PR is no more?

The Fair Vote folks are telling us that the MMP debate in Ontario is not over. They claim that it was wrong that a democratic majority voted to keep what Fair Vote calls an undemocratic voting system.

Oh, pooh!

The government set up the Citizen's Assembly (CA), supposedly a random selection of people from across the province. How you do it randomly and still get 50% male, 50% female and all the minorities represented is beyond me, so I give them the benefit of the doubt.

What I marvel at is that the CA was able to make a unanimous decision, and I emphasize - they made a 100% agreement, on MMP to replace First Past the Post (FPTP). Unanimous agreement with anything in this country is hard to believe, let alone to replace a form of democratic voting that goes back over 300 years.

Let us accept that the process was open and good and the CA members made voluntary decisions. What happened next is what destroyed the chance for a vote on MMP to succeed.

I attended a meeting in the fall where the guest speaker was a member of the CA. At breakfast the gentleman sat across from me and we had a chance to exchange views. However, I should tell you that the exchange was not exactly equal. I listened as he told me about the CA and about MMP. (I should admit to you that I have written many times in other venues about MMP and the other forms of PR.) I also read his brochure. (Although I had already read it from the CA web site.) When I questioned the gentleman on various aspects of MMP I was somewhat surprised at his responses. Invariably, his comebacks to my comments were numerous forms of "That is irrelevant." Sure made my day and made me want to support him. NOT!

MysteryMan is a long-in-the-tooth marketer. He, or she, knows how to present stuff so that people want to buy it. MysteryMan recognized early in the conversation with CA-man that CA-man was no marketer. CA-man could not care less about what MysteryMan had to say unless it agreed with his (CA-man's) vision.

That was where the CA project's wheels fell off. Don't send a stockboy to do a marketers work.

If the CA had decided that the decision was worth marketing they would have made sure that their salespeople were marketers, not stockboys.

Proportional Representation has a place in our electoral system but there are four identified forms of PR, of which MMP is only one. You have to ask yourself; why did the CA decide on MMP when it is one of the weakest forms of PR?

I suggest to the Fair Vote folks that rather than make accusations about who scuttled your grand dream, take a look at the process and results that led up to the vote. The YES side was given a mandate and money to get their message out. The NO side had only logic on its side.

The NO side won.

But, hey, don't listen to me... whatever I say is irrelevant!