Hello. My name is Mark Batten-Carew. I strongly endorse the proportional representation submissions from both Fair Vote Canada and Leadnow, but I'd like to go further to impress upon you why single transferable vote-plus would be the best proportional system for Canada.
STV-plus is one form of the rural-urban proportional model. It uses multi-member ridings. Right away, this provides better proportionality than MMP. In addition, one seat from each riding would be moved up to the regional level to be used as a top-up seat for even better proportionality.
There are six reasons why STV-plus is the best proportional system.
First, STV-plus uses ranked ballots, along with multiple seats per riding, which enables voters to be much clearer about their intentions than they can be with a single X.
Second, since STV-plus has multiple seats per riding, each of the three major parties will stand a good chance of getting at least one seat in every riding. In fact, with STV-plus, over 90% of all voters will have a local MP from their first-choice party, and over 98% of all voters will have at least a regional MP from their first-choice party.
Third, STV-plus provides the most proportional representation in Parliament, as measured by its Gallagher index of 2.2, which was better than all 62 other systems tested by Byron Weber Becker.
Fourth, STV-plus provides the strongest support for independent and minority candidates, due to the fact that there are multiple local MPs, giving minorities a greater chance to win a seat.
Fifth, STV-plus enables voters to hold MPs to account by giving voters the chance to change the MP they vote for, while still voting for their first-choice party.
Sixth, STV-plus encourages a new civility in politics, both during the election and in Parliament. Since there are multiple seats to win, it will be impossible to know whom to target, which will reduce negative campaigning. Also, after earning a seat, every MP will have to work with their former opponents, so there will be consequences for bad behaviour.
I want to make one point about mixed member proportional. MMP is basically just first past the post with a layer of proportionality added. In effect, MMP asks, since you were forced to vote strategically at the riding level, which party did you really want to vote for? In contrast, STV asks, what combination of representatives will best satisfy the largest number of voters?
Thank you.