[fvc-wat-disc] Fwd: Proportional Representation Raises Your Voice

Wed Feb 10 14:07:27 EST 2021

Here's another email from Marc, with some useful vocabulary and phrases.
Cathy

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Marc Gasparotto <mdgaspar at lakeheadu.ca>
Date: Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 9:47 AM
Subject: Re: Proportional Representation Raises Your Voice
To: Fair Vote Canada Chapters <fair-vote-canada-chapters at googlegroups.com>

Thanks John! I really enjoy thinking about this so it's been fun :)

Sjeng, it's interesting how the core language and values for proportional
representation have been sitting in front of us in the charter for so long!
I'd love to chat with someone from the charter challenge to see if there
are any other details/language I could use for messaging.

I also found the phrase *political voice
<https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8950.pdf>:
*the ability to express your views and interests and to influence policy
and decision-making processes.

Since equality is freedom for all, to summarize:

*Democratic freedom is having a voice in the decision-making process.* It
can also be phrased as having access to decision-making power / having a
political voice / the ability to act in parliament.

*Democratic equality
<https://thesocialnarrative.home.blog/2020/12/29/democratic-equality-giving-voters-equal-access-to-political-power/>
is when all voters have a voice in the decision-making process. *It can
also be phrased as when all voters have access to decision-making power / a
political voice / the ability to act in parliament.

Rights are an expansion of freedom, so if we want everyone to be heard in
the decision-making process, *we want everyone to have the right to be
heard.*

Here are some additional graphics, including one on regional autonomy and
one on strategic voting.

[image: Right to be Heard (3).png]

[image: Right to be Heard (4).png]

[image: Right to be Heard (5).png]

On Monday, February 8, 2021 at 5:29:15 PM UTC-5 John Baumann wrote:

> Like Camille, I’m blown away by your tenacity and creativity in continuing
> to drill down into these messages. Thanks for sharing , and caring!
>
>  I really like this set, and the clarity of the closing message! I wonder
> if “Our voting system” would work better than “first past the post” for
> people who don’t know what FPTP means?
>
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 10:55 AM Marc Gasparotto <mdga... at lakeheadu.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for your comments Camile and John!
>>
>> Here are some additional posters I made following the idea.
>>
>> [image: FPTP Silences Your Voice.png]
>>
>> [image: FPTP Silences Your Voice (1).png]
>>
>> [image: Right to be Heard (2).png]
>>
>> On Sunday, February 7, 2021 at 9:38:48 PM UTC-5 John Baumann wrote:
>>
>>> In this afternoon’s FVC webinar on a Global Citizens Climate Assembly,
>>> one wonderful panelist talked about how, when speaking with UK audiences,
>>> she now simply stays they are not living in a democracy.
>>> “This is not a democracy”. Too true.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Feb 7, 2021 at 4:17 PM Marc Gasparotto <mdga... at lakeheadu.ca>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In many ways, electoral reform is actually a fight for *freedom of
>>>> speech.* First Past the Post censors most voters from having their
>>>> views expressed in parliament. It de-platforms them.
>>>>
>>>> “Deplatforming is a form of political activism or prior restraint by an
>>>> individual, group, or organization with the goal of shutting down speakers
>>>> or speech, or *denying them access to a venue in which to express
>>>> their opinion.*”
>>>>
>>>> Representatives are speakers through which their constituents’ views
>>>> are expressed. Since MPs effectively only speak for one group of voters,
>>>> that means most voters’ voices are not being heard in parliament.
>>>>
>>>> As political freedom is the right to share, fully and equally, in
>>>> representation, this means *democratic freedom is the right to be
>>>> heard in parliament.*
>>>>
>>>> Concerning Section 3 – Democratic rights:
>>>>
>>>> *Supreme Court jurisprudence also indicates that section 3 protects the
>>>> right to “effective representation” (Reference re Provincial Electoral
>>>> Boundaries (Sask.), [1991] 2 S.C.R. 158 (“ Saskatchewan Reference”) at 183;
>>>> Harper, supra at paragraph 68). This right includes the idea of having a
>>>> voice in the deliberations of government as well as the right to bring
>>>> one’s grievances and concerns to the attention of one’s government
>>>> representative (Saskatchewan Reference, supra, at 183).*
>>>>
>>>> It then follows that FPTP deprives Canadians of their right to a voice
>>>> in the deliberations of government. Another way of saying this is *First
>>>> Past the Post robs you of your voice at the decision-making table.*
>>>>
>>>> Thus, the equality of effective representation (democratic equality)
>>>> leads to democratic freedom. And the only way to ensure this equality is
>>>> through PR.
>>>>
>>>> Hence,* Proportional Representation raises your voice in parliament.*
>>>>
>>>> #RaiseYourVoice
>>>>
>>>> [image: PR Power Mask (20).png]
>>>>
>>>> [image: Right to be Heard (1).png]
>>>>
>>>> It’s quite similar to the pro-democracy slogan “Make Your Voice Heard”
>>>> which is used in terms of freedom of expression with regards to voting. Now
>>>> we just need to present it as freedom of expression via representation.
>>>>
>>>> Additionally, this was a good paper
>>>> <https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/stable/3312581?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=C.P.R.+%28Change+through+Proportional+Representation%29+Resuscitating+a+Federal+Electoral+System&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DC.P.R.%2B%2528Change%2Bthrough%2BProportional%2BRepresentation%2529%253A%2BResuscitating%2Ba%2BFederal%2BElectoral%2BSystem%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff%26group%3Dnone%26refreqid%3Dsearch%253A838cc44948d2447e54cd630423278371&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_solr_cloud%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Abdacc902402c350604c02b8c8380f497&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents>
>>>> hinting at democtaic freedom:
>>>>
>>>> *Forcing "persons who are not associated by any pervading harmony of
>>>> mind or feeling, but are gathered together by the mere accident of living
>>>> in the same district or town ... always to agree in the choice of their
>>>> representatives [is] inconsistent with the free exercise of individual
>>>> will. *
>>>>
>>>> *Under the current system, a significant number of individuals can be
>>>> caught in a constituency with a representative whom they do not support.
>>>> This is true because constituencies are currently formed by law based on
>>>> the geography of single-member districts rather than by the electorate
>>>> themselves based on shared interests. *
>>>>
>>>> *Liberated from fixed territorial constituencies, voters in a
>>>> proportional representation system may define their own constituencies
>>>> based on self-identified communities of interest.*
>>>>
>>>> *49 See, e.g., Garza v. County of Los Angeles Bd. of Supervisors, 918
>>>> F.2d 763, 783 (9th Cir. 1990) (Kozinski,J., concurring in part and
>>>> dissenting in part) (claiming that of the two strands in the Court's
>>>> jurisprudence, the Court's concern for the formal right to electoral
>>>> equality is "akin to protecting freedom of speech" while its support for
>>>> the substantive right of equal representation has been "far more
>>>> conditional.” *
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
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>>>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fair-vote-canada-chapters/67aeace0-da15-4166-84f6-d16ba9cb859fn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
>>>> .
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> John
>>> --
>>> John
>>>
>> --
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>>
> To view this discussion on the web visit
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>> .
>>
> --
> John
>
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