Political Staples : I'm Officially Off the Fence

Greg Staples, from Political Staples, tells us why he is off the fence. He articulates clearly one of the strengths of the proposed system - the separation of your preferred candidate from their party.

And I have decided that I will voting for MMP in the upcoming referendum. This was a tough decision for me and my opposition to the closed list variation of MMP selected is well know. However, I have decided that the positives out weigh the gains. This article in the National Post points to the reason I finally made up my mind.

...The Ontario Liberal and Conservative election platforms are so "uncannily similar" that they deprive voters of different visions for the province, a political science professor said.

"The promises are so starkly similar. You really wonder whether Ontarians have much of a choice here," said York University professor Robert MacDermid.

"Another thing that struck me was how much the Conservative party has moved to the centre. When you compare this to the Common Sense Revolution, it is worlds apart."

I understand that some see this as a feature, I see it as a bug and I just can't get behind any of the mainline parties in the Ontario election.

Modern Canadian elections have become a defacto republican style election of the leader of the executive branch as people typically vote for their preferred leader with their local candidate being a secondary (or lower) consideration. For most Ontarians in this election it comes down to who would you rather have as premier, Dalton McGuinty or John Tory. I don't like either. On the other hand I don't have a problem with my local MPP, Gerry Martiniuk. If I vote for a "fringe party" to protest against John Tory I could contribute to Gerry Martiniuk losing the Cambridge riding. If the Mixed Member Proportional system were in place for the current election I could vote for Gerry Martiniuk as my local candidate and vote for some party other than the Progressive Conservatives as the list candidate, thereby getting the local representative I want and being able vote for a party I want.

The double ballot would become a win-win for me. Hence I am voting for yes to MMP on October 10th.

Originally posted at Political Staples.

I will be cross-posting Greg's electoral reform posts to the site.