A new system of government elections should be given to Canadians that will replace the current Single Member Plurality (SMP) system. In this short essay two articles will be compared and then contrasted; the first one wants change to our electoral system and the second one wishes to keep it. Both provide good points but ultimately Canada needs an electoral system that gives voters the ability to elect a fair, democratic and representative government – a Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) system meets that criteria.
In an article by John Hiemstra and Harold Jansen, the duo makes a compelling argument in support of Canada adopting MMP for its new electoral system. Hiemstra and Jansen believe that, in a democracy, governments should make decisions by majority rule through proportional representation (PR). In MMP, if a party had 30% of the vote, they would get close to the same amount in seats. In SMP, a government may get many more seats than the percentage of votes or vice versa. Similarly, SMP often robs voters of their vote, where in some cases, large injustices occur when a large portion of the electorate receive little-to-no seats. MMP would make each vote count through proportional representation and would give voters what they vote for. Some are opposed to PR because they lose local representation or are not totally sold on the idea of PR. MMP would allow for continued local representation and would also allow for a compromise between SMP and PR electoral systems. In other words, MMP offers the “best of both worlds” to voters. The authors also counter claims that MMP would produce unstable, ineffective minority governments. They admit that MMP would likely produce more minority governments, but state that it is something Canada has had quite a few of already and that many of them have been effective. Some critics argue that MMP would promote too many small parties that make governments unstable. The two say this is not the case by stating that parties...