Policy Lurch and Governance: A Note with Alex Himelfarb’s Perspective
Although our research on new governance for a carbon neutral society is not including work on reforming the electoral system, this blog by Alex Himmelfarb, a former clerk of the Privy Council talks about that and makes some excellent points, especially policy lurching in the fourth last paragraph. My interviews with key actors across the country have highlighted how changes in regimes result in ending the previous administration’s successful initiatives despite the evidence that they were effective.
Image Credit: Phil Hearing | Unsplash
By himelfarb on April 30, 2025
Let’s not do this again. Let’s not have another election in which many Canadians, I have no doubt, voted not for the party that best captured their aspirations for Canada but against the party they most feared or with which they were most angry. In a time of high stakes when unity is crucial we have stuck by an electoral system that favours conflict over cooperation and exaggerates and amplifies our differences.
We had been promised an end to our winner-take-all first-past-the-post electoral system when Justin Trudeau won his surprise majority but majority governments are reluctant to change the system that gave them their majority and might do so again. But a more proportional electoral system should be near the top of the list of government priorities.
I understand that many will roll their eyes at that suggestion at a time when we want our governments focused on the threats to our sovereignty, the climate crisis, economic insecurity. But democracy is not a side issue. To meet our challenges we need an electoral system that favours cooperation over sniping and that encourages us to vote for rather than against.
We need a system in which we know our vote will matter even if we are in the minority in our community. In a more proportional system if a quarter of Albertans voted Liberal, say, thats the proportion more or less of Liberals they would send to Parliament. Alberta’s voice would be well represented whichever party or parties formed the government. The same would be true for Toronto’s Conservative voters. In our system many will rightly fear they are not well represented, that they have no voice.
Prime Minister Carney has promised an ambitious agenda of “build, build, build” but our electoral system favours short termism. We have got used to watching newly elected governments spend their first months undoing what the previous government achieved. We go in circles. Such policy lurching is far less likely in proportional systems where elections are less litigious, coalitions, cooperation and continuity the norm.
Electoral reform is no magic solution to what ails us and no electoral system is perfect. But our system is badly in need of an overhaul. We are one of the few advanced democracies that hasn’t made the switch to a more proportional system.
Perhaps a Citizen Assembly to design a new electoral system that makes sense for Canada would be a good first step to both a more robust democracy and the solidarity we need if we are to meet our challenges.
We need now more than ever a system that encourages us to see elections as a national conversation about the Canada we want and that helps make that conversation less adversarial and angry.