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IRPP t r e n g t choicesVol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 ISSN 0711-0677 www.irpp.org h e n i n g

Ontario’s C a

Referendum on n a d

Proportional i a n

Representation D e

Why Citizens m o

Said No c r a c y

Laura B. Stephenson Brian Tanguay ounded in 1972, the Institute for Research on Public Policy is an independent, national, F nonprofit organization. IRPP seeks to improve public policy in Canada by generating research, providing insight and sparking debate that will contribute to the public policy decision-making process and strengthen the quality of the public policy decisions made by Canadian Laura B. Stephenson is an assistant professor in the governments, citizens, institutions and organizations. Department of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. Her work has appeared in several IRPP's independence is assured by an endowment fund journals, such as Electoral Studies and the Canadian Journal of Political Science. She is also co-editor of a established in the early 1970s. forthcoming book, Voting Behaviour in Canada (with Cameron D. Anderson). Her current research projects include studying the links between electoral systems, party strategies and voting behaviour; the effects of party label cues on cross-national voting behaviour; and partisanship ondé en 1972, l’Institut de recherche en in Canada. politiques publiques (IRPP) est un organisme Brian Tanguay is a professor in the Department of F canadien, indépendant et sans but lucratif. Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University, and is currently the chair of the department. He recently drafted L’IRPP cherche à améliorer les politiques publiques the Law Commission of Canada's report Voting Counts: canadiennes en encourageant la recherche, en mettant Electoral Reform for Canada. He has also written and de l’avant de nouvelles perspectives et en suscitant des edited numerous articles, book chapters and books, including Canadian Parties in Transition (with Alain-G. débats qui contribueront au processus décisionnel en Gagnon). His current research focuses on electoral reform matière de politiques publiques et qui rehausseront la in liberal democracies and on the evolving division of qualité des décisions que prennent les gouvernements, labour between political parties and organized interests. He is also interested in Quebec politics, especially the les citoyens, les institutions et les organismes evolution of the party system in the province. canadiens. This publication was produced under the direction of L’indépendance de l’IRPP est assurée par un fonds de Geneviève Bouchard, Research Director, IRPP. The dotation établi au début des années 1970. manuscript was copy-edited by Barbara Czarnecki, proofreading was by Mary Williams, production was by Chantal Létourneau, art direction was by Schumacher Design and printing was by AGL Graphiques.

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To cite this document: Stephenson, Laura B., and Brian Tanguay. 2009. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and “Ontario’s Referendum on Proportional Representation: do not necessarily reflect the views of IRPP or its Board of Directors. Why Citizens Said No.” IRPP Choices 15 (10). Strengthening Canadian Democracy/Renforcer la démocratie canadienne

Research Directeur / Directrice de recherche Geneviève Bouchard

ince the 1960s, increased levels of education and changing social values have prompted S calls for increased democratic participation, both in Canada and internationally. Some modest reforms have been implemented in this country, but for the most part the avenues provided for public participation lag behind the demand. The Strengthening Canadian Democracy research program explores some of the democratic lacunae in Canada's political system. In proposing reforms, the focus is on how the legitimacy of our system of government can be strengthened before disengagement from politics and public alienation accelerate unduly.

epuis les années 1960, le relèvement du niveau d'éducation et l'évolution des valeurs sociales D ont suscité au Canada comme ailleurs des appels en faveur d'une participation démocratique élargie. Si quelques modestes réformes ont été mises en œuvre dans notre pays, les mesures envisagées pour étendre cette participation restent largement insuf- fisantes au regard de la demande exprimée. Ce pro- gramme de recherche examine certaines des lacunes démocratiques du système canadien et propose des réformes qui amélioreraient la participation publique, Contents s'intéressant par le fait même aux moyens d'affermir la légitimité de notre système de gouvernement pour 2 Introduction contrer le désengagement de plus en plus marqué de la 3 Background: The Democratic Deficit population vis-à-vis de la politique. 4 Addressing the Democratic Deficit in Canada 5 Experience with Federal and Provincial Electoral Reform 7 Democratic Renewal and Electoral Reform in Ontario 10 Analysis: The Voting Decision 19 Conclusion 22 Appendix: Variable Coding 23 Notes 25 References 29 Résumé 30 Summary IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 Brian Tanguay Laura B. Stephensonand Why CitizensSaidNo Representation: on Proportional Ontario’s Referendum Edward Island, NovaScotia,Quebec)entertaining the ed inanumberofprovinces (BritishColumbia,Prince Calls formoreproportionality inelectionshaveresult- eral yearsinallprovincesand inCanadaasawhole. cratic deficithasreceivedincreasing attentionforsev of particularinterestfortworeasons.First,thedemo- 200 tors thatcontributedtohowOntariansvotedinthe indicated apreferenceforthestatusquo. the electoralsystem,comparedwith63.1percentwho not. Only36.9percentvotedinfavourofchanging October 1 change. Theoutcomeofthereferendum,heldon bly, ifthoseresultsindicatedthatOntarianswanteda (MMP) system,recommendedbythecitizens’assem whether tochangeamixed memberproportional promised tohonourtheresultsofreferendumon tem wouldbebestfortheprovince.Thegovernment ed, theywerealsochargedwithchoosingwhichsys system. Iftheyfeltanewelectoralsystemwasneed tems andthentodecidewhetherproposeanew learn abouttheprinciplesandtypesofelectoralsys chosen fromaroundtheprovince,broughttogetherto The citizens’assemblywasmadeupof103 Ontarians lished theCitizens’AssemblyonElectoralReform. simplify ormodernizethevotingprocess,andestab- advance pollingdays)toaccommodateOntariansand elements ofthevotingprocess(suchasnumber government establishedfixed electiondates,changed Minister ResponsibleforDemocraticRenewal,the and perceivedvoterapathy. Throughtheofficeof A Introduction The objectiveofthispaperistoinvestigatethefac- 7 referendumontheelectoralsystem.Thisissueis elections inresponsetofallingturnoutrates McGuinty tookstepstomodernizeOntario’s fter beingelectedin2003,PremierDalton 0, 200 2 7, indicatedclearlythatOntariansdid - - - - - idea of changing their electoral systems. Thus, Background: The Democratic Ontario’s referendum fits into the broader trend of Deficit reconsidering how Canadians elect their representa- tives. Second, the referendum received limited atten- efore delving into an analysis of the 2007 tion in Ontario, being almost an afterthought in the Ontario referendum, it is useful to consider the 2007 campaign. Elections Ontario, which conducted history of the issue of electoral reform in Canada the information campaign, was soundly criticized for B and in the provinces. Electoral reform is often raised as a failing to do more to educate Ontarians about the policy response to declining citizen engagement. Since choice they were asked to make. Given this, the ques- the mid-1980s, observers of Canada’s political system tion of how Ontarians voted in the referendum, and have become increasingly concerned by what they see as why, is particularly interesting to investigate. a growing democratic deficit in the country. A series of After providing detailed background about the political events since the mid-1980s helped to reinforce issue of electoral reform and the responses of the fed- voters’ skepticism about the political class and political eral and provincial governments, this paper focuses institutions in the country: the controversy surrounding on understanding voting in the Ontario referendum the binge of patronage appointments in the last days of through three lenses. First, we delve into the attitudes O Pierre Trudeau’s regime in 1984, the free trade election O n n t that Ontarians hold about elections, voting, fairness t a of 1988, the rancorous debate over the implementation a r r i and proportionality. Using this information, we seek i o of the goods and services tax, the failure of the Meech o ’ ’ s s

to understand whether concerns about the quality of R Lake Accord, the referendum on the Charlottetown R e e f democracy, the reason for which the process was f e Accord, the 1993 electoral earthquake that reduced the e r r e originally initiated by McGuinty, were salient factors e n sitting federal government to a legislative rump of two n d d u in voting for or against the MMP electoral system u m MPs and the narrow victory of the federalist forces in m proposed by the citizens’ assembly as the alternative o o n the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty. Each of n to the current first past the post (FPTP) system. P P r these events reignited debate over the effectiveness and r o o p Second, we consider whether the political parties and p o legitimacy of the country’s political institutions. o r r t their interests played a role in people’s attitudes and t i There are several ways that the democratic deficit is i o o n how they voted in the referendum. Specifically, we n a evident in modern Canadian society. Declining voter a l l are interested in understanding whether supporters of R turnout, declining levels of public trust and confidence in R e e p the larger parties (the Ontario Liberals and p r r e political institutions, and the increasing disengagement of e s Progressive Conservatives) viewed the issue different- s e e n young citizens from the political process are among the n t ly than smaller party (New Democratic Party and t a a t most important symptoms, both in Canada and in other t i i o Green) supporters, given the strategic considerations o n liberal democracies (Johnston, Krahn and Harrison 2006, n : : of their respective parties. One of the considerations W 166; Milner 2005; Tanguay 2004, 267-71; see also Howe, W h that had some public salience about the proposed h y y

Johnston and Blais 2005). Each will be discussed briefly C C i MMP system was that it would produce coalition or i t in turn. Figure 1 displays data for turnout in federal elec- t i i z minority governments. The potential decline in power z e e n tions in Canada from 1945 to 2008, expressed as a per- n s that this represented for the Liberals and Progressive s

S centage of registered voters. Throughout most of the S a Conservatives (PCs) may have influenced how their a i i d postwar period, voter turnout averaged in the middle-to- d

N supporters viewed changing the electoral system. On N o high 70 percent range. After 1988, however, turnout o , , the other hand, all of the parties avoided making the b declined in each successive election, from 70 percent in b y y referendum a major issue in the campaign, and so L L a 1993, to 67 percent in 1997, to 61 percent in 2000 a u whether New Democratic Party (NDP) and Green u r r a (International IDEA 2003; Centre for Research and a

Party supporters understood the potential benefits for B B . Information on Canada 2003). Turnout increased modest- .

