Alternative Vote vs Proportional Representation
Barry Kay vs Dennis Pilon
Come down to Kitchener City Hall for the
Electoral Reform Debate of the Century!
THURSDAY
April 7, 2016
Kitchener City Hall Council Chamber
200 King Street West, Kitchener N2G 4V6
Hey Waterloo Region Greens! Come find out what the fuss is about!
Proportional Representation is incredibly important, especially for small nation wide parties… like the Greens! Did you know that if the average number of votes it took to elect a Liberal MP in 2015 was applied to the number of votes the GPC won, we would have 16 GPC MPs in Parliament?
The question is what will replace First Past The Post?
I started learning about Proportional Representation from Fair Vote Canada, the multi-partisan group that advocates for Proportional Representation. PR can be achieved in many different ways, no matter which Proportional system is chosen, the Green Party would win more seats in Parliament that it earns in votes. My own assumption is that if Canadians thought voting Green would actually elect anyone, there could be twice as many Green voters…or more.
While the Liberal electoral reform election promise sounded like an ad for Fair Vote Canada, they really didn’t promise Proportional Representation… it just sounded like they did. The Liberal party is actually divided on this; and while some Liberals support Proportional Representation, many Liberals support replacing FPTP with Alternative Vote, another winner-take-all system.
But I’m no expert, so I invite you all to come out to this panel discussion and learn from people who are.