In the wake of the Brexit referendum, this week’s episode tackles a Canadian issue that might soon trigger a referendum of its own: electoral reform.

Harvard University’s Pippa Norris is one of the world’s leading experts on electoral systems. She is currently the director of the Electoral Integrity Project. This $6 million-dollar initiative involves thousands of researchers who are examining why elections around the world work and why they fail. Norris and the project team have also been able to make observations about the link between specific types of voting systems and the degree of integrity associated with them. For example, proportional representation systems tend to be linked to higher levels of electoral integrity.

Norris recently delivered the Cadario Lecture at the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance, after which she shared her views on Canada’s electoral reform debate in a live on-stage interview with Jennifer Ditchburn, Policy Options editor-in-chief.

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The Policy Options Special Feature on electoral reform http://bit.ly/29gvNXE

Photo: Sean Kilpatrick / The Canadian Press

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Pippa Norris
Pippa Norris is one of the world’s leading experts on electoral systems. She is currently the director of the Electoral Integrity Project.
Jennifer Ditchburn
Jennifer Ditchburn is the President and CEO of the Institute for Research on Public Policy. From 2016 to 2021, she was the Editor-in-Chief of the IRPP’s influential digital magazine, Policy Options. Prior to joining the IRPP, Jennifer spent two decades covering national and parliamentary affairs for The Canadian Press and for CBC Television. She is the co-editor with Graham Fox of The Harper Factor: Assessing a Prime Minister’s Policy Legacy (McGill-Queen’s).