S their parties in terms of legislative power is unclear. S t ly in 2006, to almost 65 percent of registered voters, but t e e p Finally, we assess whether Ontarians were informed p h fell in the most recent election (2008) to an all-time low h e e n about the referendum and the MMP system. How did n s of 59 percent. Data gathered by the Centre for Research s o o n information, or lack thereof, contribute to referendum n

and Information on Canada indicate that declines in a a n voting choice? The answers to these questions are n d voter turnout have occurred in most provincial elections d

B investigated using data gathered in a postelection B r since 1980 as well, with Prince Edward Island being the r i 1 i a telephone survey of one thousand Ontarians. a n only notable exception to this trend (2003). n

T T a a n n g g u u a 3 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 29, 54percent ofthose30-37,66percent of those each successiveagecohort: 38 percentofthose25- 24, botheredtovote.V ages of18and20,28percent ofthoseaged21 to their elders.Only22percent ofvotersbetweenthe 2000 federalelection,were far lesslikely tovotethan who were25yearsoldoryoungeratthetimeof ers demonstratedthatCanadiansbornafter1975, (2003-04, 16).Pammett andLeDuc’sstudyofnonvot- fallen like astoneamongCanadiansbornafter 1970” not declinedintheelectorateasawholebutithas particular cal processingeneral,andfromtheactofvoting the disengagementofyoungcitizensfrompoliti (2003, 7). able, lackcredibility, arenottruetotheirword,etc.” that politiciansareuntrustworthy, selfish,unaccount- LeDuc remarkthatthere“isawidespreadperception where intheindustrializeddemocracies.Pammett and for voterdiscontentinCanada,astheyhaveelse- the country. Politicians havebecomealightningrod principal factorunderlyingdecliningvoterturnoutin ance of...politiciansandpoliticalinstitutions”asthe — cite“negativepublicattitudestowardtheperform- whelming majorityofCanadians—almost7 P cians andgovernment.Intheirstudyofnonvoters, in turnout,isthepervasivepublicmistrustofpoliti- democratic malaiseinCanada,relatedtothedecline F ( V F ( V Source: ElectionsCanada(http://www.elections.ca/intr). ammett andLeDuc(2003,7)notethatanover P P i i o o g g e e The thirdsymptomofthedemocraticmalaiseis Another symptomofthedemocraticdeficitor t t u u r r e e r r c c e e r r e e

1 1 n T n T ' 4 u u 5 t t 5 6 6 ' ) ) 7 8 7 8 r r 49 . AsThomasAxworthyputit,“Turnouthas 5 0 0 5 5 0 5 n n ' 53 o o u u ' 57 t t '

58 i i n n ' 62

F F '63 e e ' 65 d d e e '68 oter turnoutincreasedwith r r a a ' 72 l l

'74 E E l l ' 79 e e c c '80 t t i i ' 84 o o n n '8 s s ' , , 93

1 1 '97 9 9 '0 4 4 '04 5 5 - - '06 2 2 0 percent ' 0 0 08 0 0 8 8 - - portional ormixed compensatory” (2003,1). higher incountrieswherethe electoralsystemispro Dobrzynska contendthatturnout is“5to6points (International IDEAn.d.).Blais,Massicotteand opposed to68percentinstraightPRsystems tems (PRplusplurality),is59to60percent,as tems (like FPTP),aswellinmixed orhybridsys- turnout: averageturnoutinplurality-majoritysys- electoral systemsdohaveamodestimpactonvoter polls, sincetheirvotesare,inessence,wasted. the GreenParty havelittleincentivetogothe supporters ofnewer tend thatundertheexistingFPTPsystem, cal system.Advocates ofPRelectoralsystemscon- greater mobilizationofyoungcitizensinthepoliti- to itsadvocates,areincreasedvoterturnoutand or mix benefitsofaproportionalrepresentation(PR) sible inclusive, responsiveandeffective.Amongthepos ing ourdemocraticinstitutionsadequately toral systemasanessentialfirststeptowardmak- championed theneedforamoreproportionalelec- nouvelle (MDN),amongmanyothers,actively Voice andtheMouvementpourunedémocratie system. DemocracyWatch, FairVote Canada, Equal cratic deficitandrevitalizetheCanadianpolitical reforms thattheyfeltwouldhelpaddressthedemo- ous groupsadvocatedahostofinstitutional T in Canada Addressing theDemocraticDeficit et al.2002,57,61). than a“turnedoff”one(2003,11; comparewithBlais of Gidengiletal.,a“tunedout”generationrather than anypreviousgeneration.Theyare,inthewords m slightly lessso(Blaisetal.2002,54)—buttheyare t voters arenotnecessarilymorecynicalaboutpolitics lot in2000(Pammett andLeDuc2003,20).Young 58-67 and83percentofvoters68oroldercastabal- 3 that amoreproportional systemofvoting couldhave han theiroldercounterparts—infacttheyare 8-47, 76percentofthose48-57,80 arkedly lessinterestedinorinformedaboutpolitics A Advocates ofelectoralreforminCanadaalso argue ccording todatacompiledbyInternationalIDEA, decline inthequalityofitsdemocracy, vari- dence thatCanadawassufferingfroma hroughout the1990s,inresponsetoevi- ed proportionalelectoralsystem,according 4 , nontraditionalpartiessuchas 2 - - a beneficial effect on youth participation in politics. systems and recommended a smaller number (three or As the Law Commission of Canada stated in its report four options) for consideration in public hearings.7 In on electoral reform in Canada, “Changing the elec- May and June 2004, public hearings were held in vari- toral system to encourage a broader diversity of voic- ous parts of the province, and in November 2004 the es [in Parliament] could be an important way of assembly made its final recommendation: that the giving youth issues a greater presence in democratic province adopt a version of single transferable vote governance” (2004, 42). One of the rationales for this (named BC-STV), a system similar to the one used in assertion was the belief that young voters are dispro- Ireland and Malta.8 This option was put to a province- portionately attracted to newer parties — like the wide referendum held concurrently with the provincial Greens — that are systematically disadvantaged by election in May 2005. In order for the referendum to the current FPTP electoral system. pass, a supermajority was required: 60 percent of voters had to approve, and at least 50 percent of voters in 60 percent of the province’s ridings had to vote yes. Experience with Federal and Although the referendum easily met the second thresh- Provincial Electoral Reform old, it barely missed the first (only 57.7 percent of vot- ers cast supportive ballots). After being re-elected with O O n n t much less than 50 percent of the votes, the Liberal gov- t a esponding to the discussion about the role a r r i ernment acknowledged that the close result on electoral i o that the electoral system played in the demo- o ’ ’ s s

reform warranted holding another referendum in R cratic deficit, government interest in electoral R e R e f November 2008, with an identical requirement for a f e reform manifested itself at both the federal and e r 9 r e supermajority. The government later changed the ref- e n provincial levels in Canada in the early part of the n d d u 3 erendum date to May 2009, to coincide with the next u m twenty-first century. Federally, the Law Commission m

provincial election. The BC government committed o of Canada, an independent federal agency that o n n

itself to providing more public information about the P advised Parliament on how to improve and modern- P r r o o p ize Canada’s laws,4 submitted a report to the Minister reform proposal in the second referendum (including a p o o r r t map of the potential STV electoral districts), as well as t i of Justice in early 2004 urging the adoption of a i o o n allocating funds to registered proponent and opponent n a mixed member proportional electoral system in the a l l

groups, to ensure that voters would have access to R country, similar to the one in use for the Scottish and R e e p 5 more information than they did during the first refer- p r Welsh Parliaments. Although the executive director r e e s endum (British Columbia, Elections BC 2009). The out- s e of Fair Vote Canada felt that the report “create[d] e n n t come of the election, on May 12, 2009, was a much t a waves in Ottawa political circles and [drew] increas- a t t i i o more decisive rejection of electoral change: only 39.08 o n ing media attention to the issue” of electoral reform n : :

percent voted in favour of STV, with a majority sup- W (Gordon 2004, 296), it failed to secure a sympathetic W h porting the electoral change in only seven ridings, far h y hearing from the Liberal government. y

C C i below the required threshold. i t At virtually the same time that the Law t i i z Quebec also experimented with electoral reform, z e Commission of Canada was conducting its public e n n s although to a lesser extent. In March 2003, the Estates s consultations on democratic reform, a number of S S a General on the Reform of Democratic Institutions (bet- a i i d provincial governments also began to investigate d

N ways of improving the responsiveness of representa- ter known as the Béland Commission, after its presi- N o o , ,

dent) made a number of far-reaching recommendations b tive institutions in their jurisdictions. British b y y

to improve democratic performance in the province, L Columbia travelled farthest down the road toward L a a u among them the adoption of a new electoral system u r meaningful reform of the existing electoral system. r a a

based on regional proportional representation, fixed B The Liberal government of Gordon Campbell created B . .

S dates for elections, a law permitting citizen initiatives S t a citizens’ assembly in 2003, composed of equal t e e p and direct election of the head of government. In p h numbers of men and women on the provincial voters h e e n December 2004, the Minister Responsible for the n s list, to review the existing electoral system and make s o o n recommendations for reform, if it believed this to be Reform of Democratic Institutions, Jacques Dupuis, n

a a n 6 introduced a draft law in the National Assembly outlin- n d necessary. The assembly gathered information on the d

B ing a proposed mixed member proportional electoral B r various electoral systems in use throughout the r i 10 i a system for the province. Under the proposed system, a n world, heard presentations about various electoral n

T the number of seats in the National Assembly would be T a a n n g g u u a 5 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 an eight-membercitizens’assembly investigation. Thecommittee’sworkwasassistedby of theNationalAssemblyinJune2005fordetailed three-party systemintheprovince. complained thatitwouldtendtofreezetheexisting basis ofthesingleballot.Thuscriticsproposal the compensatoryseatswouldbedistributedon ing supportrequiredtoearnaseatwouldbehighand parties seekingentryintothelegislature,asvot- MNAs —wouldposearatherlargehurdletonewer constituencies alongwithtwocompensatorylist five seatsintotal,threeofwhichweretoberegular tion, thesmallsizeofelectoraldistricts—usually and thepartythattheywishedtosupport.Inaddi- make separatedecisionsaboutthelocalcandidate larger parties,asitwouldnotallowindividualsto systems. Suchafeaturewasexpectedtoprivilege party list—thatareemployedinmostotherMMP ballots —onefortheconstituency, theotherfora both cies bymeans oftheexistingsimple-plurality elec provincial assembly wouldbeelectedinconstituen- tem, inwhichtwo-thirds(21) ofthe members ofthe the adoptionofaGerman-style MMPelectoralsys report inDecember2003.Carruthers recommended under NormanCarruthers,which issueditsfinal set upaone-mancommissiononelectoralreform The governmentofP of electoralreforminthefirstyearsthisdecade. initiated substantivediscussionsaboutthedesirability (Cliche 2007). an enthusiasticproponentofgreaterproportionality three partiesrepresentedintheNationalAssemblyis reform inQuebechasbeenlimbo;noneofthe 26, 2007. Sincethattime,theissueofelectoral introduced beforetheprovincialelectionofMarch tion toreformtheprovince’svotingsystemwasnot draft billlanguishedincommittee,andactuallegisla stituency memberandanotherforapartylist. allowed voterstocasttwoballots,oneforacon- offered itsownalternative,whichwouldhave rejected thegovernmentproposalandinApril2006 p vote. Byfarthemostcontroversialfeatureofpro- t be selectedfrompartylistsin24to27electoraldis- plurality voting,whiletheremaining50MNAswould elected inconstituenciesbysingle-membersimple- i ncreased from125to127,and77MNAswouldbe ricts accordingtoeachparty’sshareoftheprovincial osal wastheprovisionforasingleballottoelect The draftbillwassubmittedtoaselectcommittee In additiontoBCandQuebec,twootherprovinces riding MNAsandlistMNAs,insteadofthetwo 12 at BinnsinPrinceEdwardIsland , whicheventually 11 The - - - mak Democracy, whosemandatewasto“examine and in December2003theCommissiononLegislative fulfilled oneofhiselectionpromisesbyestablishing Robertson 2007, 9). province renownedforhighturnout(Barnesand PEI resultedin...relativelylowvoterturnout”ina public educationandalackoffundingforElections cates ofMMPcanplausiblyarguethat“a lackof word onelectoralreformintheprovince,sinceadvo- ingly decisiveresultmightnotrepresentthefinal system. Someobservershavenotedthatthisseem- who castballots crushing majorityofvoters—63percentthose campaign ontheissue.OnNovember28,2005,a electoral reformandtoconductapubliceducation m Electoral FuturewascreatedinFebruary2005,witha f Commissioner ofElectoralReform2003,ch.9).The the provincialvote(PrinceEdwardIsland, be drawnfrompartylists,basedonsharesof t Democracy report onJune28,200 response tothe CommissiononLegislative FPTP system.TheLiberalgovernment issueditsown by underscoringoneofthe distorting effectsofan Progressive Conservativesin thepopularvote,there- the election,butironicallycame insecondbehindthe Liberal Party wonanarrowmajorityofthreeseatsin was calledforSeptember18,2006.ShawnGraham’s majority inthelegislatureevaporated,anelection May 12,2008,butwhenLord’srazor-thin(oneseat) mission reportbypledgingtoholdareferendumon 2004, 17-18).Thegovernmentrespondedtothecom- Brunswick, CommissiononLegislativeDemocracy the sametimeasnextprovincialelection(New referendum ontheproposalbeheldnolaterthanat provincial vote. mately equalsize,basedoneachparty’sshareofthe closed partylistsinfourregionaldistrictsofapproxi- a simplepluralityand20wouldbeselectedfrom would beelectedinsingle-memberconstituenciesby toral systeminwhich36membersofthelegislature sion proposedthecreationofaregional,MMPelec report, submittedonDecember3 Brunswick fair cratic institutionsandpracticestomake themmore ernizing NewBrunswick’selectoralsystemanddemo oral system,andtheremainingone-third(10) would ive-person CommissiononPrinceEdwardIsland’s andate tocraftaconciseplebiscitequestionon Finally, inNewBrunswick,PremierBernardLord , open,accountableandaccessibletoNew e recommendationsonstrengtheningandmod ers” (NewBrunswick2003).Initsfinal 6 14 13 It alsorecommendedthatabinding — optedtoretaintheexistingFPTP 1, 2004,thecommis- 7, inwhichit - - - pledged, among other things, to implement fixed decade of the 1990s. If any era in Ontario’s political his- election dates; allow for the use of more advance tory ought to have exposed the flaws in the existing polls, online registration and other measures to FPTP electoral system, this was it. First, the New increase voter turnout; and establish a compulsory Democratic Party government of Bob Rae was elected in civics program for New Brunswick youth. On the sub- 1990 thanks to the electoral magic of FPTP, which ject of electoral reform, the government promised transformed just under 38 percent of the popular vote only to conduct a “thorough review” of existing ini- into a solid legislative majority. Second, Mike Harris tiatives in other provinces with a view to improving and the Progressive Conservatives inaugurated the the functioning of New Brunswick’s system of voting, “Common Sense Revolution” in 1995 — which aimed to explicitly rejecting the recommendation to hold a ref- demolish much of the legislative and policy legacies of erendum on proportional representation (New the NDP, who had preceded them in power — thanks to Brunswick, Executive Council Office 2007). an overwhelming majority built on slightly less than 45 In each of the provincial cases discussed above, the percent of the popular vote. This kind of “policy lurch” defects in the FPTP system were readily apparent to is often singled out as one of the chief drawbacks of a pundits, voters and political activists alike. Elections majoritarian electoral system like FPTP.15 Third, voter in both Quebec and British Columbia during the 1990s turnout in Ontario, never very high — it averaged in the O O n n t had produced “wrong winners”: the party that came in mid-60-percent range between 1948 and 1987 — t a a r r i second in the popular vote actually won a majority of declined steadily after 1990, to 58 percent in 1999, at i o o ’ ’ s s

