Question

Some critics accuse the Canadian electoral system of distorting the preferences of voters, since it is designed to produce a majority of seats in the House of Commons for the winning party even when this party may not have gotten a majority of votes. Do you think that adopting the system of proportional representation would enhance Canadian democracy? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Answer) Let us first understand what is Canadian electoral system being talked here about,so citizens of Canada vote for their member parliament in first past the post system where candidate who gets most votes wins and party wins a seat,now the party which wins most seats forms the government,unlike many other democracies they don't need to have an absolute majority and it is entirely possible that runner up party may get more votes overall than winning party but winning party wins most seats and forms government,in fact this happened in last elections of 2019,now the criticism is that it distort the real voter preference as more people want the party with more votes,however we are making it very simple,consider there are 338 seats in parliament and a party wins in 150 seats,while the other party wins 100 seats but it won with a lot more margin where it won,it could be owing to many reasons ,maybe the candidate was popular in an area and won almost all of the votes or party had worked in this area only,so the same high vote share could be owing to personal popularity of the candidate or a party presented ideas limited to constituents of where it won,now suppose this party with highest vote share forms government,then what about the constituents where this party lost or got less vote share,would it represent these people in true sense,such government could focus on few parts of the country knowing that it need to keep these votes intact or keep these popular candidates in fray,what it will lead to will be concentration on few seats where competition could be one sided,further imagine a party with 100 out of 338 seats forms the government and one with 150 is not in government,will the government be able to get things done because of such low numbers,will that even be considered as a true mandate,the answer is no,current system is good in the sense that it leads party to campaign and listen to all parts of the country and not just few,give government a lot more stability and power.

So,based on above explanation,adopting the proportional representation would not help enhance the Canadian democracy and current system is more closer to real mandate.

Answer is complete.Thank you!