Fair vote Canada commends Ontario electoral reform announcement

Catholic New Times, May 21, 2006

TORONTO -- An April announcement by the McGuinty government on the formation of Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform was commended by Fair Vote Canada (FVC), a multi-partisan citizens campaign for electoral reform.

Marie Bountrogianni, Minister Responsible for Democratic Renewal, announced a randomly chosen assembly of 103 citizens will begin meeting in Fall 2006. The assembly will report no later than May 15, 2007, on whether they recommend a new voting system for Ontario, with any recommendation going to a referendum to be held no later than October 2007.

"We are very pleased Premier McGuinty is moving forward with electoral reform in this citizen-driven process," said Joe Murray, chair of Fair Vote Ontario, a provincial reform campaign launched by FVC in 2002. "In particular, we commend the government for noting that 'fairness of representation' and 'proportionality'--votes compared to seats in the Legislature--is one of the important principles in assessing voting systems."

In a November 2004 report, "Dubious Democracy: Ontario Elections from 1980-2003," Fair Vote Canada noted that the current voting system distorts what voters say, fabricating majority governments in which one party wins a significant majority of seats without winning a majority of the votes cast. Ontarians have not had a legitimate majority government elected by a majority of Voters since 1943.

Murray noted, however, that there are several key decisions on the citizens' assembly and referendum process yet to be determined.

"We are very concerned that the minister would not commit to a referendum threshold of 50 per cent plus one, and even spoke positively about B.C.'s threshold of 60 per cent helping to cancel out the 'noise' of poorly informed voters," said Murray. "We strongly urge Premier McGuinty to announce a simple majority threshold for the electoral reform referendum."