Tag Archive: Electoral reform

How Proportional Representation could help to decentralize power and strengthen Parliament

Sep 28, 2016
Submission to the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform The debate around electoral reform has largely neglected a central question: what would a change in the electoral system mean for Canada’s constitutional separation of powers? To state the matter briefly, our Westminster system has an inherent tendency toward the concentration of power (into… View Article

Yes, let’s lower the voting age in Canada.

Jan 31, 2016
I was very pleased to see that MP Don Davies introduced a private member’s bill this past week calling for the voting age to be lowered to age 16. I know private member’s bills usually never make it, but this one is well worth other MPs’ backing. I’ve long been of the view that youth… View Article

Corporations are people too

Jan 31, 2010
Advocates of democratic electoral reform are really out of step. Ideas like proportional representation and advertising spending limits are so retro, so 2004. The fashionable electoral reform idea this year is to give corporations a real say. It’s time for individual citizens to share their electoral democracy with corporations to give meaning to those old… View Article

Reflections on the Citizens’ Assembly

Apr 30, 2009
One of the most interesting stories behind BC’s Single Transferable Vote referendum is how we got there. The Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform ran for a year, a fascinating exercise in deliberative democracy, and perhaps the most interesting and forward-looking thing done by the Liberals in their first term. Wendy Bergerud was a CA member… View Article