seats in the legislature. In New Brunswick and Prince the time a postwar low (see figure 2). R R e e f Edward Island, the opposition was at times so heavily Despite these symptoms of an electoral system under f e e r r e penalized by the operation of FPTP that it was effec- stress, proposals for reform garnered little attention or e n n d d u tively “eviscerated” and could not play its proper role support among either party elites or the electorate u m m in the political system (Carty 2006, 22). There are before 2000. As Dennis Pilon notes, “Until recently, o o n n compelling reasons to believe that these flaws in the none of the three main legislative parties...expressed P P r r o o p FPTP system contributed to voter angst and dissatis- much interest in the topic [of PR], dismissing it as the p o o r r t faction in each of these provinces. In the New Zealand concern of ‘losers’ and ‘cranks’ or simply ignoring it t i i o o n case, when the country voted in a referendum on altogether” (2004, 250). This was as true of the NDP as n a a l l whether to change to an MMP system from FPTP, it it was of the two mainstream parties (the Liberals and R R e e p was found that perceptions of electoral fairness, low PCs). Indeed, Bob Rae’s government did absolutely p r r e e s political efficacy and populist preferences all con- nothing to advance the discussion of electoral reform s e e n n t tributed to support for the change (Banducci and Karp while it was in power. It was only after its stinging t a a t t i i o 1999; Lamare and Vowles 1996). In the next section o n n : : of the paper, we detail the events leading up to the W Figure 2 W h electoral system referendum in Ontario. As will be Voter Turnout in Ontario Provincial Elections, h y y

C 1945-2007 (Percent) C i shown, the incentive to pursue electoral reform was i t t i i z much less prominent in that province. 80 z e e n n s s

S 75 S a a i i d d

N Democratic Renewal and Electoral N o 70 o , ,

b Reform in Ontario b y y

L L a 65 a u u r n the face of it, Ontario seems to be an r a a

B unlikely candidate for a government-spon- 60 B . .

S S t sored electoral reform initiative. In the past, t e e p O p 55 h the province’s voters earned a reputation for spurning h e e n n s ideological extremes, for embracing the cautious prag- s o o n matism of leaders such as Bill Davis and for being sat- 50 n

a a n n d isfied with, even complacent about, the political status d

B 45 B r quo. These are caricatures, of course, and they were r i '45 '48 '5 1 '55 '59 '63 '67 '7 1 '75 '77 '8 1 '85 '87 '90 '95 '99 '03 '0 7 i a a n put to the test during the contentious and animated n

Source: Elections Ontario (http://www.elections.on.ca) T T a a n n g g u u a 7 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 system andrecommend possiblechanges to it.Inthe assembly toexamine theprovince’sFPTP electoral when itannounceditsintention tocreateacitizens’ examine theelectoralsystem inNovember2004, leadership candidates. “real-time disclosure”ofdonationstopartiesand interest group)electionadvertisingandintroduced the governmentmovedtoregulatethird-party(or including partylabelsforthefirsttime.Inaddition, from 6to13andmodernizingtheballotpaperby by increasingthenumberofadvancepollingdays introduced changestomake votingmoreconvenient, the Premier2004a).TheLiberalgovernmentalso ing field”forallpoliticalparties(Ontario,Officeof by thegoverningpartyandtherefore“levelplay- to removethestrategicadvantagepreviouslyenjoyed October, everyfouryears,startingin2007 —inorder dates forprovincialelections—thefirstThursdayin Democratic Renewalwastheestablishmentoffixed tives undertaken bytheMinisterResponsiblefor 2003 tofulfillitscampaignpledge.Amongtheinitia lished theDemocraticRenewalSecretariatinOctober favourable toPR(Pilon2004,254). for democraticrenewal,MichaelBryant,appeared the futureattorneygeneralandministerresponsible tarian electoralsystems,evenifk agnostic onthemeritsofproportionalversusmajori- The LiberalParty ofOntariowasitselfofficially the partytoapublicdiscussionofthesealternatives. ous electoralsystemsonoffer;itsimplycommitted tion, studiouslyavoidedanyevaluationofthevari- electoral programduringthe2003provincialelec- Charter, whichformedanessentialpartoftheparty’s It isimportanttonotethattheLiberals’Democratic referendum onreplacingitwithanalternativemodel. es ofOntario’svotingsystem,andpossiblytoholda ter apublicdebateaboutthestrengthsandweakness- “Democratic Charter,” whichincludedapledgetofos- This ledtotheadoptioninNovember2001 ofthe of invigoratingthepoliticalsysteminprovince. 2000, atwhichthediscussionrevolvedaroundways century. The partyheldapolicyconventioninMay i e cial partytaskforceendorsedGerman-styleMMPin a moresystematicinterestinelectoralreform.Aspe- Mike Harris’sPCsthattheOntarioNDPbegantotake d dea ofelectoralreformattheturntwenty-first arly 2002(Pilon2004,253). efeat inthe1995provincialelectionathandsof The McGuintygovernmentcarried outitsplanto Once elected,theMcGuintygovernmentestab Dalton McGuinty’sLiberalParty alsoembracedthe 16 ey individualslik - e - Reform 2006,2).Finally the province(Ontario,Citizens’AssemblyonElectoral sions fromcitizensandholdingmeetingsthroughout tations onelectoralreform,solicitingwrittensubmis 2007, thecitizens’assemblyengagedinpublicconsul- (Rose 200 encourage assemblymembersto“learnbydoing” lations wereusedthroughouttheprocessinorderto plexities ofthevarioussystems,andaseriessimu- Academic expertswerebroughtintodiscussthecom- various electoralsystemsinusearoundtheworld. six weekends inthefallof2006learningabout membership oftheassemblyto104. Thegroupspent were male.Theappointedchairbroughtthetotal constituencies; 52ofthememberswerefemale,51 selected individuals, Reform 2007a, 201-6; Rose2007, 9). assembly (Ontario,Citizens’AssemblyonElectoral ernments, wasappointedchairoftheOntariocitizens’ deputy ministerinboththeOntarioandfederalgov- George Thomson,aformerprovincialcourtjudgeand Electoral Reform2007a, 198).OnMarch27,2006, D Michael Bryant,theMinisterResponsiblefor c This wasthekeystone ofthe“mostambitiousdemo- hold areferendumontheissueduringitsmandate. native electoralsystem,thegovernmentpledgedto e 2007a, 125,128). FPTP (Ontario,Citizens’Assembly onElectoralReform bers votedinfavourofMMP its existingelectoralsystem or adoptMMP;86mem- nated inavoteonwhetherthe provinceshouldretain opposed to25forSTV. Thedeliberationphaseculmi- MMP members, resultinginafairlydecisivevictoryfor best alternativesystemwasheldamongtheassembly Electoral Reform2007b). Eventually, avoteonthe graphic representation(Ontario,Citizens’Assemblyon fair reflectionofthevote;andprovidingstronggeo- election results,intermsofseatsawarded,wouldbea for bothacandidateandparty;ensuringthatthe should meet:allowingvoterstoexpresspreferences fied threeobjectivesthattheOntarioelectoralsystem two alternatives,STVandMMP. Theassemblyidenti- weaknesses oftheexistingFPTPsystemandthose which membersdebatedtherelativestrengthsand the assemblyentereditsdeliberationphase,during ratic renewaleffortinNorthAmerica,”accordingto vent thattheassemblyweretorecommendanalter- emocratic Renewal(Ontario,Citizens’Assemblyon The citizens’assemblyconsistedof103 randomly , whichreceivedsupportfrom75members,as 7, 11). FromlateOctober2006toJanuary 8 17 one fromeachoftheprovincial , startinginFebruary200 , while16supported 7, - The mixed member proportional system advocated Some groups, like Fair Vote Canada (FVC), were by the citizens’ assembly in Ontario included the fol- caught by surprise by the question wording; they had lowing features (Ontario, Citizens’ Assembly on been expecting a straightforward yes or no option for Electoral Reform 2007b): voters. Many in FVC felt, rightly or wrongly, that the • Voters would have two votes, one for a candidate cumbersome wording of the referendum question made in a riding and a second for a party. their task all the more difficult.19 Electoral reform • The provincial legislature would be increased in activists were also disappointed at the lack of publicity size, from 103 members to 129. for the work of the citizens’ assembly. In fact, one of • Ninety of the seats in the legislature would be the principal differences between the electoral reform determined by simple-plurality voting in single- referendums held in BC and Ontario was that the BC member constituencies, as is currently the case. government mailed out copies of its citizens’ assembly • The remaining 39 members (just over 30 percent of report to all households in the province, whereas in the total) would be elected on the basis of the Ontario, individual citizens had to take it upon them- province-wide party vote. selves to contact the government and request a copy of • A party’s share of the seats in the legislature the citizens’ assembly report. would be determined by its share of the vote on The budget for public education during the referen- O O n n t the province-wide party portion of the ballot. The dum campaign was set at $6.8 million (Chung 2007), t a a r 18 r i Hare quota, a largest-remainder system, would be part of which was devoted to setting up a Web site — i o o ’ ’ s s

used as the basis for the calculation. called yourbigdecision.ca — to inform voters. No formal R R e e f • The list seats would be compensatory, such that any yes and no committees were created under Ontario’s f e e r r e party’s share of the seats in the legislature would be referendum legislation, but a number of organizations e n n d d u roughly equivalent to its share of the province-wide injected themselves into the campaign. A group called u m m

vote on the second portion of the ballot. Vote for MMP was the most important organization o o n n

