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The Ontario election is over and the results are in.
Doug Ford made the correct call and achieved another four years, which he set out to do. All that was achieved in this election, beside Ford’s new term, is that the Liberals reached party standing.
The interesting fact is that the Progressive Conservatives won two-thirds of the seats and an absolute majority but collected well below half of the votes (43 per cent). In other words, 57 per cent of the voters preferred somebody else. In a democracy, 50 per cent plus one should yield a majority and not 43 per cent. Time for electoral reform.
Proportional voting would deal with this, but this would be a great shock to the current political system. However, a long way to achieve a more democratic outcome, without any great upheaval, would be to go to ranked balloting. In this system, voters indicate who they would like to win if their first choice did not win.
The next provincial election is some years away, maybe too far away to concern oneself with at this time. However, municipal elections are coming soon and ranked ballots would be of great benefit in these elections, too. So, it is time to encourage the new members of the provincial legislature to permit ranked ballots at the municipal level.
Konrad Brenner
Ramara Township
