Encyclopedia > Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (Ontario)
The Government of the Province of Ontario, Canada, established a Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in March 2006. Modelled on the British Columbia equivalent, it will review the first past the post electoral system currently in use to elect members of the Ontario Legislature, and have the authority to recommend an alternative. Motto: Ut Incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Latin: Loyal she began, loyal she remains) Official languages English (French has some legal status but is not fully co-official) Flower White Trillium Tree Eastern White Pine Bird Common Loon Capital Toronto Largest city Toronto Lieutenant-Governor James K. Bartleman Premier Dalton McGuinty...
2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform is a group created by the government of British Columbia, Canada to investigate changes to the provincial electoral system. ...
The plurality voting system, also known as first past the post, is a voting system used to elect a single winner in a given election. ...
The Ontario Legislature Building at Queens Park The Legislative Assembly of Ontario, is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario. ...
From April 2006 to June 25, 2006, 103 Ontarians were selected at random to analyze the electoral system. This group is composed of 52 females, 51 males and at least 1 aboriginal person. All registered voters were eligible for selection to the Citizens' Assembly with the exception of elected officials, party officers and candidates. Aboriginal peoples in Canada are Indigenous Peoples recognized in the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982, sections 25 and 35, respectively, as Indians (First Nations), Métis, and Inuit. ...
Under chairperson George Thomson, the independent body of citizens will meet twice a month, beginning September 9, 2006: six weekends in the fall of 2006 and six from February 17 to April 29, to examine the current electoral system and deliberate on alternatives. Queen's University Associate Professor of Political Science, Jonathan Rose, will lead the Assembly in the Learning Phase in the fall of 2006. The Assembly will also hold public meetings across the province between November and February under the direction of Susan Pigott.
This process ends with a final report due on or before May 15, 2007. Once the Assembly has sufficiently explored alternative electoral systems and finished its consultation with the public it will decide, by majority vote, what recommendations it will make to the people of Ontario. If the Assembly recommends a new electoral system the government has pledged to hold a referendum on the issue, presumably on October 4, 2007, the date of the next provincial election. A referendum (plural: referendums or referenda) or plebiscite (from Latin plebiscita, a decree of the Concilium Plebis) is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. ...
The Ontario general election of 2007 is scheduled to be held on October 4, 2007 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada. ...
As background, the Assembly members will consider the Report of the Select Committee on Electoral Reform. It was made up of Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) from the LIberal, Progressive Conservative and New Democratic Parties. The committee studied electoral systems and issued a report to the Ontario Legislature in November 2005. It recommended the Assembly be provided the latitude necessary to recommend whatever electoral system is consistent with Ontario’s (and Canada’s) constitution. It assessed several alternatives. The report noted that both First Past the Post (also known as Plurality voting system) and the Alternative Vote (also known as Instant-runoff voting) have weak proportionality and weak representation of social diversity. It noted that a new system would work better if the size of the Legislature were increased to, for example, 133 seats. (It had 130 seats until 1999.) It noted that Single Transferable Vote (as used in Ireland) would require multi-member constituencies which, particularly in rural and northern Ontario, would cover an enormous amount of territory. It noted Mixed member proportional representation (used in Scotland, Germany and New Zealand) has good proportionality and strong encouragement for representation of social diversity. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Plurality. ...
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) (also known as the Alternative Vote and by several other names) is an electoral system used for single winner elections in which voters rank candidates in order of preference. ...
This STV ballot for the Australian Senate illustrates group voting tickets. ...
Ballot for electoral district 252, Würzburg, for the 2005 German federal election. ...
However, and not noted in the Committee's report, the MMPR schemes require party lists that remove some power to select representatives from the voters and give it instead to the parties. In Canada, political parties are notoriously unaccountable and have been held by the law not to be liable to civil lawsuit or any requirement even to meet their own internal constitutions. Party lists are used in elections to legislatures which use Party-list proportional representation or additional member proportional representation to designate a partys nominees in the at-large portion of the vote. ...
Civil law is system of law that has its origins in Roman law and sets out a comprehensive system of rules, usually codified, that are applied and interpreted by judges. ...
In the Prince Edward Island electoral reform referendum, 2005, an MMPR scheme was absolutely rejected, receiving only 38 per cent of the vote. By comparison, in the British Columbia electoral reform referendum, 2005 a few months early, a Single Transferable Vote scheme that gave parties no special power or consideration had received nearly 58 per cent support, with 77 of 79 districts approving, and narrowly missing even in the other two. Given these results, there have been suggestions of both systemic bias and corruption in the Select committee's report: since it included no members of Green Party of Ontario, Marijuana Party of Ontario or other currently excluded parties, some advcoates argue that it tried to influence the Assembly to put an MMPR scheme to a vote that the parties themselves expect would fail, as it did in PEI. Some advocates of the yes side have pushed strongly for a variant of the STV scheme that would accomodate or correct proportionality issues with STV and ensure that the small parties are all represented, without resorting to party lists which they believe the public would decisively reject. A referendum will be held in the Canadian province of British Columbia on May 17, 2005 to determine whether or not to adopt the recommendations of the Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform. ...
This STV ballot for the Australian Senate illustrates group voting tickets. ...
Systemic bias is the inherent tendency of a process to favor particular outcomes. ...
The Green Party of Ontario (GPO) contests provincial elections in Ontario, Canada. ...
The Ontario vote is considered crucial also by advocates of Canadian federal electoral reform because without a system working in at least one of Canada's larger English-speaking provinces, it seems unlikely that there would be much pressure to try an untried scheme on a larger scale.
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