• Any party obtaining at least 3 percent of the lobbying for electoral reform. Instigated by Fair Vote P P r r o 20 o p provincial vote would be eligible for list seats. Ontario (FVO), and drawing its leadership largely from p o o r r t • Party lists would be closed, and prior to the elec- FVO, the Vote for MMP campaign brought together t i i o o n tion, parties would have to publish their lists individual volunteers from across the province and n a a l l

(through Elections Ontario) and the process they worked closely with other organizations — certain trade R R e e p used to create them. This would allow voters “to unions like the Canadian Union of Public Employees, p r r e e s see whether parties created their lists in a fair and student groups and other civil society groups — that s e e n n t transparent way” (Ontario, Citizens’ Assembly on supported reform. Vote for MMP raised slightly more t a a t t i i o Electoral Reform 2007b, 8). than $500,000 for advertising and nonadvertising o n n : 21 : • There would be no prohibition on dual candidacy — expenses. Activists in the various FVC chapters W W h that is, a candidate could appear on a party list and worked with other volunteers to form local Vote for h y y

C C i run for election in a constituency (Ontario, Citizens’ MMP organizing committees, which in turn conducted i t t i i z Assembly on Electoral Reform 2007b, 153). literature drops in selected ridings and set up booths at z e e n n s On June 20, 2007, the Democratic Renewal community events in order to raise voter awareness of s

S S a Secretariat announced the wording of the referendum the referendum. There was something of a disconnect, a i i d d

N question that would be put to the voters in a separate however, between the central campaign run out of N o o , , ballot to be held concurrently with the provincial Toronto and the various regional efforts, and the feel- b b y y election in October: ing among many activists in the wake of the referen- L L a a u — Which electoral system should Ontario use to dum defeat was that more effective coordination would u r r a elect members to the provincial legisla- 22 a have likely yielded a more positive result. B B . ture?/Quel système électoral l’Ontario .

S devrait-il utiliser pour élire les députés As for the anti-MMP forces, they had fewer financial S t t e provinciaux à l’Assemblée législative? e p and membership resources to draw on than the pro- p h h e — The existing electoral system (First-Past-the- e n MMP groups. No MMP, a group chaired by Michael n s Post)/L’actuel système électoral (système de s o o n la majorité relative) Ufford, a retired city planner in Toronto and Liberal n

a a n — The alternative electoral system proposed by riding association member (Jalsevac 2007), was estab- n d d

B the Citizens’ Assembly (Mixed Member lished to spearhead opposition to the reform proposal. B r r i Proportional)/L’autre système électoral proposé i a The group’s Web site bore the masthead “No to Party a n par l’Assemblée des citoyens (système de n

T représentation proportionnelle mixte). (Ontario, lists. No to Party deals. No to MMP.” It raised concerns T a a n Democratic Renewal Secretariat 2007) n g g u u a 9 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 (55.1 percent)andTrinity-Spadina(59.2percent). Parkdale-High Park (54.5percent),Toronto Danforth East Y ings intheprovince,allofthemT MMP gainedmajoritysupportinonly5ofthe107 rid- electoral system,andonly36.9percentoptedforMMP. million voterswhocastballotssupportedtheexisting of 107). OnOctober10, 2007, 63.1percentofthe4.3 majority ofvotesin60percenttheridings(64out least 60percentofthevoteprovince-wideanda result wouldbebindingiftheMMPoptionreceivedat month ago”(Jalsevac2007). it’s mymoney...We juststartedorganizingabouta “We’ve only spent$500sofaronprintmaterialand effective campaign,statinginSeptember2007, plained ofinadequatefinancialresourcestorunan against MMPinthereferendum.Uffordhimselfcom- Timbrell, amongothers—whowereintendingtovote Sheila Copps,JohnTory, GregSorbaraandDennis a seats thatwereawarded).TheWeb sitealsocontained p the factthatlistswouldbeclosed(thatis, equal distributionofseatsacrosstheprovince)and province-wide composition(whichwouldnotensure a tions comefrom atelephonesurveyofone thousand outcome. Thedataweuseto investigatetheseques about theproposedelectoral systemplayedinthe reform. Finally, weconsidertherole that information partisan influencesonvoting fororagainstthe its influenceonthereferendumvote.Next,welookat of publicsupportfordemocraticrenewalandanalyze electoral reformchange.First,weconsiderthedegree ate threeaspectsofcitizensupportfortheproposed the electoralreformproposal.Specifically, weevalu- sons thatmightexplainthelowlevelofsupportfor the province?Inthissection,weconsiderseveralrea- port forelectoralreformanddemocraticrenewalin Ontario. Was theresultaclearindicationofsup- insight intothestateofelectoralreformprojectin factors thatshapedvoters’decisionscanprovide T Analysis: TheVoting Decision bout thepartylists,particularlyabouttheir listof“prominentOntarians”—DavidPeterson, arties woulddecidewhichpoliticianstoappoint The referendumlegislationdeterminedthatthe British Columbiain2005.Understandingthe close outcome,unlike theonethatoccurredin he referendumresultinOntariowasfarfroma ork (50.1percent),Davenport(56.7 oronto: Beaches- - for governmentdidnotspecifythe reason forthiscouldbethatthequestionsaboutsupport general dissatisfactionwithdemocracy. Onepossible ernment didexist,butthatithadnottranslatedinto Thus, thedataindicatethatsomecynicismtowardgov satisfied withthewaydemocracyworksinOntario. results alsoindicatethat74percentofrespondentswere electorate (74percent).Incontrasttothis,however, the cent) andthatelectedofficialssoonlosetouchwiththe the governmentdoesnotcarewhattheythink(59per- percent). Amajorityofrespondentsalsothoughtthat by afewbiginterestslookingoutforthemselves(53 payer money(93percent)andthatgovernmentisrun government (67percent),thatwastestax Ontarians surveyedrespondedthattheydonottrust fuse andspecific.Asshownintable1,amajorityof ment orbeliefintheirownpoliticalefficacy to evaluaterespondents’levelsofsupportforgovern- ed totheirgovernment.We looked atquestionsdesigned considered whetherOntariansexpressedcynicismrelat- government andareinfavourofdemocraticreforms. is whetherOntariansreallyholdcynicalviewsof obvious initialquestiontoinvestigatewithourdata ale forinitiatingtheelectoralreformprocess,an cynicism oftheOntarioelectorate.Giventhisration and newelectionfinancinglaws,wastheperceived bly, aswell asthemovetowardfixed electiondates cratic renewalinitiativesin2004,henoted, W between October11 and28,2007. O cynical aboutpolitical institutions. vide onlyweaksupportforthe claimthatOntariansare government specifically (or thefederalgovernment),but notabouttheOntario efficacy andareapatheticabout governmentingeneral did; perhapsOntariansbelieve theyhavelowpolitical while thequestionaboutsatisfactionwithdemocracy P u ntarians collectedimmediatelyafterthereferendum, hen DaltonMcGuintydiscussedplansfordemo- Using thedatafromourOctober2007 survey, wefirst Thus, partoftheimpetusforcitizens’assem- b selves. (Ontario,OfficeofthePremier2004b) tions fortheirgovernmentandthem- means thatourcitizenshavehighexpecta- So Idon’tmindalittleskepticism. To me,it ceed, tobetheplacebe,foryearscome. work. We wantourprovincetowork,suc- we areidealists.We wantgovernmentto ist. Ibelievethat.thatatourcore every cynicisatheartadisappointedideal- I’m remindedoftheoldexpressionthat c I’ve hearditsaidthatsomeOntariansare l i ynical aboutourpoliticalinstitutions.But c

s u p p o 10 r t

f o r

d . Nonetheless,theseresultspro e m o c r a t i c Ontario

r e f o r m government, , bothdif- - - - - Table 1 Table 2 Attitudes Reflecting Cynicism Attitudes about Fairness and Proportionality

% agree % agree

Government doesn’t care much what people like If party wins 40% of vote, should get about 40% me think 59.47 of seats 50.29 Those elected to Parliament soon lose touch with It is unacceptable that a party can win a majority the people 73.74 of seats without winning a majority of votes 43.46 Do not trust government to do what is right ever It is acceptable that a party can win a majority or only some of the time 67.28 of seats without winning a majority of votes 29.42 Government wastes a lot or some of the money Do not have an opinion about whether it is we pay in taxes 92.61 acceptable or unacceptable that a party can win Quite a few of the people running the government a majority of seats without winning a majority are a little crooked 28.95 of votes 26.65 Government is run by a few big interests looking Better to have a majority government 43.89 out for themselves 53.70 Better to have a minority government 30.50 Satisfied with the way democracy works in Ontario 74.04 No difference between majority and minority governments 23.06 Source: The data for the tables come from a telephone survey of 1,000 Ontarians designed by the authors together with Éric Bélanger, Jean Crête and Source: See table 1. O Richard Nadeau. It was conducted by Léger Marketing immediately after the O n referendum on the Ontario electoral system, between October 11 and 28, 2007. n t t a or proportionality of their electoral system: a bare a r r i i o majority indicated that the percentage of seats won o ’ ’ s Another way of evaluating preferences for demo- s

R should correspond to the percentage of the popular R e cratic reform is to consider attitudes about the fair- e f f e vote; less than a majority felt FPTP outcomes were e r ness and proportionality of the Ontario electoral r e e n unacceptable; more respondents preferred majority n d system. Strong opinions about fairness in the elec- d u u m toral system, and the need for proportionality in governments than preferred minority governments. m

o o n Thus, it appears that Ontarians are slightly cynical and n

terms of seats and votes, should increase support for P P r yet relatively satisfied voters. r o changing to a mixed member proportional electoral o p p o The simple frequencies and relationships reported o r system, as MMP is designed to improve upon FPTP r t t i above may not provide a clear picture of the support i o specifically in these areas. We asked several questions o n n a for electoral reform in Ontario. How does one’s cyni- a l on this topic in the survey (see table 2). First, we l

R cism toward the government affect one’s view of the R e asked a simple question about what percentage of e p p r electoral system? To investigate this, we ran simple r e e s seats a party should get if it wins 40 percent of the s e e n logit regressions to analyze the relationships between n t popular vote. Just over 50 percent of Ontarians sur- t a a t the various measures of political efficacy and dissatis- t i veyed responded that the party should get about 40 i o o n faction with democracy, and preference for proportion- n : percent of the seats (the other options were between :

