Sunday, October 27, 2019

Canada's 2019 election under my system

As promised, I shall explain how the election would have turned out under the specific proportional- representation system that I favour. (I'll assume that the popular vote is the same.)

First, I'll explain my system again.  Most seats will be in the A category, elected in the same "first past the post" system as before.  At least 1/4 of each province's seats will be in the B category, and distributed so that the total of A and B seats in each province will be as close to the popular vote as possible.  And at least 1/25 of each province's seats will be in the C category. Normally, the C seats will go the party that leads the popular vote in the province, but if a party wins more A seats alone than its proportional share of A and B seats together (think landslide) they'll go to the other parties to bring them closer to their proportional share. (Ontario will have 5 C seats, Quebec 3, BC and Alberta 2, all other provinces 1.) The territorial seats will be unchanged. 

This system is close to what they have in Germany, which has proved very stable.

Here's the actual results (courtesy of Wikipedia):

*** Lib PC NDP BQ Gr PP Ind
NL    6            1
PEI   4
NS   10    1
NB    6     3                   1
PQ   35   10    1     32
ON  79   36     6
MN   4     7     3
SK          14
AB          33   1
BC   11   17  11              2         1
Terrs  2           1
________
*** 157  121  24    32    3         1

Here's what would have happened under my system.  I'll use a "/" to divide each party's result into A seats, and B and C seats together.

***  Lib PC NDP Gr PP BQ Ind
NL   3/1     0/2  1/0
PEI  2/0     0/1          0/1
NS   6/0     1/1  0/2   0/1
NB   3/1     2/1   0/1  1/1
PQ  25/1    7/5   1/7   0/3 0/1 22/3
ON 57/0  26/12 4/15 0/6 0/1
MN  3/0    4/3   2/1   0/1
SK   0/2    9/1    0/3
AB   0/5  23/1   1/3   0/1 0/1
BC   8/2  12/4   7/3   2/3      1/0
Terrs  2               1
_______
A seats:  119  84   17    3  0  22  1
B+C:      12    31   36  17  3    3
Total:     131 115   53  20  3  25  1

True, the Liberals still have more seats despite the Conservative plurality in the popular vote, but the margin is significantly closer. The Liberals take the biggest lost, and the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois are slightly worse off. Predictably, it's the NDP and the Greens who gain.  The People's Party manages three seats, as if that makes much difference. (Their presence in Parliament is a price I'm willing to pay!)




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