Policy Options

I welcome the opportunity presented by the Institute for Research on Public Policy to examine the issue of electoral reform—an issue of importance not only to elected legislators but to...

I would like to thank the IRPP for the opportunity to say a few words this afternoon. Let me start off by saying I believe our parliamentary electoral system is...

For all the failings of the first-past-the-post electoral system—and they are considerable—there is nonetheless a very powerful interest group that has a strong incentive to keep the system in place....

Small parties can too easily be seen as whiners, collectives of people with poor platforms and weak candidates who are all too ready to blame “the system.” And by resorting...

Canada’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system no longer fits the facts of our electoral scene, if it ever really did. This article therefore makes the case that fundamental change is...

What was a slow-burning crisis in Canadian democracy is rapidly becoming a major conflagration and no one in power seems to have noticed. Parliament continues to fiddle while representative...

An electoral system does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of an evolved and integrated set of institutional arrangements that together make up a larger and infinitely...

Although Canadians do not fully understand how federal governments are elected in Canada, they appear to want the benefits of both the current electoral system and of proportional representation...

This evening you have kindly invited me to speak about New Zealand’s experience of using proportional representation (PR) to elect the members of its Parliament. I am honoured to respond...

Fundamental electoral reform, as distinguished from mechanical tinkering, is currently attracting more attention than is usually the case. There are several reasons for this: A new party, the Greens, is...

New Zealand’s change to the mixed member proportional (MMP) system of electoral representation reveals the kinds of complex interactions of events, personalities, and pressures that are present in any...

I have to express a degree of agnosticism about comparing the merits of electoral systems. Fifty years of theoretical research deriving from the Arrow General Impossibility Theorem has demonstrated...

Il y a deux raisons majeures de changer le mode de scrutin du Canada. La première est connue depuis longtemps : en rendant impossible la représentation parlementaire des partis...

Political scientists have been writing about the inequities of Canada’s election laws for a very long time. Alan Cairns’ pathbreaking essay documenting how the Canada Elections Act has exacerbated regional...

This paper leaves aside the question of whether electoral reform is needed and instead considers whether reform is even possible in Canada. As many observers have pointed out, the...

There may be some doubt about whether a member of a government caucus that has just won three consecutive majorities with less than 42 per cent of the vote can...

Lors de la dernière session de la précédente législature, la Chambre des communes a procédé à une importante réforme de la Loi électorale. Pressés par le gouvernement” qui était...