Re “No Props for PR,” Letters, March 26: I strongly disagree with the sweeping yet unproven assessment that PR is bound to fail outside Toronto. I don’t live in Toronto but in a suburb of Ottawa, where there was a considerable interest in the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) form of PR once its nature was explained to voters.

In 2007, in Ontario, 37 per cent voted in favour of the MMP, a modified form of PR combining both types of voting: MMP and first-past-the-post (FPTP). This percentage could have resulted in a so-called “majority” government in our ordinary FPTP provincial elections. This result was obtained despite the Ontario government’s inability or unwillingness to appropriately inform the public about the nature of the MMP.

Why do we have to look at the unstable governments of Belgium, Italy, Israel and Iceland when there are many examples of stable PR governments, like Germany, the Scandinavian countries and New Zealand?  K. Jean Cottam

NAME WITHHELD BY REQUEST (NWBR) cites the need for “stable governments that can... fulfill  their mandates,” as if our current system delivered those qualities. The real point of NWBR’s message is that he believes that his vote, as a resident of Northern Ontario, should count more than the vote of a resident of one of our major cities. Leaving aside whether or not this is a good thing, the MMP form he voted against addressed that issue.

However our first-past-the-post (FPTP) system cannot reasonably compensate for the fact that Quebec’s separatists get far more seats per vote than any other party in Canada. Nor can it do anything about the million Green Party supporters who were disenfranchised. Our FPTP system also ignores the hundreds of thousands of Toronto citizens who vote Conservative.

Moreover, our FPTP system leads to high-profile competitions such as John Tory’s battle against Kathleen Wynne or Gerard Kennedy’s fight against Peggy Nash. A better system would allow them all to gain seats. Instead of the brightest and best from each party forming the legislative assembly, we usually end up with a good collection of party hacks rewarded with safe seats.  Gary Dale


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