W ality and fairness in the electoral system. The W h 40 percent and half, and over half to facilitate gov- h y y

dependent variables were proportionality and fairness, C erning). Another question asked whether it is accept- C i i t while the political efficacy questions and dissatisfaction t i i z able for the majority of seats to go to a party that z e with democracy were used as independent variables e n does not win a majority of votes, as happens under n s s

S (see appendix for coding). Table 3 reports the results in S a the existing FPTP system. For this question, 43 per- a i 23 i d the form of odds ratios for each independent variable. d cent indicated that it is unacceptable for a party to N N o First, with respect to the proportionality dependent o , win a majority of seats without a majority of votes. ,

b variable, believing that vote and seat percentages should b y Almost 30 percent of respondents indicated that it is y

L be equal was significantly influenced by not trusting the L a acceptable, while 27 percent did not have an opinion. a u u r r a government, believing the government is run by a few a

Finally, we asked whether a majority or minority B B . big interests and being unsatisfied with democracy in . government is better, again keeping in mind that S S t Ontario (column 1). Substantively, the odds ratios indi- t e minority governments are a likely outcome of MMP e p p h cate that the odds of an individual thinking seats and h e elections. For this question, 44 percent preferred e n n s votes should be exactly proportional were about twice as s o majority government, and 31 percent preferred o n n

high if the respondent did not trust the government at all, a minority government. A full 23 percent thought there a n n d compared with somebody who did trust the government. d is no difference between the two types. The responses B B r If a respondent thought that government is run by a few r i to these questions do not provide a strong indication i a a n big interests, the effect was less but still substantial (the n that Ontarians are in favour of improving the fairness T T a a n n g g u u a 11 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 FPTP wereinfluencedbybelievingthatparliamentari tional relationshipsarealsosignificant.Attitudesabout not trustinggovernmentwasmuchhigher. Twoaddi- much thesame,althoughmagnitudeofeffect unacceptable (dependentvariableincolumn2)was these variablesonthinkingthatFPTPoutcomesare than forthosewhowerefullysatisfied.Theeffectof outcomes weremorethantwoandahalftimeshigher Ontario, theoddsofpreferringproportionalseat-vote were fullyunsatisfiedwiththewaydemocracyworksin those holdingtheoppositeview. Forrespondentswho odds wereabout39percenthigherthanthefor 0 forabstaining. Fortheindependentvariables, we variable —adichotomous coded1forvoting, of amodelwithreferendum turnout asthedependent vote inthereferendum.Intable 4,weshowtheresults desired electoralreformmay havebeenmorelikely to in thereferendum.Ourlogic isthatsomeonewho whether theseattitudesinfluencedthedecisiontovote two logitregressionmodels. ernment, fairnessandproportionality, weanalyzed understand theinfluenceofattitudestowardgov voting fortheelectoralreformreferendumin2007. To but theydonotindicatehowtheseattitudesaffected the pictureofattitudesOntarioelectorate, support forelectoralreform. political attitudesandfeelingsofefficacyarerelatedto who weresatisfied.Thus,thereissomeindicationthat were morethansixtimesashighforindividuals attitude thinkingthatFPTPoutcomesareunacceptable democracy inOntario:theoddsofthoseholdingthat largest impactagaincamefrombeingunsatisfiedwith people ingovernmentarecrook ans soonlosetouchwiththepeopleandthinkingthat naife ihtewydmcaywrsi nai .9**(.6)601* (0.176) 6.061*** (0.190) (0.215) (0.284) (0.766) (0.285) (0.367) 0.908 1.464* 1.206 2.693*** 1.505* 1.569* (0.941) (0.199) (0.200) (0.308) 3.210*** (0.241) (0.265) 1.386* 0.965 1.328 1.286 1.131 (0.564) 1.973* Unsatisfied withthewaydemocracyworksinOntario Government isrunbyafewbiginterestslookingoutforthemselves Quite afewofthepeoplerunninggovernmentarelittlecrooked Government wastesalotorsomeofthemoneywepayintaxes Do nottrustgovernmenttodowhatisrighteveroronlysomeofthetime Those electedtoParliament soonlosetouchwiththepeople Government doesn’tcarewhatpeoplelikemethink 1 S * T R T R p ource: Seetable1. a a Odds ratiosfrombivariatelogitregressionsreported(robuststandarderrorsinparentheses). e e < .10 *** The resultsshownintables1to3helpclarify b b l l l l a a e e t t

3 3 i i o o n n p s s < .001 h h i i p p s s

b b e e t t w w e e e e n n

M M e e a a 24 s s u u First, weconsidered ed. Byfar, however, the r r e e s s

o o f f

P P o o l l i i t t i i c c a a l l

E E f f f f i i c c a a - - c c y y

a a n n d d electoral system, onlyholdingapreference for support forchangingtheelectoral system. minority government,which shouldleadtoincreased about 40percentoftheseats), andapreferencefor portionality (40percentofthevoteshouldequal seats withoutmajorityofvotesunacceptable)andpro- ables toindicateattitudesaboutfairness(majorityof four-point, 0-1scale.We alsoincludeddummyvari- ry values indicatedissatisfaction(whichshould,intheo- separate independentvariable,codedsothathigher (Ontarians seemfairlysatisfied),weincludeditasa democracy didnotcorrespondtothecynicismresults ( on 0-1scalesandcreatedasingleadditivemeasure ous politicalefficacymeasuresdiscussedabovetobe ment andtheelectoralsystem.We rescaledthevari- included severalmeasuresofattitudesaboutgovern ␣

Log pseudolikelihood Pseudo ioiygvrmn etr269* 0.594 1 0.214 Note: FPTP=firstpastthepost. Source: Seetable1. 2.649*** 0.067 1.142 0.157*** N Minority governmentbetter Fairness (FPTPoutcomeunacceptable) Proportionality appropriate Dissatisfaction withdemocracy Cynicism/political efficacy *** T ( F T ( F A A L L , contributetodemandforelectoralreform)ona a a Dependent variable:referendumturnout;1=voted,0abstained. a a p 0.782). Giventhatrespondents’satisfactionwith = o o Of thevariablesaddressing attitudes aboutthe b b t t c c < .001. l l t t g g t t e e i i o o i i

t t t t 4 4 u u r r R

s s R R d d 2

e e e e T T s s h h s s I I o o g g

f f u u a a a a

f f e e l l p p t t

t t b b t t 12 v v

a a

s s I o I o o o 4 4 r r n n ) ) t t t t u u 0 0 1 1 y y e e f f % % t t

l l , ,

w w u u i i

t t t t e e o o i i h h

n n n n f f s s e e

s s h h c c s s

o o e e 4 4 E E e e u u a a 0 0 d d l l e e l l t t % % d d

s s c c R R t t e e o o f f r r e e O O a a r r l l d d e e

a a o o d d .4 0.369 0.9 0.942 S S n n

f f I I s s p p y y t t d d

a a s s

70.172 17 r a r a s s u u i i e e a a r r s s

t t t t a a m m m m t t

e e y y u u i i t t

o o m m a a s s

n n c c

T T j j a a a a w w o o 1 1 u u n n c c r r i i s s c r c r

i i t t 25 t t t t w w n n e e h h a a y y -523.59 p p o o i i o o n n

n n R R t t o o u u d d u u a a 0.0525 o o f f t t a a a a 1000 t t b b

b b r r

v v w w l l m m d d u u e e o o

1 s s i i

t t a a e e n n t t t t e e j j r r

h h n n o o s s r r a a i i o o r r - n n i i t t r r t t g g y y minority governments had a positive influence on Table 5 voting in the referendum: the odds of those with such Factors That Influenced Voting in Support of a a preference casting a ballot were almost three times MMP Electoral System (Logit Results)1 as great as for those without the preference (odds Robust ratio = 2.649). Holding opinions about the appropri- Odds ratio standard error ate proportionality of election outcomes and fairness Age 0.159*** 0.074 did not significantly influence individuals in deciding Cynicism/political efficacy 0.539 0.234 whether to go to the polls. Those who expressed cyni- Dissatisfaction with democracy 1.613 0.652 cism related to the government, who felt the most Proportionality appropriate 1.303 0.255 Fairness (FPTP outcome unacceptable) 5.785*** 1.122 inefficacious, were significantly less likely to go to Minority government better 1.594* 0.307 the polls: the odds of a cynical person casting a bal- N 743 Pseudo R2 0.1784 lot were 84 percent lower than the odds of a noncyn- Log pseudolikelihood 413.486 ical person voting (an odds ratio of less than 1 Source: See table 1. indicates a negative relationship). This result is in line Note: MMP = mixed member proportional; FPTP = first past the post. with other work on turnout (Pammett and LeDuc 1 Dependent variable: referendum vote choice; 1 = MMP, 0 = FPTP. 2003) that shows most Canadians attribute turnout *p < .10 ***p < .001 O O n n t decline to negative attitudes toward government and t a Ontario, too, in that the possibility of more parties a r r i politicians. With respect to the Ontario referendum, i o emerging under an MMP system was viewed as unde- o ’ ’ s s

specifically, this result suggests that those whom the R sirable. This might also reflect some of the popular R e e f democratic reform initiatives were meant to benefit — f e opinion and campaign strategy on the no-to-MMP side, e r r e those who felt alienated from the system — were not e n which emphasized the proposed increase in the size of n d d u attracted to the idea of reforming the system to make u m the legislature and party control of the closed lists m it more responsive, so much so that they did not o (Cutler and Fournier 2007). For example, John Tory, the o n n bother to cast a ballot one way or the other. P P r PC leader, was quoted as saying that he would vote r o o p Furthermore, those who were disenchanted with the p o against MMP “because I don’t think we need more o r r t existing electoral system did not see the chance to t i politicians, because I don’t think we need appointed i o o n vote in the referendum as a way to address that dis- n a politicians and because I think we should get on with a l l enchantment. R parliamentary reform first” (Benzie 2007). R e e p In the second model, we turned to considering p r Turning to the other variables, the results are more r e e s how attitudes about the government and electoral s e in keeping with expectations. Those who were unhappy e n n t system influenced those who did cast a ballot. We t a with the disproportionate seat distribution outcomes a t t i i o used a vote for MMP as the dependent variable. Once o n under FPTP were in favour of electoral reform, and n : : again, the variable is dichotomous, with 1 indicating W those who thought minority governments were better W h that an individual reported voting for MMP and 0 h y y

were more likely to vote in favour of changing to MMP. C C i indicating that an individual voted to retain the FPTP i t A respondent’s preference for proportionality was not a t i 26 i z system. We included the same independent variables z e significant predictor of voting choice, although the e n n s as above, and added age as a control variable because s

S direction of the effect is as expected; even if a respon- S a it was shown to significantly influence referendum a i i d dent felt that the percentage of votes won should corre- d

27 N voting in a simple bivariate logit regression. The N o spond to the percentage of seats that a party receives in o , , results for this model are shown in table 5. b the legislature, such an attitude did not significantly b y y

Contrary to expectations, the political efficacy L influence preferences over the referendum outcome. L a a u indicator was not a significant influence on voting in u r Feeling dissatisfied with how democracy works in r a a favour of changing to MMP (p = 0.155). It is also B Ontario also did not influence a referendum vote (but B . .

