Alberta Swings Left

The Alberta election yesterday is an example of how strange the results can be in a “first past the post” (so-called) electoral system like our own. To be sure, there was a major swing from right to left in the popular vote. The combined left-of- centre vote went from 19.74% in 2012 to 44.76% of votes cast in 2015. That's significant. Nevertheless, the NDP win hinged too on a collapse of the Liberal Party and a surge by the Wildrose. The left of centre vote was united behind one party, and the right of centre vote was evenly split in two, so that the NDP was able to come up the middle. Based on raw votes, which is to say, the actual popular will, the government of Alberta would still be to the right of centre: you will note that 44.76 is still less than 50%. The Wildrose plus the PCs took 52.01% of all votes, and the tiny Alberta Party another 2.28%. Instead, the election has produced an absolute majority for a party that is not even centre-left, but left-left, on the Alberta political spectrum: not the moderate Liberals, but the out-there NDP.

Change in government is good, and Alberta was overdue. But lurches like e this are probably not. They make it hard for businesses and individuals to plan for the future.

This seems to me to illustrate the argument for my own proposal for the Canadian senate. One could do something similar, after all, on the provincial level. Leave the lower house elected as now, by riding; and add an upper house elected province-wide, or nation-wide, by proportion of the popular vote, without ridings.

Why? In the first case, because it would more accurately reflect the popular will, ensuring that all voices are heard. In the present case, assuming, for simplicity, a 100-member upper house, the result would be 41 NDP members in the upper house, 28 PCs, 24 Widrose, 4 Liberals, and 2 Alberta Party, with one Green. In other words, while the NDP would be the largest bloc, it would be a minority government there. The right wing would have a majority in the upper house.

This would also work towards stability, reducing sudden lurches in government policy.

A problem with bicameral legislatures generally is that they can cause deadlock. This is also a problem with proportional representation, as it makes it much more difficult for any one party to get a majority. My proposal would avoid this: only the lower house would have the power to initiate bills. The upper house, on the other hand, would have solely the power to rescind bills previously passed, which had been in effect for a set time period. Even if this time period were just a year, this would allow the lower house to budget on its own.

This would prevent any direct clashes between the two houses, and allow a majority government in the lower house to get on with the practical business of government. There would be no fiscal crises like the recent budget battles in the US. But there would still be a check on government actions.

The idea of ridings is, on the whole a good one. It is a way to protect geographically-based minorities from being run over roughshod by majorities. On the other hand, it does this by short-changing any minorities that are not geographically based. The upper house could handle that: you will note that it gives increased representation to minority parties like the Alberta Party and the Greens. In Canada, our problem tends to be regionalism; we could use such a unified chamber as a corrective. A regional grouping like the Bloc Quebecois would have much smaller representation in this upper than the current lower house. Giving more voice to minority parties, in turn, would encourage their formation, allowing more voices to be heard in parliament and in our public affairs, without the political splintering and ever-changing coalitions one sees in nations like Israel or Italy. There would be a point in voting NDP even if you knew they could never win your local riding.

This form of upper house would also give parties the opportunity to protect star candidates whose talents they consider vital to their success, or their success in government. Such protection would in turn lure more people of high calibre into public life.

Not incidentally, the structure I propose would naturally lead to legislation being regularly rescinded. This corrects a problem with the current system: now, all the incentive is to add new legislation, never to repeal old legislation. As a result, government naturally grows larger and larger, which is not the best thing to have happen. Better to have a balance here.

In the meantime, Albertans, get ready for a rocky ride. Ontarians went through something like this a generation ago, when their longstanding PC government was supplanted first by the Liberals, and then the NDP. It was a less dramatic swing than this one, and I think most Ontarians would now agree that it did not turn out terribly well.