Should The Government Of Canada Change Canada's Electoral System?

Canadian Electoral Reforms Name: Institution: Course: Date: Why Canadian Government Should Do Electoral Reforms Introduction Canadian democracy has been relatively stable and fairly representative of the people as it is currently constituted. However, in the recent past, there have been more calls to change the electoral process to institute a more representative system which has a better reflection of the Canadian people diversity demographically. Canadian election and government structure is similar to its former colonialist, the British from whom they inherited the system although there are small differences. Though the system has been working for many years, it is not an accurate representation of the Canadian people’s needs, demands and demographic nature. For example, if the system was representative of the Canadian people demographically regarding gender, then the parliament would have 50% women to represent that half the population is women. This essay will, therefore, argue why Canadian electoral system should be changed and how it can be structured to increase fairness, equality, representation and equality of votes. Current Canadian Electoral Process at The Federal Level In Canada, the candidate who gets the most votes in a riding becomes a member of parliament in the house of commons. The party with majority members in the parliament forms the government. The leader of the ruling party becomes the prime minister and thus the leader of the country. If the system for electing the leader of the party is flawed, such a party would have a rigged in a leader who does not truly represent the will of the people. If the leader falls out of favor of the people in his/her party, he/she can be ousted. This happened with Margaret Thatcher who was knifed from within her own party in the United Kingdom with who have a similar electoral system as Canada. the Why It Should Change Though it is hard for the people who benefit from the first-past-the-post system to design and implement a new system that could potentially oust them or kill their political careers, there is need to adopt a system that represents the people’s diversity. Since the current system is designed to work on the principle of plurality of just over any percentage of votes that is above the other parties, it assumes the winner take all scenario is an accurate representation of the people. In the first-past-the-post system, it is possible to have zero representation of a certain major groups in parliament. It is possible for the system to produce only members from one gender which would make the other gender unrepresented. In this system, there is no ‘true’ fair representation of the people. This is because often parties form the government with less than 50% popularity. The liberal party won the popular vote by 39.5 % and went on to form the government. There is likely another almost 60% of the Canadians who never directly voted for Liberal Party leadership, and a new system can help harmonize the system to deliver the best representation of the people. Additionally, the prime minister is not the choice of the people but rather the choice of the party. The party delegates literally choose the leader of the country. Mostly, the party forming the government...