From July 14, 2024:

In last week's email, we shared with you the key "findings of fact" that the judge made in our original challenge last fall that support our claim that our current First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system provides poor legislative representation to many voters - the core of our "Section 3" argument. Our key point is that many voters (now routinely more than half) don't have "effective representation" because they have not voted for the MP in their riding, and "their" MP actively works against their political interests.

This week, we review the judge's second main set of findings - that FPTP impairs many voters' right to meaningful participation (a second key component of our Section 3 "right to vote").

Impaired Participation and Satisfaction

The idea that our "right to vote" includes the concept of "meaningful participation" comes from two key cases decided by the Supreme Court:

• Haig v Canada (1993 - "The purpose of s. 3 of the Charter is, then, to grant every citizen of this country the right to play a meaningful role in the selection of elected representatives who, in turn, will be responsible for making decisions embodied in legislation for which they will be accountable to their electorate"), and
• Figueroa v Canada (2003, citing Haig, "this Court has already determined that the purpose of s. 3 includes not only the right of each citizen to have and to vote for an elected representative in Parliament or a legislative assembly, but also to the right of each citizen to play a meaningful role in the electoral process.  This ... is a more complete statement of the purpose of s.3 of the Charter").

Impaired Participation: The judge concluded that "[FPTP] reduces the participation and democratic satisfaction of voters compared to [Proportional Representation (PR)] and that strategic voting under [FPTP] is “prevalent”." Expert witnesses from both our side and the government side acknowledged that "the empirical evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that electoral turnout is lower in [FPTP] countries than PR countries. Under [FPTP], particularly in “safe ridings”, voters are less motivated to cast a ballot because there is little chance their votes could make a difference; conversely under PR, almost all votes make a difference. Their expert conclusions were supported by the lay affiants, some of whom confirm they did not or may no longer vote" because they don't find it meaningful to cast an ineffective vote.

Lower Satisfaction: Experts also confirmed that "democratic satisfaction is lower under [FPTP] than PR (particularly for voters whose party did not win the election)."  "Anglo-Saxon democracies, more generally, face an “acute crisis of democratic faith” – aside from New Zealand, which has adopted PR."  The government's expert, Prof. Loewen, acknowledged that "voters of both “large” and “small” parties are dissatisfied with electoral disproportionality and that the electoral outcomes deemed most “democratic” are those most likely achieved in a proportional system", "whereas outcomes deemed least democratic are those of countries that use [FPTP]". Further evidence from both experts and some lay affiants show that "strategic voting under [FPTP] leads to voter “disengagement”", particularly for supporters of smaller parties, which implies that these voters find it less meaningful to participate in elections than supporters of larger parties.

Next week - key "findings of fact" about the under-representation of women.