Should We Change How We Vote? ― Evaluating Canada's Electoral System

During the 2015 federal election, the Liberals pledged that this past election would be the last vote held under the current electoral system. In a move towards making good on that promise, Democratic Reform Minister Maryam Monsef announced a parliamentary committee tasked with evaluating alternative electoral systems, in light of a number of ?guiding principles.” This has generated a great deal of debate spanning issues from the composition of the committee to demands that the entire reform proposal be put to a referendum. The editors' view is that the shared premise of the entire debate -- that first-pass-the-post is obsolete, unrepresentative, and even undemocratic -- needs to be challenged. Before we set about changing our electoral system, we should at least make sure we understand the one we have: How it works, its flaws but also its advantages, the legitimacy of change without a referendum, and, finally, whether there is lower hanging fruit worth looking at. Are there changes we can make to the functioning of our democracy that are easier to make, and less disruptive, than overhauling the electoral system?

Andrew Potter is the director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC). He is the former editor of the Ottawa Citizen.