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John C. Courtney
Sir:
In his review of my book, Elections, Dennis Pilon while agreeing with many
of my conclusions about various Canadian election procedures, takes exception
to my analysis of the efficacy of First Past the Post (FPTP) and characterizes
my view of democracy as “narrow, limited and elitist.” This is a serious
misreading of the book.
A fundamental of Canadian democracy that critics of FPTP (such as Professor
Pilon) often overlook is that elections are not simply a way of expressing
one's preference(s) among parties and/or candidates. They are also about
other matters of equal or even greater importance.
Principal among an election's functions are: constructing a parliament
and, eventually, a government that can ensure some measure of economic
and political stability; guaranteeing as great a degree of electoral accountability
as possible; and fostering parties and a party system that can aim to ensure
inter-regional, accommodative representation in caucus and around the cabinet
table. An election in Canada is about brokering often conflicting demands
that surface naturally in a vast, diverse country.
He says my book holds to a position that is “out-of-date.” I would argue
the opposite. For electors to cast an informed vote Canadian political
parties must do their best to broker conflicting social and regional demands
prior to an election, not subsequent to it. FPTP encourages that more than
proportional voting. One need look no further back than the post-election
negotiations following the recent German and New Zealand elections to be
reminded of that fact.
I would be the first to accept (as is witnessed by everything I have written
on the question of electoral reform over the past quarter century) that
FPTP has not always produced parliaments and parties that brokered or mediated
inter-regional rivalries well. We need only think of the National Energy
Program or the CF-18 refitting in recent times or as far back as the Manitoba
Schools Question in the 1890s to remind ourselves that governing parties
can take policy positions that effectively destroy their capacity to mediate
inter-regional rivalries.
The essential point is that a set of party strategies might well come into
play under proportional voting that would make it rational, at least in
electoral terms, for prospective coalition partners in government to essentially
“vacate” particular regions or groups to one another. What such a development
would mean for brokered and accommodative politics in the weeks, months
or even years leading up to a federal election is far from certain at election
time. The bottom line is a well-established truth of political science:
as electoral systems impact on representation it is difficult to predict
how a change in one will affect the other. How a new electoral system would
change representative (and ultimately governing) practices in Canada remains
an open question and, for some at least, a cause of unease.
Electoral reformers cannot have it both ways. They cannot criticize others
for making comparisons with non-FPTP countries such as Israel, the Netherlands,
or Italy while at the same time persisting in calling for the introduction
of some unspecified form of “Proportional Representation” (PR) in Canada.
Each of these three countries has some form of PR. Until such time as there
is unambiguous agreement in Canada on a single alternative to FPTP and
until such time as advocates of electoral change stop referring generically
to PR, it is fair game to include all non-plurality electoral systems in
comparisons.
Finally, it is simply wrong of Professor Pilon to assert that my book constructs
a “straw argument” by concluding that there is no “automatic relationship”
between PR and women's representation. I took some care in constructing
the analysis of electoral systems and women's representation and noted
that “some comparative studies … confirm a positive link between proportional
elections and increased election of females” (p. 151) and that list PR
offers the most “woman-friendly” electoral system (p. 152). I also made
clear that history, cultural values, and political socialization are every
bit as important as the method of election in explaining why in some countries
women are elected in larger numbers than in others.
John C. Courtney
Professor Emeritus, Political Studies
University of Saskatchewan and Public Policy Scholar
Woodrow Wilson International Center Washington, DC
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