If Canada was a real democracy, Harper likely wouldn’t have came to power

In the rest of the developed world, the party with the most votes means nothing. Government represents an actual majority of voters which almost always takes the form of multi-party majority governments.

How the vote is divided among parties that arbitrarily divide up the political spectrum is irrelevant.

2011 election

If we had ranked ballot voting in 2011, Harper would’ve been ousted. This would’ve prevented him from winning dozens of center-left ridings. That would’ve allowed the NDP and Liberals to form a majority government on 50% of the vote and 53% of the seats.

Instead we got a Harper dictatorship on 40% of the vote (the opposite of what voters wanted.)

If we had proportional representation, even better. We would’ve got either an NDP-Liberal coalition or NDP-Liberal-Green coalition (depending on the threshold.)

Earlier elections

Harper fared even worse in earlier elections. In 2008, the Liberals and NDP could’ve formed a coalition government (the norm in the developed world) with Bloc support (the same support they gave Harper when he came to power in 2006.)

With either PR or RBV, the Liberals and NDP would’ve got more seats reflecting the real will of voters.

In 2006, even under our distorted system First-Past-the-Post, the Liberals and NDP had more seats than Harper: 132 to 124. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have worked together to form the government.

Democracy not a horse race

Democracy means rule by the people. It’s absurd to turn it into a horse race.

By fixing our voting system, this will stop Harper-like leaders from ever getting unfettered power again.

Is this gaming the system to give progressive voters an unearned advantage? Actually the opposite is true. Our present system is skewed towards a united Conservative party because of opposition party vote splitting.

Conclusion

Electoral reform is impartial. It simply ensures the true will of Canadians is carried out. That makes it the most important issue of all. From real democracy, all else follows.