People are clueless about politics as it is. Now this.

I've read carefully the description of what - should we vote for this "alternative" electoral system - is to come, and I have to say, if we're going to be introducing sweeping changes to our electoral system, a half-assed, half-witted half-breed is not the most impressive thing we could have come up with.

First of all, the title, "mixed member proportional representation" is, in my opinion, obfuscatory, and I'm not totally sure that's an accident. Then again, perhaps it's an appropriate title after all, because the system it's labeling doesn't exactly jump up and explain itself to you either.

The idea here is that a portion of the seats in the provincial legislature (30%) would be kept in reserve to provide an accuracy buffer. We all vote for our local candidates, and they bring their political party into the legislature with their seat as usual, but we also vote for a political party that we'd like to see make up government overall, and the 39 reserved seats are used to even out the percentages in the legislature to match the "popular vote" as much as possible.

I see problems with this that are numerous and severe:

1) It's confusing. I read the pamphlet when I was tired, just coming home from work, and decided it was too complicated to bother with at first. I had to come back to it. I think a lot of people won't bother. But of course, nobody wants to feel like they don't understand, so while it takes time to get ingrained in the collective understanding (if indeed it ever does), people will do what they always do: vote without knowing what they're doing. This is one more layer of confusion to add to an already wayward, apathetic, and fairly unintelligent electorate. One more way to ensure that we maintain the growing disparity between what the voters want and what they get. A further step toward government that just does whatever the hell it wants to.

2) It's like the worst of both worlds. Proportional representation is a great way to ensure that every voter's vote counts, and nobody's voice is nullified by a local majority. It's fair. First-past-the-post systems allow for a more personalized government by having a group of people represented in legislature by one of their own. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. This system has the good points of neither:

a) It's NOT proportional representation. Election races are often very close between two and three parties in a district. Yet in these circumstances, the proposed system falls apart. Let's say the Conservatives manage to win 80% of the seats in the province but with an average of only 40% support in each district. That would mean that they had 72 seats in the legislature. Even with all of the 39 "list member" seats allocated to other parties to try and make up the difference, they would still end up with 56% of the power, despite only having 40% of the vote. That's an awfully big difference - indeed, it takes them from a minority to a fairly stable majority. That could have a huge effect on the outcome of the legislative process, and, ultimately, on the course the province took through major issues.

The less distinct each region becomes, and the more uniform our population's opinions are across electoral districts, the more the system breaks down. Yet every day more homes have high speed internet access. Awareness of national and global issues is pushed on us all the time. People frequently admit they don't even follow municipal politics anymore. As is easily predictable, technology and sociology are leading our population toward being more and more decentralized - more and more uniform. And looking into this future, we're going to paste on a system that works best when regions are highly distinct, and fails to meet its only goals when they aren't. Can anyone say, "myopia?"

b) In order to accomplish this mastery of a farce (farce of a mastery?), they have reduced the theoretical number of electoral districts from 107 to 90 (presumably to make renovations of the legislature less difficult - add too many more seats and we'll have to move to a new building or something, maybe?). This means that the benefits of a first-past-the-post system suffer also, as each voter now needs to share their MPP with more people, since 16% of the regular seats in parliament have now been eliminated. The larger the population represented by an MPP, the less benefit each person will likely get from having them. Hence, the first-past-the-post system is raped in the ass as well.

In closing, the government's informational brochure suggests we ask ourselves a number of questions before making a decision. They give some important examples. I thought that perhaps my answers to these might be informative:

Q: Which system will provide an effective government?
A: Either one, or neither one; depends on the government.

Q: Which system will improve voter participation for a truer democracy?
A: Improve? Neither. The new one will make it even worse.

Q: Which system is simple and practical?
A: Do we really need to ask this? Hmm... I'd say the simple one. The one we already have.

Q: Which system will hold policy makers accountable for their decisions?
A: Accountability has no formal role in either system. The government comes in, sits for a while, and then buggers off, free of responsibility. So, neither.

Q: Which system represents the wishes of the voters as fairly as possible?
A: Neither. To represent voters as fairly as possible, you need to quadruple the number of seats in the legislature and stick with a first-past-the-post system, and eliminate political parties entirely, allowing only independent candidates. In turn, those candidates should be nominated by the people, not by the puppet masters of wealthy political parties.

My conclusion: there's been a lot of talk, provincially and federally, about revising democracy. Politicians and political parties have one directive that supersedes all others: self-preservation. They see this talk as a dangerous slippery slope. They fear that, if they do nothing, before they know it they'll be obsolete, and we'll be governing ourselves like civilized people, leaving no place for the back stabbing, the name calling, the galas, media appearances, interviews, the power, or the cherished and coveted celebrity of politics. Worse yet, we'll have a smoothly functioning health care system, a better military, another crack at world-class education, sustainable cities, environmental well being, a fairer and stricter penal system... and that will leave no room for the kind of people that permeate the world of politics at any level today - those that thrive entirely on the blessed game of manipulating the frustration, poverty, disillusionment, misery or illness of the electorate to their own personal benefit.

I implore you all, don't give in to this weak, stupid attempt to quiet our collective voice about the need for a better democracy. Vote for the system we already have - not because it's good, but because the new one isn't nearly good enough.