Electoral Reform for Individual Representatives

Electoral reform has been discussed in this Country for decades but very little has been done to move these reforms forward. This isn’t surprising. Consider that reform requires those who wield most of the power be willing to relinquish part of it.

Some of the possibilities for reform have included proportional representation, fixed election dates and senate reform. None of these possibilities has been adopted as of yet but with the NDP being a big supporter of electoral reform and with the Liberal party depending on NDP support for survival, some movement in this area may come sooner than we think.

Recent events in Ottawa bring to mind another possible reform that would ensure valid representation, down to the individual riding itself.

The dramatic defection of Belinda Stronach from the Conservative Party and the recent defection of Liberal Pat O’Brien bring the question to mind. Should members who have been elected as a candidate for a specific party retain their seat if they decide to leave that party?

Of course defections have been happening since the early days of our Country. Every party has seen members leave to sit as an independent or worse yet, cross the floor to the other side. It’s been happening for longer than anyone can remember but does that make it right?

When Belinda Stronach went from door to door campaigning for her seat in Ottawa, she did it as a Conservative and the public elected her as a Conservative, not a Liberal. When Pat O’Brien kissed babies at his local Kinsmen or Lion’s clubs he didn’t tell the parents of those babies that they would soon be represented by an independent.

Another example is the case of Carolyn Parrish, who was in essence ex-communicated from the Liberal Caucus. She is now sitting as an independent. In her case there was a push from inside the party that basically stripped her constituents of the representation they had voted for. In this case, her constituents did not elect an independent, they elected a Liberal and they were denied their constitutionally elected party of choice by the party itself.

On the political scene, a similar situation recently occurred in the Newfoundland and Labrador Legislature when a member of the ruling PC party, Fabian Manning, was ejected from the Conservative caucus for not staying in line with the team.

What can or should be done to ensure that we are represented in the way we want to be represented?

Perhaps we need electoral reforms in the area of individual members as well.

One option would be to deny a party the right to kick a member out of caucus. Once the people have decided they want to be represented by an individual, what gives a political party the right to circumvent that election result?

Further to this, in situations where an elected representative decides to speak out or vote against their party line perhaps they should be presented with two options. Either the member should remain in the party caucus and continue to fight for their constituents no matter what the atmosphere or they should submit to a by-election.

The option to sit as an independent or to join another party should not exist.

Taking away the option of defection would ensure true representation for an electoral district. If a return to the polls is required it would allow the public themselves to determine who represents them. This would place this all important decision back into the hands of the electorate which is the only place it truly belongs.