Skip to content

A better electoral example

The Alberta election really was Canadian democracy at its worst: a campaign that was frequently nasty and vicious, with attack ads from both sides.

The Alberta election really was Canadian democracy at its worst: a campaign that was frequently nasty and vicious, with attack ads from both sides.

You could tell the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democratic Party didn’t like each other very much, and they should share equal blame for the embarrassing direction of that campaign.

Compare that with the election that wrapped up earlier this week in Prince Edward Island. It wasn’t a Kum Ba Yah election, with the party leaders cordially patting each other on the back during the debates, but it was a far more cordial and respectful election than what we saw in Alberta.

There was also the solidarity shown by the three parties after the tragic death of Green Party candidate Josh Underhay and his young son just days before the vote. Not only did the Greens suspend election campaigning in the final days, at a time in which they were leading public opinion polls, but the other parties suspended their campaigning as well for a couple of days.

It was touching to see how all three parties came together.

While the Progressive Conservatives were the victors, winning the most seats but not enough for a majority, the story of the election will be the Greens, for reasons beyond tragedy.

The Greens won eight seats, which might be a record for the party in an election of any kind. That would be ironic when you consider there are only 27 seats in PEI’s legislature. And it’s the first time the Greens have been the official opposition in any province, which is a big step forward for the party.

Here’s hoping that they stay the opposition, and the party that won the most seats, and captured the highest percentage of the vote, will be the governing party. Hopefully P.E.I. avoids the loophole, back-door government that we’ve seen in B.C.

The election was notable for another reason: PEI voters said no to proportional representation, handing that concept another defeat. The margin was small, but proportional representation lost again.

It’s one of those ideas that sounds great. If you have 40 per cent of the vote, you get 40 per cent of the seats. Granted, it would create headaches in countries that use a parliamentary system like Canada, but the idea is sound on the surface.

And for supporters of parties that receive a lower share of seats than the popular vote, they’re definitely going to love the idea.

But it tends to fall flat. It assumes that people vote on party lines; what about those who vote for the candidate, rather than the party? You risk alienating those people.

How do you determine which candidates represent which ridings? Would a constituency wind up with a candidate that they don’t want? Would an MP or MLA represent a riding whose issues they don’t understand?

(Former prime minister Jean Chretien effectively tore the proportional representation idea apart last year). 

This election in P.E.I. tried to address some of those concerns, but it also resulted in a complex, convoluted system that would have risked alienating voters.

First past the post remains the best system for Canada.

It was interesting to monitor the PEI election over the last days of the campaign and the results that emerged. It was a historical day for the Greens in particular.

This might prove to be the party’s high-water mark in this country.

But at the very least, we saw an election in P.E.I. done the right way.

Alberta politicians could learn a thing or two. So could politicians in this year’s federal election.