S interesting to note that the odds ratio was in the S t the effect direction is as expected). t e e p opposite direction to expectations. This result runs p h Overall, the model of referendum voting presented h e e n contrary to the findings of Lamare and Vowles (1996) n s above is not very powerful. Only 18 percent of the s o o n with respect to electoral system reform in New n

variance in referendum voting is explained by the a a n Zealand: in that case, they found low political effica- 2 n d model (pseudo R = 0.1784), which included the vari- d

B cy led individuals to support the change to MMP. B r ables most related to preferences for democratic change r i i a Perhaps general apathy and cynicism toward the gov- a n and, in particular, electoral reform. Thus, despite the n

T ernment carried over to attitudes about reform in T a a n n g g u u a 13 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 ect ofdemocraticrenewal. with theirgovernmentthanwasassumedbytheproj- Furthermore, Ontariansappeartobemoresatisfied t referendum cannotbeexplainedbyattitudestoward t by manyOntarianswasnotaddressedtheelec- our surveyindicatethatthelowpoliticalefficacyfelt zen dissatisfactionwithgovernment,theresultsfrom e under FPTP duce themajoritygovernmentseachhadsecured opposed thechange,asitwouldbelesslik held power(Liberal,PCandNDP)mighthave be expectedthatpartisansofthepartieshave come fortheirparticularparty?Ifso,thenitwould influenced bywhattheybelievedwasthebestout- same situationholdinOntario?Thatis,werecitizens 1996; Vowles, KarpandBanducci2000).Didthe to MMPshouldbemaintained(LamareandVowles afterward, asthecountrydebatedwhetherchange referendum inNewZealandandcontinuedtodoso important roleinsupportforMMPduringthe1993 has beenfoundthatpartisanself-interestplayedan the electoralsystem,whatdidguidetheirvotes?It ly directedbytheirfeelingstowardgovernmentand If thereferendumvotesofOntarianswerenotstrong- US FreeTrade Agreement afterhearingJohn Turner’s supporters were swayedtowardopposingthe Canada- example, Johnstonetal.(1992) foundthatLiberal partisan considerationstoguide theiropinion.For ballots nonetheless,itispossible thattheyturnedto judge thecompetinginformation butwerecasting mation tobelieve,orsimplydidnotknowhow knowledge abouttheissue,wereunsureofwhatinfor the Ontarioreferendum,ifvotersdidnothavealotof Sniderman, BrodyandTetlock 1991). Inthecaseof state anopinion(Downs1957;Popkin 1991; heuristics, insituationswheretheyarerequiredto formed voterscanutilizeinformationshortcuts,or comes fromalargeliteraturethatsuggestsunin a voiceinthelegislature. changing toMMP have beenawarethattheirpartyhadaninterestin governments. Similarly might havebeeninfavouroftakingpartcoalition party hadformedthegovernmentleastoftenand might havebeeninfavourofthechange,astheir P he governmentandelectoralsystemalone. oral systemreferendum,andthattheoutcomeof xpectation thatelectoralreformwouldaddressciti- a r Another reasontoinvestigatepartisaninfluence t i s a n

i n . Ontheotherhand,NDPsupporters f l u e n , sothatthesmallpartycouldhave c e s , GreenParty supportersmight ely topro - - - Bryant, werepubliclyinfavourofthechange.Given cabinet ministers,GeorgeSmithermanandMichael an officiallyneutralstanceontheissue,althoughtwo on hispreference,andLiberalParty maintained 200 supporters urgingthemtorejectthechange(Benzie PC Party wasreportedtohavesentane-mailits P that hewouldvoteagainsttheproposal,buthisPC T Party cameoutpubliclyinfavourofthereform. issue ofitscampaign.OnlytheNDPandGreen none ofthepartiesmadeelectoralreformamajor in supportfortheMMPproposalalongpartylines, mean fortheirparties,aswehypothesizedabove. potential benefitsthatsuchanelectoralchangecould NDP andGreensupportersweremoreawareofthe — 69percentand77percent,respectively partisans supportedthechangeatmuchhigherlevels and 28percent,respectively, whileNDPandGreen and PCpartisanssupportedtheproposalby32percent their levelofsupportforthechangetoMMP. Liberal parties in ties andthosewhoidentifiedwithsmaller ference betweenthosewhoidentifiedwithlargerpar- results arereportedintable6. by partisanshiporpartisanidentification(PID).The MMP. We investigatethispossibilitybelow. by interestedgroups,suchasVote forMMPandNo tion abouttheconsequencesofMMPwaspublicized ation mighthavebeensimilar, asconflictinginforma- own ballots.Inthe2007 Ontarioreferendum,thesitu- ties andpublicfigurestodeterminehowcasttheir vote. Thus,votersturnedtothecuesprovidedbypar- t election wasoverwhelminganddifficulttosort T used duringthe1995Quebecsovereigntyreferendum. (2004) foundthatinformationshortcutswerealso 1988 electioncampaign.Clarke, KornbergandStewart o hrough todeterminethe“real”consequencesofayes aor3.92.66.777.15 22.85 69.27 30.73 27.56 72.44 32.39 Note: MMP=mixedmember proportional. 67.61 Source: Seetable1. Favour Oppose T ( S T ( S oward theendofcampaignJohnTory stated pposition stanceduringtheleaders’debatesin hey arguethattheamountofinformationin arty didnottak P P a a u u Even thoughthereisevidenceofcleardifferences First, considerhowthesupportforMMPdiffered b b e e p p 7). PremierDaltonMcGuintyrefusedtocomment l l r r e e p p c c

e e o o 6 6 n n r r t t t t

) ) f f o o r r

14 L L M M i i b b M M e e e anofficialposition.However r r a a P P l l

b b y y

P P a a r r P P t t i i C C s s a a 28 n n

There wasacleardif- I I d d e e n n t t N N i i D D f f i i P P c c a a . Clearly t t i i o o n n G G r r , the e e , e e n n the lack of clarity in the positions of the two main- Given that so many Ontarians were unsure of where stream parties, especially the Liberal Party, they were the parties stood on the issue of electoral reform, did poorly positioned to act as clear cues for how their partisanship and/or perceptions of their party’s position supporters should vote in the referendum. The influ- influence the vote? We ran a logit regression with a ence of all of the parties, however, was likely dimin- pro-MMP vote as the dependent variable, again includ- ished because of the issue’s low prominence during ing age as a control variable. In the model, we included the campaign. a set of dummy variables to indicate partisanship and This lack of publicity is evident in that more than correct perceptions of party positions, and the interac- 60 percent of Ontarians in our survey did not know tions between partisanship and correctly perceiving the the stances of each of the parties, even though the position of each party.29 The reasoning was that it NDP and the Green Party had taken clear positions should be partisans who respond to the issue by consid- (see table 7, column 1). Even partisans were largely ering the cues (or best interests) of their party, which unsure of the positions of their own parties: between follows the work of Borges and Clarke (2009). The 45 and 60 percent of partisans answered that they did results are reported in table 8. Interaction terms are not know whether their party supported the reform. labelled “PID* Liberals opposed,” and so on, to indicate The lowest number of uncertain partisans came from that they are multiplicative terms with two components. O O n n t the NDP, but still 45 percent of those who claimed Because of the presence of interaction terms, the t a a r r i NDP partisanship did not know that their party sup- interpretation of the variable results requires some i o o ’ ’ s s

ported the change. Of those who did provide an explanation. The partisanship variables (Liberal PID, PC R R e e f answer, however, it is evident that supporters of the PID, NDP PID, Green PID) indicate the effect for f e e r r e two smaller parties (NDP and Green) were clearest respondents who did not know the correct position of e n n d d u about their party’s stance. PC partisans were less their party: that is, either they indicated the incorrect u m m clear, but the numbers indicate some recognition of position or they answered that they did not know. Only o o n n

John Tory’s position: almost twice as many (29 per- Green partisanship had an independent effect on the P P r r o o p cent) answered that the party opposed the change as referendum vote; the odds of Green supporters who did p o o r r t compared with those who thought the party was in not know that their party supported the change to t i i o o n favour (17 percent). The Liberal Party, however, did MMP voting in favour of the reform were higher than n a a l l the worst job of communicating how its interests for nonpartisans (odds ratio = 5.727). For partisans who R R e e p would be served by the referendum. Its partisans were did know the correct position of their party on the issue p r r e e s almost evenly split between those who thought the (indicated by the interaction terms), there was a signifi- s e e n n t party supported the change (20.6 percent) and those cant, negative effect for PC supporters (odds ratio = t a a t t i i o who thought the party opposed the change (19.66 0.242). None of the other parties’ interaction terms o n n : : percent). Clearly, then, the Liberal Party did the least were significant, although the Liberal and NDP terms W W h to cue its supporters as to what kind of vote would were in the expected direction. Non-PC partisans who h y y

C C i best serve its interests. knew that the PC Party opposed the electoral change i t t i i z z e e n n s s

Table 7 S S a a i Knowledge of Party Positions on MMP System (Percent) i d d

N N o Party Believe the party All Ontarians Partisans o , ,

b b y Liberal Favours 16.81 20.60 y

L L a Opposes 20.76 19.66 a u u r Don’t know 62.43 59.73 r a a

Progressive Conservative Favours 10.84 16.68 B B . .

Opposes 26.39 28.77 S S t Don’t know 62.77 54.55 t e e p New Democratic Favours 30.08 47.78 p h h e Opposes 7.92 7.00 e n n s Don’t know 62.00 45.22 s o o n Green Favours 30.33 33.65 n

a a n Opposes 6.32 8.64 n d d

Don’t know 63.35 57.70 B B r r i i a Source: See table 1. a n n

Note: MMP = mixed member proportional. T T a a n n g g u u a 15 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 for thechange toMMP. CutlerandJohnston(2008) dents’ levelsofinformationhad aneffectonsupport 2007). Inthissection,weinvestigate whetherrespon- has beenwastedineducating peoplesopoorly”(Fenlon quoted assaying,“Idon’tthink eversomuchmoney referendum “an unmitigateddisaster.” Hewasalso Globe andMail choice theywerebeingasked tomake. Quotedinthe campaign wasthatpeoplewereuninformedaboutthe One ofthemainissuesraisedduringreferendum ing partisaninfluencesalone. explain theoutcomeofreferendumbyconsider- the vote—justover10 percent.Thus,wecannot er, thismodelexplainsverylittleofthevariancein As withthemodelofreformattitudesabove,howev- the interestsoftheirpartywhencastingballots. stance. ItappearsthatonlyPCsupportersconsidered one ofthepartiesthatwasmoreambiguousaboutits their votethanthepartisan-perceptioninteractionfor parties ontheissue,itwaslessofaninfluence porters wereclearerabouttheactualpositionoftheir sis reportedabove.EventhoughNDPandGreensup to formacontraryviewaswell. issue mayhaveactedasacuefornon-PCpartisans to theeffectforpartisans).ThePCs’positionon were alsomorelikely tosupportthereform(opposite I n * o suoieiod-451.124 Log pseudolikelihood I*Gen nfvu .1 0.914 1.127 0.311 0.342 0.275 0.375 1 0.617 2.159 0.159 Note: MMP=mixedmemberproportional;PIDpartisanidentification. 4.955 0.683 0.270 Source: Seetable1. 0.233 1.260 1.227 0.526 1.512* 0.083 0.242* 0.188 5.727* 1.743 1.000 0.797 N PID* Greensinfavour 0.180*** PID* NDPinfavour 0.772 PID* Conservativesopposed PID* Liberalsopposed Green infavour NDP infavour PC opposed Liberal opposed Green PID NDP PID PC PID Liberal PID Age Pseudo T S F T S F p a a Dependent variable:referendumvotechoice;1=MMP, 0=firstpastthepost. a a y y f < .10 *** These resultsaddanotherdimensiontotheanaly b b c c o s s l l t t t t e e r e e o o

