not once mention electoral reform. Fresh from an election where a mathematical anomaly was primarily responsible for the NDP’s largest majority victory ever, it would have made sense for Selinger to at least discuss the need to fix our electoral system. Unfortunately, there was nary a mention.

Selinger did have some thoughts to share following the election in early October. His NDP won 37 seats with just under 46 per cent of the popular vote. The Progressive Conservatives captured just 19 seats — the same total they won in 2007 — despite pulling 44 per cent of the vote and collecting more than 30,000 additional votes. All this coming with just 55 per cent of eligible voters getting in on the action, a one-point drop from 2007.

In the wake of that performance, Selinger agreed something needed to be done to encourage more people to vote. He said Manitoba would investigate electronic voting, an idea being studied or considered in several jurisdictions across Canada. “We’re have to undertake something,” Selinger told the Free Press earlier this month. “We’re going to take a look at e-voting.”

Perhaps, but none of that warranted a mention in the throne speech. Perhaps this was because Selinger appears to have been in a mighty rush to deliver this speech. Typically, governments wait a bit longer to recall the legislature after an election. Certainly, it has been tradition for a government to wait until judicial recounts are held in close races; we are still waiting for the final result in Kirkfield Park and St. Norbert.

To be fair, putting electoral reform in the throne speech would not have given it more force than, say, a post-speech news release. However, there is a certain gravitas to a pledge that is included in the throne speech. It’s an airing of the government’s priorities, a list that can be used to measure the government’s progress. Even the smallest mention in a throne speech can be interpreted as a shout-out to a special-interest group, a one-issue lobby or an entire constituency. What then can we deduce from the decision to ignore electoral reform?

First and foremost, it’s not hard to imagine Selinger has much bigger concerns on his mind right now than how to get more people to vote in 2015. The national economy is sputtering once again, the United States is threatening to double-dip into recession, and part of Europe is teetering on the edge of disaster. Without a global recovery, you can’t have economic growth and with it, the increased government revenues are needed to retire the deficit without having to cut front-line services.

But even if he didn’t have all that to worry about, Selinger no doubt realizes no one measure, even the much-touted electronic voting, is going to solve the problem we have with citizen disengagement. We’ve made voting easier by opening polls on election day earlier and even made it exceedingly convenient to vote in advance polls. More than 72,000 Manitobans voted before the actual election day, nearly doubling the numbers from 2007. Unfortunately, almost all of those advance voters were people who would have voted on Oct. 4 anyway. Non-voters were completely unimpressed.

Making it easier to vote is no antidote for voter apathy and cynicism. Neither is a proportional electoral system. For every voter who would get turned on by the idea that “every vote would count” toward electing a member of a legislature, there are just as many who acknowledge that the highly fractured legislatures that come from such a system are unattractive to others.

The absence of an easy solution likely contributed to the decision to leave electoral reform out of the throne speech. That does not mean, however, it was a good decision. Selinger needs to let Manitobans know electoral reform is a priority because if he doesn’t, how will it become a priority for the rest of us?

It would be a shame if Selinger’s stated interest in electoral reform, expressed in the heady days after his remarkable majority, was nothing more than a musing brought on by a post-victory glow. There are no easy answers, that’s for sure. And that makes it a priority to get on this right away.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca