How does Canadas democracy compare to our pe
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- Published on Saturday, 17 September 2016 15:00
- Written by editor
Today is International Democracy Day - a good time to think about how our democracy stacks up with democracy in other countries. We often think of democracy as black and white - either you’re a democracy, or you’re not.
But what if we talked about strong and weak democracies? Or shallow and deep democracies? When you look around the world you can see that while Canada is a democracy, our first-past-the post voting system makes our democracy weaker than many other countries.
Almost all other modern democracies have proportional representation. That means that in those countries, everyone’s vote counts and the number of votes a party receives is roughly equal to the number of seats they get in Parliament.
In depth studies have shown that proportional representation isn’t just a better way to vote - it leads to strong government that delivers better results for people on everything from keeping inflation low to improving energy efficiency.[1]
How? Contrary to cherry-picked examples from people who want to maintain the status quo, proportional representation tends to lead to parties working together to build stable agreements with long-term benefits. This is unlike our current system, first-past-the-post, where one party’s good work can get undone when the next party with opposing views gets a false majority.
Join over 25,000 people across Canada who have signed on to the Vote Better campaign for proportional representation. Click here to learn more and send a message to PM Trudeau that it’s time to upgrade our democracy and make every vote count.
Thanks for all you do.
With hope and respect,
Jamie, Katelynn, Lyndsay and Rachel on behalf of the Leadnow team
Sources:
[1] Can Fair Voting Systems Really Make a Difference? Facts and figures from Arend Ljipharts’ landmark study. http://www.fairvote.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Lijphart-Summary.pdf