m 8 8 m m r r R s s 2 a , , p

T T t I I < .001 h h n n i o a a c c n l l t t u u

I I d d a , DennisPilonwentsofarastocallthe n n i i b f f n n l l g o g u u

e e u P P n n t a a c c

r r M e e t t d d y y M

P P V V o o o o P s s t t i i i i t t n n O O i i g g d d o o d d

n n i i s s s s n n

r r

( ( a a S S L L t t u u o o i i o o p p g g p p i i t t o o s s

t t R R r r a a t t e e n n

R R s s o o d d 0.1036 u u o o a a f f b b r 743 r l l

t t d d u u M M s s

s s e e ) ) t t M M 1 1 r r

r r o o P P - r r - informed abouttheelectoralreformproposal. measure ofhowwellpeoplethoughttheywere those measures tion, educationorattentiveness,itwasrelatedto question didnotassessthelevelofpoliticalinforma- familiar withtheMMPelectoralsystem.Whilethis these resultsreplicatedwithourdata? f about theproposedelectoralreform.Identifyingasa only thisgroupwasmotivatedtogatherinformation about MMP(coefficient=0.037),suggestingthat sanship wasasignificantpredictorofbeinginformed them. emerged assignificantinfluences;agewasnotoneof table 10, twoofthethreedemographicvariables tion, interestinpolitics,partisanship).Asreported income) andpoliticalattitudes(interestintheelec- demographic measures(age,universityeducation, from 0to1).Forindependentvariables,weincluded as thedependentvariable(a5-pointscale,ranging regression withthelevelofinformationaboutMMP about theproposedelectoralsystem.W tributed toarespondentclaimingbeinformed this question,weanalyzedthefactorsthatcon this onesurveyquestion. felt “informedenough”tocastaballotonthebasisof portrayed, althoughitisdifficulttodeterminewho Ontarians (see table9).Thesenumberssuggestthatmore who hadneverheardoftheproposedelectoralsystem not veryoratallfamiliar, andjustover2percent electoral system,comparedwith32percentwhowere that theywereveryorsomewhatfamiliarwiththe than half(65percent)ofoursurveysamplereported e ulations, thatinformationmadeafundamentaldiffer- ( British Columbia.Furthermore,CutlerandFournier in attitudestowardtheproposedelectoralchange proposed electoralsystemmadeasignificantdifference 2007) reported, usingdifferentdataandstatisticalsim- ound thatknowledgeaboutthecitizens’assemblyand o eyfmla 20.89 2.17 19.80 45.63 Source: Seetable1. Have neverheardofMMP Not atallfamiliar Not veryfamiliar Somewhat familiar Very familiar T F T F nce insupportforthereferendumOntario.Are a a a a In thesurvey, weasked peoplewhethertheywere Who werethese“informed”individuals?To answer b b m m l l e e i i

32 l l 9 9 i i a a Of thepartisanshipvariables,onlyPCparti r r i i t t felt y y

w w 16 that theywereinformedthanthemedia i i t t 30 h h

and provideduswithasubjective M M M M P P

S S y y s s t t e e m m

( ( P P e e r r c c e e n n e rananOLS t t ) ) 1 1 1 1.50 31 - More - PC partisan increased a respondent’s predicted posi- Table 11 tion on the information-about-MMP scale by 0.037, Relationship between Information about MMP suggesting that PC partisans were more informed System1 and Attitudes toward Proportionality (Percent) than nonpartisans about the proposed electoral reform. This result is somewhat surprising given that Low MMP the NDP and the Green Party were clearer about their information (not very High MMP familiar, not at all information (very support of the reform than the PC Party was about its familiar, have never and somewhat opposition. heard of MMP) familiar) Overall interest in politics also had a substantial Proportionality 43.68 53.78 impact on feeling informed: moving from the lowest FPTP acceptable 16.03 36.50 to the highest value (an 11-point, 0-1 scale), a respon- FPTP unacceptable 41.16 44.68 Minority government dent’s level of information about MMP increased by better 23.06 34.43 0.27 points. Even with such a simple model, the R2 value indicates 22 percent of the variance in MMP Source: See table 1. Note: MMP = mixed member proportional; FPTP = first past the post. information levels is accounted for; thus, the distribu- 1 For the analysis in this table, the information about MMP variable was divid- tion of information about the referendum proposal ed at its mean to create low and high information categories. O O n n t can be partially explained by simple demographics t a ments). Given our earlier results — that considering a r r i and interest in the election and politics. i o o ’ FPTP unacceptable and supporting minority govern- ’ s s

The next question to answer was whether a R ments were significant influences on voting for the R e e f respondent’s level of information had an effect on f e MMP proposal — this suggests that those with low and e r r e voting in the referendum. First, we considered the e n high levels of information may have approached the n d d u distribution of responses about fairness, proportional- u m referendum question differently. Interestingly, however, m ity and minority governments among those with high o o n 33 the proportion of informed individuals who felt the n and low levels of information. As can be seen in P P r FPTP system is acceptable was also much higher than r o o p table 11, there were clear differences in the opinions p o in the low-MMP-information group (37 percent to 16 o r r t about fairness and proportionality and minority gov- t i i o percent). Perhaps, then, those with more information o n ernments between the low- and high-information n a were more polarized by their knowledge of the issue. a l l groups. Those who felt more informed about MMP R R e As our final test of the impact of information on the e p were more likely to express attitudes in line with p r r e referendum vote, we ran a single model three times: e s preferences for electoral change (more concerned s e e n with the whole sample, with only low-information n t about proportionality, more likely to feel FPTP is t a a t respondents and with only high-information respon- t i i o unacceptable, more supportive of minority govern- o n dents. The dependent variable was once again voting n : :

W for MMP. We included in the model the variables that W h h y Table 10 y indicate attitudes about government and the electoral C C i Factors That Influenced Level of Information i t t i 1 system (from table 5) and the partisan variables and i z about MMP System (Regression Results) z e e n interactions from table 8. The results are shown in table n s s

Robust S 12. In the full sample, the results indicate that age, fair- S a Variable Coefficient standard error a i i d ness, preferring minority governments and being more d

N N o Age 0.012 0.041 informed about MMP were all significant factors related o , , University education 0.067*** 0.016 b b y to voting in support of MMP in the referendum. Those y Income 0.113*** 0.025

L L a Interest in election 0.100* 0.045 with more information were more likely to support the a u u r Interest in politics 0.270*** 0.041 r a proposed change. None of the partisanship variables a Liberal partisans 0.004 0.019 B B . was significant. Given the presence of interaction terms, .

PC partisans 0.037* 0.026 S S t NDP partisans 0.005 0.026 t e the PID variables reflect the effects for those who did e p Green partisans 0.010 0.037 p h not know or were incorrect about where their party h e Constant 0.324*** 0.033 e n n s R2 0.2204 stood on the issue of electoral reform. The interaction s o o n N 1,000 n terms revealed the effect of partisanship when the indi- a a n n d vidual did know the party’s position. Only PC partisans d

Source: See table 1. B B r Note: MMP = mixed member proportional who knew their party’s position were influenced away r i i a 1 Dependent variable: information about MMP; 5 point 0-1 scale. a n n

*p < 0.10 ***p < 0.001 from supporting the electoral change significantly (PID* T T a a n n g g u u a 17 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 government were [0.394]), indicatingthatthosewhowerecynicalabout those withmoreinformation(oddsratiolowerthan1 efficacy, also hadasignificantnegativeinfluencefor with lowinformation.Cynicism,orbeliefinpolitical Neither ofthesevariableswassignificantforthose fairness andthepreferenceforminoritygovernments. more informationaboutMMPwereinfluencedby (columns 3-6).Aswiththefullsample,those turned tothelow-andhigh-informationsamples government andtheelectoralsystem.Forthis,we a those whofeltmoreinformedabouttheissuewere d Liberals, supportingforNDPandGreen). effects wereintheexpecteddirections(opposingfor P Predicted voteifinformedabout Predicted voteifinformed Predicted voteforMMP Log pseudolikelihood Pseudo 3 2 1 Note: MMP=mixedmemberproportional; FPTP=firstpastthepost. Source: Seetable1. N Age * Cynicism/political efficacy rprinlt prpit .2 .5 .7 .6 .1 0.269 0.828 1.111 1.741 0.563 0.437 1.174 0.507 0.250 0.444 1.225 1.078 Fairness (FPTP5outcomeunacceptable) Proportionality appropriate Dissatisfaction withdemocracy re I .2 .6 .5*7601691.737 0.623 0.349 0.223 1.609 0.945 1.140 0.604 7.670 1.423 0.585 0.410 0.386 7.057* 2.248 0.612 0.566 1.638* 2.466 1.026 0.315 0.211 0.514 3.325 1.773 1.135 0.680 1.094 0.311 PC opposed Liberal opposed 1.506* Green PID NDP PID PC PID Liberal PID Informed aboutMMP Minority governmentbetter NDP infavour I*P poe .0* .2 .2*0.145 1.840 0.222* 0.235 0.247 2.413 0.783 0.415 0.826 1.944 2.993 0.636 2.962* 2.197 0.868 0.125 0.266 0.262 1.251 0.200** 1.024 0.491 PID*Green infavour PID* NDPinfavour PID* PCopposed PID* Liberalopposed Green infavour T R F T R F lso moreinfluencedbytheirattitudestowardthe um votingisonestep,butitdoesnottelluswhether C opposed),althoughtheotherinteractionterm p M mxmm 43.94% 25.41% MMP =5(maximum) about MMP=1(minimum) a a PID* Greeninfavour dropped becausepredictssuccessperfectly. PID* PCopposeddroppedbecausepredicts failureperfectly. Dependent variable:Referendumvotechoice; 1=MMP, 0=FPTP. a a e e < 0.1 Knowing thatinformationisimportanttoreferen- b b c c s s l l e e t t u u

o o l l 0 ** 1 1 R t t r r 2 2 s s 2 s s p ) )

1 1 T T < 0.0 h h a a 1 *** t t

I I n n p f f < 0.00 less l l u u e e n n 1 likely tosupporttheproposed c c e e d d

V V o o t t O O i i -386.930 n n d d g g 38.6% d d .31017 0.2772 0.1872 0.2311 0.173*** 0.82 5.7 1.427 1.740 0.789 3.105* 1.300 1.232 s s

i i 4 7 564 172 743 r r n n 04*** a a 1

F F t t S S i i u u o o l u l u l l

p p s s a a p p m m s s o o t t p p a a r r t t l l n n e e R R

d d o o o o a a 0.083 0.405 1.134 .2 .5*0150890.311 0.899 0.165 0.390 0.259* 0.221 0.364 1.68 b b f f r r d d u u

