A crucial time to cast your vote

One of the biggest environmental decision facing Ontarians in the next month is the referendum on electoral reform. Under the current first-pasted-the-post electoral system, parties like the Ontario Green Party only have an outside chance at winning a seat in the provincial legislator. Even though they represent about 10% of the popular vote, since they've never gotten the majority of the votes within one district, the provincial Greens have never had any of their candidates elected. Under the proposed mixed member proportional system (MMP), if 10% of Ontarians vote for the Green Party, than 10% of the seats will go to the Greens!

Obviously, I'm in favour of the new system. I've summarized some of the arguments for and against the new system:

Arguments for MMP:
-more choice - choose the party and the candidate
-fairer results - 10% means 10%!
-stronger representation
-eliminates "wasted" votes (know that your vote will count towards something!)

Arguments against MMP:
-17 fewer local ridings (is thought to be less representative)
-39 politicians not chosen specifically by voters
-22 more politicians and their staff at Queen's Parkand vote-counting system

Arguements for FPTP:
-hmm....?? (honestly.. the official site for the "No MPP" campaign just bashes MPP and but doesn't say anything that's good about FPTP)

Arguments against FPTP:
-less representation (only the "most popular" in each riding wins)
-distorts the will of the voters
-produces phony majority governments
-fails to produce accountable governments
-results in low percentage of elected women and visible minorities

To get this new electoral system is going to be tough! They've set the stakes pretty hight. This MMP will become law only IF:

a) 50% of the voters in 64 electoral districts vote for Mixed Member Proportional
AND
b)At least 60% of all the referendum ballots across the province choose the alternative system recommended by the Citizens' Assembly.

EVERY VOTE IS CRUCIAL!!!!

To learn about how and why MPP was selected check out this video.



To learn about how the electoral system will work check out this video.