If history is any lesson, political parties tend to do well in Canada when they tend towards the centre of the spectrum and voters believe that they have competent leadership. Federally, the Liberal Party has been the most successful at this. In Ontario, the Progressive Conservatives have tended to be the party of choice since WWII. With the MMP system, however, the Ontario PCs would not have had so many majorities. Instead, they would have likely governed with the support of the Liberal Party. I suspect that the government itself would have been similar, but there might have been more negotiation involved and even a few coalition governments.
Would that have been better? It would have shared power more broadly, but I am not certain that it would have really affected the general policy direction of Ontario. If anything, it might have left the politicians bickering more loudly. I also believe it would have allowed the government to avoid taking "credit" for some policies on the argument that the opposition was to blame. Would that have given Ontario a better political system from 1943 - 1985? I'm not so sure. Ultimately, I believe that the buck needs to stop somewhere. Otherwise, nobody is clearly responsible for making the decisions and voters will have a tough time knowing who to hold responsible when something goes wrong.
As I noted in Jason's comments this morning, I think he underestimates the potential of MMP to effect government policy. For example, I doubt that Mike Harris could have done nearly as much damage to Ontario under MMP. The radical edges of his government would have been softened via negotiation. Toronto would have never have been amalgamated; there wouldn't have been a teacher's strike every twenty-five minutes.
So majorities are governments are fine if they function as upholders of the Canadian or Ontario or whatever consensus: if they function under the Bill Davis rather than Mike Harris paradigm. What MMP does, theoretically, is de-fangs radicals by forcing them into coalitions or a minority government situation. And I would be happy to make the next Bob Rae (in his old, economically clueless incarnation) impossible if I knew their would be no more Mike Harrises
5 comments:
How can a supposedly educated person such as Cherniak (he of the undergrad degree) speculate on how things might have happened in Ontario's political past without referring to any specific events of said past?
Cherniak is very much like a neo-con in that respect: the past is imagined more than actually studied in order to make a case with regard to an event in the present.
It's astonishingly ignorant.
The people I find not supporting MMP or proportional representation generally tend to be the types who think cycling among a variety of winners and losers is the way power has to work in the world. It's the free market/war-on-everything approach to politics and governance; if you don't back the winning team, well you get screwed, loser.
I don't think true democrats can support this anymore, especially given the body counts of the Harris, Harper and Bush regimes.
Please dear god PLEASE make Ontario smart enough to vote in MMP.
The result will be the most screwed up mess of political crap that no other Province will even contemplate inflicting such stupidity on their citizenry. Ontario can take the bullet that will save the nation.
If you think socialism can screw up something fast, MMP would make it look look like a snail race in comparison.
Go Ontario go . . . . . a self inflicted wound is still a wound.
Not like anyone else actually cares.
This is Cherniak's logic.
The Liberals are good, they are awesome, they must win every election with a majority government. It is the blood sport of political hacks, no one has to die except that winning elections generate a sense of euphoria that influential ones like Cherniak can only experience.
I am not an insider. I do suffer due to regressive government policies.
Evening, I left this same comment over at Jason's. I would like to see this given a try, but I would be a lot more comfortable trying it out in a smaller province first i.e. NB, NFLD or even Sask then in one of the provinces that are the economical engines of the country.
Some interesting points, BigCityLib. Thanks.
Post a Comment