Democratic Renewal is the process of making governments and individual legislators more accountable to you. This would be accomplished by means of the following improvements to our electoral system.
1) Members of a legislature would have the support of a majority of voters in their riding.
2) The virtually absolute control exercised by a party's leader over its elected members would be drastically reduced.
3) Voters would have the means to respond more quickly to governments which fail to keep their promises, or which are unable or unwilling to reflect the will of the people.
There are four components to Democratic Renewal.
The first three apply to the federal and all provincial and territorial governments. The fourth applies to the federal government only.
A preferential ballot is used to ensure that a majority of voters in a riding elects their Member. When you vote with a preferential ballot, you may rank your candidates according to your preference. If your first choice was the Liberal candidate, you would place a "1" by their name. If your second choice was the New Democratic Party candidate, a "2" would go by their name, and so on down the ballot. When the votes are counted, the candidate with 50% plus one of the first choice votes is the winner. However, if no candidate has achieved that number, the candidate with the fewest votes is dropped from contention, and those ballots re-examined. The second choice indicated on each of those ballots is added to the totals of those still in the race. This process continues until one candidate has received the required number of votes. At present, the first past the post system is used. This means that the candidate with a plurality of votes may win, and that a minority of voters can elect a Member. It is critical in a democracy that each representative be chosen by a majority of the voters in the riding. That often doesn't happen today. For example, imagine that 10,000 people vote in your riding. 4500 vote Conservative, 3500 vote NDP, and 2000 vote Liberal. With the present system the Conservative would win, despite receiving less than half of the votes cast. Democratic Renewal would require that the Liberal votes be re-examined and the second choice on each ballot be added to the totals of the Conservative and NDP candidates. The final result would more accurately reflect the wishes of the voters in your riding.
Six year terms for elected Members entails a number of benefits for citizens. It would give individual Members a greater degree of independence from the influence and demands of their party leadership. It would also result in higher quality candidates making themselves available because of the comparative security of a six year term.
One-third of the seats contested every two years is another critical component of democratic renewal. It would ensure that governments kept their promises. It would enable citizens to make changes based on changing circumstances on a regular basis, rather than having to wait until an election was called in four or five years. And even though the member in your riding would be in office for six years, there would be nothing stopping you from participating in the campaigns of adjacent ridings every two years.
Elimination of the Senate is the step which concerns federal politics only. There is no place in a democracy for an unelected legislative body. This element will cause concern in Western Canada where the concept of an elected, effective and equal Senate has widespread support. However, the benefits of being able to change one-third of the members of the federal parliament every two years, thereby making the process more democratic overall, should help to alleviate the concern.
