With the federal election just around the corner, it’s a good idea to stay in the loop about various policies and ideas that have been put forward by candidates during the campaign. Electoral reform is one of the issues that has been brought up time and time again during campaigns. Changing the way Canadians vote has been a hot topic for years and a number of alternatives have been suggested. The most popular in Canadian politics is the electoral process known as proportional representation. Under Canada’s current voting system, known as first-past-the-post, citizens vote for a local candidate they would like to be their representative in parliament. Each province is divided into ridings and one person is voted in from each riding. With the current system, the candidate with the most votes in each riding has a seat in Ottawa. With this voting system, however, candidates can receive the most votes but not the majority of the vote (50 per cent or more) and still have a seat in Ottawa. In fact, most winning candidates don’t hold a majority. See full story in the Friday, Oct. 11 edition of The Record.
A handy dandy guide to proportional representation
By Taylor McClure, Special to The Record
