Andrew Coyne is back on the Proportional Representation bandwagon today on the National Post. While my mind is not set on this issue being a tradionalist (surprise, surprise) I lean more to the status quo. Like everything in Canada, you have to view PR through the Quebec lens. Such a system would always lower the Bloc Quebecois support so you wonder how the soft-separatist would react to such a system. Would it start another Constitutional crisis? Doesn't everything?
Update: I asked this question to Mr. Coyne and apparently PR has been PQ party policy for years. They would probably spin that as a provincial not federal policy though.
That being said, I wondered what would have happened in past elections had we had PR (and the vote went the exact same way - HUGE assumption, but how else could I do this?). It creates some interesting results.
2004 PR (Actual)
Liberal: 120 (135)
Conservative: 97 (99)
NDP: 51 (19)
Bloc Quebecois: 40 (54)
NDP Leader Jack Layton would have gotten his "central role" in government, we would most likely have a LIB/NDP coalition and there would be little talk of a fall or spring election. Could the NDP have lived with Liberal corruption to do so? You betcha!
2000 PR (Actual)
Liberal: 126 (172)
Alliance: 79 (66)
PC: 38 (12)
Bloc Quebecois: 33 (38)
NDP: 26 (13)
A majority now becomes a minority - and a slim one at that (152-150)
1997 PR (Actual)
Liberal: 118 (155)
Reform: 59 (60)
PC: 58 (20)
NDP: 34 (21)
Bloc Quebecois: 33 (44)
One of the poster-children for Proportional Representation. A 38.5% Chretien majority becomes a minority. A coalition with the NDP is again in the offing but it would 152-150 again. One defective and it is an election. I wonder if Finance Minister Paul Martin could have balanced all of those budgets within an
NDP coalition. Who knows, it could have been a LIB/PC coalition.
1993 PR (Actual)
Liberal: 126 (177)
Reform: 57 (52)
PC: 49 (2...2...2!)
Bloc Quebecois: 41 (54)
NDP: 21 (9)
Another poster-child. Things would have been nowhere near as bad for the Campbell Progressive Conservatives under PR. A stable LIB/NDP rests entirely on rounding errors. Now that would have been a fun Parliament.
1998 PR (Actual)
PC: 133
Liberal: 99
NDP: 63
Would we have gotten Free Trade? Would we have gotten the GST? Would we have gotten Constitutional rangling? Would Brian Mulroney still have been Prime Minister?
1984 PR (Actual)
PC: 146
Liberal: 82
NDP: 55
An actual Proportional Representation majority!
And let me skip one to get to my favourite.
1979 PR (Actual)
PC: 108 (136)
Liberal: 120 (114)
NDP: 54 (26)
Forget Joe Clark falling on his budget - he never would have been Prime Minister!
