![[Logo as used in Home Page and Elsewhere]](https://champlainpark.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/cropped-champlain-park-logo-emily-2020.08.06.jpg?w=104){kind=logo}
Earth Speaks: Making Governments Truly Democratic
This Tuesday, September 14
7:30pm – 9pm
It’s election time, and Climate Change is a top voter concern. The promotion and implementation of real democratic practices in the various layers of government – through Proportional Representation and Citizens’ Assemblies – is essential to address the existential threat of the climate crisis in the long term. This Tuesday, September 14th, at 7:30pm, join guest Peter Black, of Fair Vote Canada, for a discussion of Proportional Representation and the potential for implementing it in Canada.
Register for this free event to receive the zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0oc-qrqDoiHNwHcg34OFOrjMkJlN2Mxu6u
More information: https://www.firstunitarianottawa.ca/earth-speaks-forums.html
![[Snapshot of the Proportional Representation Presentation more information web page]](https://champlainpark.files.wordpress.com/2021/09/20210914-making-governments-truly-democratic.jpeg?w=863&h=868)
Champlain Park Community 
Even the political parties’ leadership races are decided by (I believe it is called) a ranked-choice ballot system, that typically results in multiple counts. Are not we, the commoners, also worthy of such democratically representative choice? Indeed worthy of not potentially having 15 – 20 percent of the nation’s populace deciding how we all are 100-percent ruled?
The first-past-the-post electoral system, in its usual form, barely qualifies as democratic rule within the democracy spectrum, though it seems to serve corporate interests well. I believe it is basically why powerful money interests generally resist attempts at changing from FPTP to proportional representation electoral systems of governance, the latter which dilutes corporate lobbyist influence.
Canadian governances (and American, for that matter) typically maintain thinly veiled yet strong ties to large corporations, as though elected heads are meant to represent big money interests over those of the working citizenry and poor. Accordingly, major political decisions will normally foremost reflect what is in big business’s best interests. But don’t expect to hear this fact readily reported by the mainstream news-media, which is concentratedly corporate owned. … There’s much more to say on this topic, but I’ll refrain, if that’s okay.
Saw most of the presentation. One point was that politicians don’t support it much, such as Ontario’s recent citizen’s assembly in 2007 where their recommendations were poorly publicized by Elections Ontario. There was supposed to be a public education program, but there wasn’t much actual public discussion on the topic and options.
My current favourite one is ranked ballot. No selection of elected people just by parties. Independents get the same opportunities as party people. Though it does favour centrist parties (they’d get a lot of #2 votes).
All the non-FPTP systems let new parties form more easily (no worries about splitting the vote), which is good for avoiding the inaccuracies in representation when you have a low party count. Would be nice to not have parties at all, but it’s what we inherited from the British Empire, along with FPTP.
Anyway, it can make for boring government like the Swiss. If the overall proportions of the voters stay the same, the government is similarly unchangingly reflective of the voters. Maybe a good thing?