[fvc-wat-disc] Fw: Ontario NDP on FPTP / PR in the ON legislature

[David dirks]

Again, apologies for any duplication in mailing.
ON NDP members speak up about Ford's 18% vote and the need for change in our electoral system.
David


Residing on the Haldimand Tract promised to the Six Nations in 1784, the traditional lands of the Attawandaron (Neutral), Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. 

 

   ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Anita Nickerson <anita.nickerson at fairvote.ca>To: Chapters Google Group <fair-vote-canada-chapters at googlegroups.com>Sent: Wednesday, September 7, 2022 at 04:14:51 PM EDTSubject: Ontario NDP on FPTP / PR in the ON legislature
 Hey everyone. This will be a day of a few emails on different things!
Thanks to Wilf who finds this for us - SEE BELOW. Quite a few ON NDP MPPs spoke up about Ford's 18% majority and/or the need for PR in the Ontario legislature in August. 
I put a couple of them on the FVC facebook page yesterday or the day before, and the rest I have put in a folder for anybody who wants to share (some of them are a bit too partisan-leaning, and putting up 7 ON NDPs in a row on a FVC page is not something I'm going to do - but these quotes are available for individuals to share. Feel free of course to make your own pictures that look better - and let me know of any typos on ones in the folder if you spot them):

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RiYoM3RiiaRhdEwEmkODYeaNHx3wD4PI?usp=sharing

We've written a couple of things about Ford stuff since he was elected. In addition to commenting on the strong mayor legislation in July, we wrote more recently on Bill 7: 

https://www.fairvote.ca/04/09/2022/government-bypasses-consultation-on-forcing-seniors-into-long-term-care-homes/
Anita


The Ontario legislative Hansard has a search feature. I used it to look for quotes from the first session of the new House:

 

Aug. 10: Marit Stiles: “that feeling impacted our democratic process, with the lowest voter turnout in the history of our province. It’s just one symptom of a malaise, I think, that’s setting in in our democracy. Another is the continued warping of the vote through the first-past-the-post system, a system that once again delivered 100% of the power to a party that just got 41% of the vote—and I don’t say that, Speaker, to diminish the results or the victory of my colleagues or the victory of my colleagues across the way. But I do want to remind the government that although their majority grew in this place, it should not be mistaken for the confidence of a majority of Ontarians, and it is most certainly not a blank cheque to impose a narrow and regressive agenda of cuts and privatization on this province.”

 

Aug. 11: Jessica Bell: “we just went through an election where we had the lowest voter turnout in election history at 43%.” (Speaking of Dave Meslin’s book on Rebuilding Democracy) “He also speaks about changing the voting system to reflect our voter intentions, which means moving away from a first past the post system to some kind of system closer to proportional representation. So the will of the voters, the percentage of people who vote for a specific party, roughly represents the percentage of people who sit here in this Legislature. If 60% of people vote for more progressive parties, that would mean 60%, approximately, of the seats in this Legislature would be held by progressive MPPs, as well.”

Aug. 17: Miss Monique Taylor: “Listen: I’m pretty sure that the 18% of the province who actually did vote for you didn’t vote for you for a mandate to bring this bill forward as your first action.”

Aug. 18: MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam: “As members here in this House, we can have the opportunity to make lives significantly better, or significantly worse, just by adopting a budget. So if we were to invert that process and bring residents in closer to help us design a better budget that better reflects their priorities and needs, we think that everybody would be better off. I hope we can do that together. It will allow us to create an open and accessible budget process in Ontario that can better create business, drive innovation and help us design citizen-centred services.
“I know that the government was elected by a majority in the first-past-the-post system, and I want to honour that. But I also want to remind all of us that 43% of voter turnout—having less than 18% of eligible voters vote for the PCs—doesn’t give you a bulldozing mandate when it comes to the budget. We are here to work together, and I’m going to continue to echo this theme throughout my four years here at Queen’s Park”

 

Aug. 22: Ms. Peggy Sattler: “I also want to remind this government—as people across the province, in the aftermath of an election that saw an historic low voter turnout—that when only 41% of 43% of eligible voters in this province vote for this government, they are sitting in those seats with the support of 18% of Ontarians. So 18% of Ontarians have entrusted this government with the responsibility to govern fairly and wisely and responsibly, and what do we see? We see a first-past-the-post system that translates that 18% support into a government that holds 70% of the seats in this Legislature and yields 100% of its power. That’s what this government has done with this motion before us on presiding officers, with the motion last week or two weeks ago on the committee appointments. They have arbitrarily and unilaterally decided to exercise the power that first-past-the-post has given them: the power that they have gained because 18% of Ontarians of voting age have put them into office. They are exercising that power to unilaterally decide who is going to serve on committees.”

 

Aug. 25: Mr. Wayne Gates: “The Conservative government never ran on the privatization of health care. Not once was it discussed at the door, not once did the candidate that was in my area even come to debates. Privatization of health care, with their 18% of the vote in the province of Ontario, is an absolute disaster. Bill 124 is a disaster. The new word that the PCs are using is “innovative.” That’s their new word. It’s not innovative to have seniors taken out of our hospitals without consent.” 

 

Aug. 25. Tom Rakocevic: “We have gone through an election where people felt hopeless. They were filled with despair. I know you know this; you heard it. There were not many people rushing to vote. They felt like the future was very scary to them and their loved ones, and so we saw the lowest turnout per capita in Ontario’s history. You won. You won a majority and you gained seats, and you did so with 18%—with a loss of half a million votes. And sure, we lost votes. We lost more than you. But what is out there is a feeling of disenfranchisement that I’ve never seen before, not to this level. And it’s scary.”

Aug. 25. Marit Stiles: “Bill 7, which takes away consent from seniors and families, that’s a piece of legislation—yes, this government wants it to move fast. They sure do. They don’t even want it to go to committee, where it will have public hearings, where they can hear from the families that will be impacted by this legislation, and that is shameful. And so I would say, no, I don’t want to see bad legislation sped through this place without an opportunity for debate. Again, this government may have elected more members, but have a little humility and think about the people that you are here to serve. It isn’t just the 41% of people. It is not just those people. You represent everybody in this province. Those families will be impacted and they deserve a say.”

 


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