Changing the Electoral System in Canada

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Changing the Electoral System

Canada’s friendly neighbor to the South, the US, has an electoral system that is composed of 3 separate elections, one of them deciding the head of state. The president elected by the people and he or she is the determining person of the country’s political system. In the US runs like a majority system” In Canada, however, elections are held slightly differently. Citizens vote for a Member of Parliament in a 308-seat house and candidates win not by a majority, unlike in the US, but by a plurality. This means that a candidate can actually win by simply having more votes than the other candidates. This method of representative democracy, in general, does not cause too much controversy in a global scope but has caused controversy in a Canadian scope. With many critics of the Canadian election system calling it archaic and non-modern, the idea of reforming the election system has been in discussion numerous times. In 2004 by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, created by the government of British Columbia, brought into question the current first past the post system. In an alternative state at which the Canadian election system is changed, a different set of questions is brought to the table. How can changes to the electoral system affect how the House of Commons is run and its respective procedures? In this essay, I will be discussing the possible effects of changing the Canadian electoral system on the House of Commons.

When looking at the possible implications of changing the electoral system in Canada, there are 2 possible systems that can be examined. First-past-the-post is an electoral system at which the candidate with the most votes wins the position and the candidate with fewer votes ...

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...vilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity. New York: Random House, 2011. 107. Print.

Schwartz, Bryan. "Proportional Representation for Canada." Manitoba Law Journal 28.2 (2001): 133. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.

Spafford, Duff. "Does Canada Need a New Electoral System? William P. Irvine Kingston: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen's University, 1979, Pp. Xii, 99." Canadian Journal of Political Science 13.02 (1980): n. pag. Print.

Sutherland, Neil. "Regionalism, Cabinet Stability and Canada's Electoral System: The Effect of District Magnitude." Canadian Journal of Political Science 29.3 (1996): 497-519. Print.

Uhr, John. "Why We Chose Proportional Representation." Representation and Institutional Change: 50 Years of Proportional Representation in the Senate. By Marian Sawer and Sarah Miskin. Canberra: Dept. of the Senate, 1999. 13-40. Print.

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