[fvc-wat-disc] Arguing for PR

Mon May 1 13:30:17 EDT 2017

Hi Jay and everyone.
We’re still hopeful that the campaigning and letter-writing will sway enough Liberal MPs to vote to go with the ERRE recommendations at the end of May.
It’s a long shot.
I have to believe most will vote the party line and with Justin’s decision.
I think we all believe the Liberal promise was based on their vision that the change would be to alternative vote/ranked ballot that would give them, the centrist party, a huge advantage.
When that was rejected by ERRE witnesses and town hall meetings as obviously self-serving, they looked for any way to avoid electoral reform.
Despite the fact that there was clear consensus for PR from witnesses and Canadians who made themselves informed and attended the meetings, the Liberals used the unfortunate fact that many Canadians were not interested, were uninformed, or preferred our unfair system that gave their Liberal or Conservative parties an advantage, to claim there was no consensus.
There is a reason Canada ranks low for voter turnout and for low percentage of women in parliament (although it is showing some improvement).
Many of us have met with our local MPs.
I’ve met with Bardish twice and been very disappointed with her style of engagement.
Chantal Hebert’s recent column in The Star hit it pretty well when she said Bardish has perfected the art of giving unhelpful answers with a smile.
The responses to my presentation to her were defensive, completely irrelevant and factually inaccurate.
When I mentioned that 90% of EU and OECD countries use PR, she said “We shouldn’t change our system just because someone else does”.
When I mentioned that the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly recommended MMP in the Ontario referendum ten years ago that lost, she said it was because “the voices against the change did a better job than the voices for”.
This in spite of the fact that polls at the time showed 50% of Ontarians didn’t know what the referendum was about and 70% didn’t know what MMP was.
This was in part due to the McGuinty government’s total failure in publicizing the issue or educating Ontarians.
When I explained my great disappointment that they broke their promise and that, unless they demonstrate continuation of working toward reforming our voting system, I will not vote Liberal or campaign as I did with Leadnow in the last election, she said “Is that a threat?”
It’s difficult committing to one party.  The Conservatives are no longer “progressive”.
The Liberals have not yet delivered.
The Chretien Liberals signed onto the Earth Summit’s Kyoto Protocol in 1992 and then for 14 years did absolutely nothing.
It’s interesting that some years ago the Sierra Club under Elizabeth May named Brian Mulroney Canada’s most environmental PM following the international and successful Montreal Protocol banning CFCs.
With PR I believe Green support would jump considerably from the almost 10% support they received in 2008 (which under FPTP won zero seats).
Anyway, let’s keep doing what we can to move electoral reform along.
Dave A

From: Anita Nickerson 
Sent: Monday, May 1, 2017 12:19 AM
To: Jennifer Ross ; FVC Waterloo Region Discussion 
Subject: Re: [fvc-wat-disc] Arguing for PR

Hi Jay! Please do keep engaging with your MP and ask other people to do the same thing. On May 31 they can be heroes but to say they need a bit of a push is an understatement.

People are doing the opposite of walking away, I mean to say.  

After Harper won his majority, that day in 2011 - everyone knowing that basically for four years there was no hope of anything happening - we had thousands of emails to FVC with people wanting to get involved. When something's unfair, when parties abuse their power, it makes people realize something's seriously wrong. 

One thing with the election promise and then the ERRE consultations is the government gave all our folks REAL HOPE - first they promised - and many PR supporters voted or campaigned for them - then they told us to show up here and here and here and we'll listen to you, all the while Trudeau repeating they were committed.

People invested their time in this in good faith. When you invest your time in something, you get to care about it a bit more. People showed up at the town hall, the ERRE consultation, the Minister's tour. They wrote letters, they send long submissions to the ERRE committee on what they wanted and why and talked about isn't it great that you are doing this because they were told over and over that their feedback mattered. 

If the Liberals had just quietly walked away from their promise on October 20, 2015, as most people expected them to do, as most governments with a 39% majority would do, we wouldn't see what Jenn is talking about now. 

But because Trudeau kept the game going so long and with such intensity, a core of people really got personally involved so when Trudeau suddenly pulled the plug he fired up a community that is now somewhere between disgusted and furious at being used and lied to. 

A community with a long memory.

Anita

On Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 11:55 PM, Jennifer Ross <2jennross at gmail.com> wrote:

  Hi, Jay.  Welcome to the movement (and the country!)

  I am a Liberal.  I have tried each of those arguments many times; they sure make sense to me, and they made some sense to my Liberal friends prior to around October of 2016.  After all, Sharon and I only wrote the "important" part of Resolution 31 (the policy that brought about the election platform on Electoral Reform); we couldn't have passed it through the policy gauntlet by ourselves and without buy-in from the membership, and particularly from the caucus.

