I am going to preface this by saying that this was shared with me by a friend and I am still trying to get my head wrapped around it. I am not an expert or even well read on the subject but do believe that the voting systems in Canada need to change. I post in the interest of building the discussion in this community.
<Quote> I like single transferrable vote (STV), but it’s unlikely to catch on because it needs number crunching in the backend to apportion the excess votes to (hopefully) improve proportionality. I can see it being accused of corruption by the fact and critical-thinking challenged demographic.
Baden-Württemberg solves that by saying that every riding has two members, one who wins the popular vote, and one who is selected from the runners-up in a manner that best enhances proportionality, but still focuses on the high vote earners.
Mixed member proportional representation (MMR) is too easily gamed by parties to embed unelectable party hacks/loyalists (as experienced in NZ). </Quote>
You’re absolutely right about single issues being absorbed, the most prevalent being gun rights and abortion in the u.s… I think I lean much more on the side of education and civic engagement you mentioned. Not easy to shove that down anybody’s throat. The moment you try to introduce a larger extent of that you’ll get the “brainwashing our kids” crowd crying fowl, even though they’re right. My solutions to these problems aren’t well received or practical given the current state. While I understand your objections and am willing to throw caution to the wind I don’t think a change to PR will really be of consequence.
Edit: I came back to this because I realized this sounded too defeatist. Certainly PR or something similar is the next best step. Nothing we do will happen quickly so the most important thing always is to keep moving.
To the “brainwashing our kids” crowd, my stance is that the kids can decide for themselves if it’s brainwashing, as long as we aren’t actually doing that, and is instead simply equipping them with the ability to think on their own. So I’m not bothered by them, and I think we should make that narrative clear enough, with experts in and out of power to have their say, and the rest can complain all they want. I do understand that that doesn’t always work well in our political climate; just look at the carbon tax, but if we hold ourselves back just because some crowd might fight back, and essentially do nothing, based on the trajectory where things are going, I fear that we’re only sleepwalking ourselves into ruin. This applies to adopting PR as well.
In other words, I’d rather we say that we’ve tried to do things that we have good reasons to believe are good and may actually steer us in the right direction, than go for something that might please more people but is no different from our current trajectory.