OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor. Send your letters to [email protected]. The following letter is in response to a letter published Thursday, Jan. 9.
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Why Canada Needs First-Past-the-Post for its Very Survival
After every election Canadians are by now used to the same crowd calling for the abolition of our first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system.
In fact, on Jan. 9 such a proposition appeared in a Letter to the Editor in this publication, calling for an abolition of FPTP and a proportional voting system to take its place.
The reality is that such a decision would end our country as we know it and undermine the legitimacy of our national Parliament. This also goes without saying we’ve already said no to proportional representation, many, many times.
Our electoral system is not some terrible contraption forced upon us by England, but instead uniquely suited for Canada in particular.
Canada is the second largest country by land area on Earth, yet we have a rather small population that sees over half of our people concentrated in southern Ontario and around the St. Lawrence River. If we adopted proportional representation we would become a country of only two provinces: Ontario and Quebec.
Why, for example, would our politicians care about what 155,000 people in P.E.I. think?
Our regional diversity that consists of distinct areas such as the Maritimes, the West, or francophone Quebec is in part the basis of Canadian identity. To adopt proportional representation would no less than cause a national unity crisis as Canadian citizens living outside our major population centres (like people in Orillia I might add) would see their votes become meaningless as a permanent minority. So much for all votes being equal under proportional representation.
Canadians have already definitively rejected proportional representation. In most provinces we have had referendums on this question which show a resounding NO to electoral reform.
In Ontario in 2007 63% of us voted to keep FPTP. In British Columbia voters rejected electoral reform three times in thirteen years, only just over a year ago voting 61% in favour of keeping FPTP. It was only last year that P.E.I. rejected proportional representation in another referendum.
And at the national level, need I say more? Wasn’t 2015 supposed to be the last election Canada would have under FPTP Mr. Trudeau? What could ever possibly go wrong with such a promise?
From coast to coast, a majority of Canadians want to keep FPTP. It looks like proportional representation enjoys no significant proportional support.
Wesley Nicol
Orillia
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