[fvc-wat-disc] Re: Bad Electoral Medicine

[Derek Kraan]

To the editor:

Today's editorial, Bad Electoral Medicine, is full of FUD - Fear,
Uncertainty, and Doubt. It is an obvious attempt to mislead the readers of
this newspaper. You say that the current electoral system "leads to strong
governments" and that "proportional representation is a recipe for unstable
coalitions, permanent minority government and legislative chaos", but stable
coalitions exist in many of the Western European countries that use
proportional representation. If you want to see legislative chaos, just look
at the 90's in Ontario, when we went from the left-of-centre policies of the
NDP in the first half of the decade to the right-of-centre policies of the
Progressive Conservative government in the second half. A proportional
system would not have given either party complete control of the legislature
- both would have been forced to cooperate with other parties.

A proportional voting system in Ontario would restore democracy to this
province. Every vote would be equal and strategic voting would be a thing of
the past. I would much rather have strong coalition governments that are
elected by a genuine majority of the people than the phony majority
governments that we have today.

I would not have expected elitist fear-mongering from Canada's largest
newspaper, and a progressive one at that.

--------------------------------------------

Sincerely,
Derek Kraan
256 Phillip St, Unit 28
Waterloo, ON N2L 6B6
Canada

day phone: (519)568-3458
evening phone: (519)342-5345
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.thinkers.org/pipermail/fvc-wat-disc_listserv.thinkers.org/attachments/20070223/55a1fc0c/attachment-0001.htm>