  But, in a telling reason why we need PR to end hyper-partisanship, most Liberal rank and file no longer want to hear it, and Liberal MPs will "engage" with you without actually paying any attention to you.  In fact, Francis Scarpaleggia actually said, out loud and during a press conference "platform promises are just a way to engage with Canadians."  That's not what I was doing when I was helping our Liberals win government, I can assure you!  I was highlighting the promise.

  Oh, and non-engagement of Canadian citizenry translates to they don't want to change the voting system, not that they are so non-engaged they don't even know other options are available.  Or an understanding of what we have now for that matter.  Or they don't feel they know enough about the options that they should weigh in on the decision-making (which I think is the majority).

  Maybe hearing about it from someone new will be helpful, particularly if you have some lived experience or a different perspective to inform your conclusions.  Telling the story as to why you've come to believe it, as it were.

  But, we don't give up because I'm the Treasurer of Fair Vote Canada, and am right now going through our membership list for reasons that aren't important to the discussion.  And I am totally blown away by the number of members whose membership had lapsed and they renewed after December 1st (when the Report of the ERRE came down) and the new members who signed up after February 1st (when Justin Trudeau pulled the plug on electoral reform).  People are doing the opposite of walking away, I mean to say.  

  We even have two members who DIED and whose family is still paying their membership dues.  That is how important this issue is to some.  So for those dear friends as well as everyone still fighting for the cause, please do all of it.  :)

  The Record is good and we get our fair share of letters these days, I think.  Even better are the Township papers who actually support PR (which you'd think would be the other way around but there we are).  But you need to be a rural person to be published by them, I think.  Then there's the Waterloo Chronicle and the Kitchener Post, which we don't tend to concentrate on so they may be ripe for the picking.  We do have a letter writing group and I hope someone else tells you more about that.

  Where are you from?  Because if there is a diaspora in the Region also from that country or region, it would be most valuable to connect with them and offer a PR 101 course for Canada (don't worry, we have people who are experts to do it).

  Thanks so much for stepping on board!

  On Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 11:17 PM, Jay Judkowitz <judkowitz at gmail.com> wrote:

    Fairvote folks, 

         As someone new to the area and the country, I am wondering what the best way is to argue the case for PR and where we should be arguing it.

         I have mailed my MP, Mr. Tabbara, and received a long form letter in return that I'm sure most of you have seen (they did not even put my name on it and called me "Diana").  I replied to his mail, but am not anticipating a personalized engagement.

          Letters to the editor can get some visibility.  What publications would you suggest I write to?

          What about opposing organizations?  Is there any group in particular who it would be worthwhile to engage with to try and change their mind through open and honest discourse?

          As for arguments that would work and would not work, I am trying to put myself in the position of the Liberals since the Liberals are the ones with the power to make or break PR right now.  And, in that mindset, there are three arguments that make sense to me.
      1.. Liberals have complete power now which is great, but it was only a short time ago when they had no power.  Conservatives ruled for 10 years while they waited.  Wouldn't they want some say all the time rather than no say for a decade at a time. 
      2.. PR is a huge benefit to the party in the middle of a system with 3 relatively popular parties.  Even when they can not just dictate policy, they can partner to the left or the right to make policy on any given issue.  It would seem that PR would benefit them the most of any party in the long term. 
      3.. It's scary to let a party with 39% of the vote get 100% of the power.  Imagine a situation like the US.  Let's say 15% of Canadians (and I'm just making up that number) are really fed up with things and vehemently support a right wing demagogue like Trump and that demagogue manages to become the Conservative Party leader.  Let's say at the same time the Liberals and/or NDP falter due to scandal, a bad candidate, an economic downturn, a terrorist attack, etc...   In that situation, it's not hard to imagine another 24% of Canadians holding their nose and voting for the Conservatives led by that demagogue.  They hit the 39% of the votes, get the 51% of the seats and 100% of the power.  This does not seem like a likely event for any given election, but seems to be a certainty to happen eventually (based on the math and probability, not based on any notion I have of Canadian preferences).   Wouldn't the Liberals want to do anything to prevent this sort of scenario from being even possible?  I know the counter argument to this is that the right wing radicals would always be represented in a PR scenario, but I'd rather that they always have small representation and continually expose themselves than that they can lie in wait and eventually win a stunning victory like what happened in the US in November.
          Please let me know your thoughts on (a) where we should be making the case and (b) your thoughts on the case I'm making.

    Best regards,
    Jay

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