M M

s s .4*0.075 0.044* 1 e e t t r r M M r r o o P P r r

S S consideration thatinfluencedvoters party wasagainstthereformemergedasasignificant PC partisanshipinteractingwiththebeliefthat by information.Inthehigh-MMP-informationsample, although theeffectsforbothgroupsareinsignificant. t tion groupwaslessthan1,whiletheoddsratiofor t ran indifferentdirectionsforlow-andhigh-informa- Feeling unsatisfiedwithdemocracyinOntarioalso the oppositedirectionforlow-informationindividuals. e MMP. Thissuggeststhatthose who feltmoreinformed percent lowerthantheoddsofothervoterssupporting odds ofsuchvoterssupportingMMPwerealmost78 significant andlessthan1(0.222),indicatingthatthe porting thereferendumproposal.Theoddsratiowas y y he high-informationgroupwasgreaterthan1), ion individuals(theoddsratioforthelow-informa- O O lectoral change.Theeffectwasinsignificantandin s s d d L L t t -83.177 Next weconsiderwhetherpartisaninfluencesvaried 25.88% d d o o e e .8*015012*0.090 0.162** 0.175 0.186* 5.893 2.098 1.938 2.057 s s w w m m

r r

a a , , M M

t t b b i i M M i i o o n n y y P P

s s 2 2 L L a a e e m m i i n n 18 s s v v p p f f t t o e o e a a l l e e n r n r l l R R m m

d d o o o o a a 6.742 .1 .7**2.194 9.376*** 1.010 1.54 1.582 a a b b f f r r t t d d u u

i i o o P P

s s 1 e e n n t t o o

r r r r l l o o i i t t r r i i c c a a l l O O

-280.588 H H I I d d n n d d 42.46% i i g g f f 0.394* 1.297 .7 0.416 1.276 s s h h o o

r r

r r a a M M away m m t t i i i i M M o o n n a a

P P t t s s 3 3 i i a a o o m m i i from sup- n n n n s s p p t t f f

a a l o l o ( ( e e n n r r R R L L m m d d o o o o a a 0.2 0.409 a a b b g g r r t t d d u u 1 i i i i

s s o o t t 0 e e t t n n r r

r r o o r r were more likely to consider the impact of the new likely to be differentially influenced by their attitudes electoral system on their preferred party, but only if toward government, democracy and the electoral system. the party gave some indication of its own position, That less informed individuals were more opposed to which the PC Party did and the Liberal Party did not. MMP also suggests that such voters may have tried to Among the low-information individuals, Liberal and deal with their information deficit by casting a ballot in Green partisans appeared to consider the implications favour of the status quo. Other researchers have found of changing the electoral system for their respective that a “status quo bias” is a low-information shortcut for parties. The odds ratio for Liberal partisans was signifi- voters who are not knowledgeable about the referendum cant (p = 0.034) and negative (0.259), while the Green issue (Christin, Hug and Sciarini 2002). Without extensive partisanship odds ratio was positive (7.057) and signif- knowledge of the referendum issue, voters may eschew icant (p = 0.072). Interestingly, the interaction term the uncertainty of change for the certainty of a known indicates that Green partisans who knew that the party outcome. If this was the rationale low-information voters supported the change were less likely than Green parti- applied to the vote, it is not surprising that attitudes sans who did not know to support the electoral about the electoral process were irrelevant. change. Nonpartisans who were aware of the Green Given the importance of information to support for Party’s position were also more likely to vote in favour the referendum, it is interesting to simulate what the O O n n t of the electoral change. Lastly, it is notable that the vote result might have been if information about the t a a r 34 r i model explains much more of the voting decision for MMP system had been more widespread. If everyone i o o ’ ’ s 2 s

those with higher information (pseudo R is 0.28, com- in the sample had been equally uninformed about MMP R R e e f pared with 0.19 for low information). — that is, if their information levels had been at the f e e r r e Interpreting these results, it is clear that those who minimum value — the predicted support for MMP would e n n d d u felt more informed about MMP were more likely to have fallen to 25.4 percent. Conversely, specifying that u m m weight their concerns about government and the everyone was equally well informed (information at the o o n n electoral system when deciding how to vote. maximum level) leads to a simulated predicted vote of P P r r o o p Informed PC supporters were also more likely to con- 43.9 percent. These results emphasize that information p o o r r t sider their party’s interests when deciding how to about the MMP electoral system was crucial to the ref- t i i o o n vote, so long as they knew the preference of their erendum outcome. Had the campaign been more n a a l l party. Those who were less informed appear not to informative, the issue publicized more and the public R R e e p have been swayed by attitudes about the electoral more attentive or interested, the outcome might have p r r e e s process, despite their obvious relevance to the refer- been different. It is important to note, however, that s e e n n t endum issue, although some partisan considerations despite the changes in the predicted outcome, none of t a a t t i i o were a factor. While the number of individuals the predictions reaches the 60 percent threshold that o n n : : reporting that they felt informed about MMP suggests was set for changing Ontario’s electoral system. W W h that the media might have been wrong about the Perhaps, as the data discussed above shows, Ontarians h y y

C C i amount of information circulated prior to the referen- are just satisfied with their system the way it is. i t t i i z dum, or at least how informed the electorate per- z e e n n s ceived itself to be, it is clear that having information s

S S a about the electoral system significantly changed the a i Conclusion i d d

N factors that went into the voting decision. This result N o o , , is consistent with that of Cutler and Fournier (2007). ive provinces — British Columbia, Quebec, New b b y y

To further illustrate the effect of information, we L Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Ontario — L a a u calculated the predicted vote for MMP in several differ- u r initiated public discussions of electoral reform in r a a

F ent scenarios. Using the full model, the predicted vote B the early part of the twenty-first century. This paper has B . .

S in favour of changing the electoral system is 38.6 per- shown that Ontario was something of an outlier in this S t t e e p cent. This is close to the actual vote result of 36.9 per- process: unlike BC and Quebec, it had no lengthy history p h h e e n cent support. In the low-information sample, the model of mobilization by high-profile political actors in support n s s o o n predicts a vote of 25.9 percent in favour, whereas in the of a more proportional electoral system. None of the n

a a n high-information sample the predicted vote is 42.5 per- three main parties in Ontario had actively supported the n d d

B cent. These results indicate that those who felt that they notion of electoral reform prior to 2003, and the Liberals B r r i i a were more informed about the proposed electoral sys- a n under Dalton McGuinty were interested at most in n

T tem were more likely to support the change and more T a a n n g g u u a 19 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 informed cynical votersweresignificantly morelik MMPandthat referendum about changingto were morelikely to notevenbothertovoteinthe we alsofoundthatthemost cynicalvotersinOntario ment wasrelatedtosupport forelectoralreform,but toral reform.W engagement ofOntariovoterswiththeideaelec- of FPTP)werepreferredtominoritygovernments. ceptable, andmajoritygovernments(alikely outcome of seatswithoutamajoritythepopularvoteisunac- votes, lessthanamajorityfeltthatwinning supported perfectproportionalitybetweenseatsand content withtheelectoralsystem.Onlyabaremajority province. Therewasalsolittleevidenceofstrongdis- being satisfiedwiththestateofdemocracyin other hand,amajorityoftheseOntariansreported government wasnotintouchwiththecitizens.On they didnottrusttheirgovernmentandfeltthatthe one hand,Ontarianswhorespondedtooursurveysaid ic renewal,revealedaninterestingcontradiction.Onthe analysis ofthefirstaspect,publicsupportfordemocrat aspects ofsupportforelectoralreforminthispaper attitudes factorintotheissue.W toral reform,itisinterestingtoconsiderhowcitizen lik with politicalelitesandsomecivilsocietyorganizations calls foramoreproportionalsystemresonated politicized, andtherearestrongreasonstosuspectthat Ontario intheearlypartofthisdecadewasnothighly secure 36seats.Inshort,theissueofelectoralreformin 1990, theofficialoppositionpartywasstillableto with slightlylessthan38percentofthepopularvotein the NDPwonalegislativemajority(74of130seats) in Ontarioweremuchmoremodest.Forexample,when the legislature,distortionsproducedbysystem main oppositionpartyofmeaningfulrepresentationin Brunswick, whereFPTPsometimesworkstodeprivethe had done.Finally, incontrasttoPEIandNew thanks tothepeculiaritiesofFPTP—asBCandQuebec most votesobtainsamajorityofthelegislativeseats, “wrong winner”—whenthepartywithsecond- also hadnotwitnessedarecentelectoraltriumphby p Michael BryantandGeorgeSmitherman,voicedsup- P Liberal Party ofOntariowasnotastrongsupporter improving democraticperformanceintheprovince.The as akey partofalargerinvestigationintoways l aunching apublicdialogueonelectoralsystemchange ort foranewelectoralsystemintheprovince.Ontario R; onlyafewhigh-profilecabinetministers,suchas e FairVote thanwiththebroaderpublic. Our resultsalsounderscoretherelativelackof Given thespecificsofOntario’sexperiencewithelec- e foundthatcynicismabout govern e evaluatedthree . Our ely - - tion oftheparty were,ironically dum vote.Green partisanswhodidnotknow theposi- a party, hadlittleeffectontheoutcome ofthereferen- well asspecificknowledgeof thepreferredoutcomeof found amongsupportersofthe NDP of uncertaintywas45percent(stillrelativelyhigh), on MMPadoptedbytheirownparties.Thelowestlevel (Liberal, PC,NDP)werelargelyunsureofthepositions that partisansofthethreemainpartiesinprovince for theproposal.However, ourresultsalsoindicate (NDP, smaller and Green)partiesintermsofsupport there wasadivisionbetweenthelarger(Liberal,PC) how tovoteinthereferendum.Ourresultssuggestthat provided bothareasontovoteandanindicationof electoral system,thatsupportoroppositionmayhave knew theirpreferredparty’spositiononchangingthe in thereferendumonelectoralreform.Forvoterswho ined istheimpactofpartisanshiponvoterbehaviour the qualityofdemocracyinOntario. system simplydidnotrespondtotheirconcernsabout reform. Formanyvoters,theproposedMMPelectoral in Ontarioatthetimeofreferendumonelectoral W trustful ofaremoteprovincialgovernment”(174-5). alienated frompoliticalinstitutionsingeneralanddis ing ofcitizenswho,inamuchmorevisceralsense,feel tional electoralsystem“isfarremovedfromthethink- nature ofreformproposals”suchasamorepropor- weak” (174).Theyarguethat“theformalandabstract democracy intheprovinceashealthy.is effect the But Albertans “infavourofPR[were]lesslikely tosee survey of1,204Albertanvoters.Theyfoundthatthose tional representation—ontheother, drawingona port forinstitutionalreforms—amongthem,propor- democracy intheprovince,ononehand,andsup- political trustandperceptionsaboutthehealthof Alberta. Theauthorsanalyzedtherelationshipbetween with thoseofJohnston,KrahnandHarrison(2006)for tativeness oftheirgovernment. to voteforachangethatcouldimprovetherepresen- system, didnotusethereferendumasanopportunity t appears thatmostOntarians,eveniftheyheldnega- d not evenregisterassignificantinfluencesonreferen- appropriate proportionalityofelectoraloutcomesdid faction withdemocracyandopinionsaboutthe t ive feelingstowardtheirgovernmentandelectoral o opposetheelectoralchange.Furthermore,dissatis- um votingforthosewhodidgotothepolls.It e canspeculatethatsomethingsimilarwasoccurring The resultsintable8indicate thatpartisanship,as The secondaspectofcitizensupportthatweexam- It isinterestingtocompareourfindingsforOntario 20 , significantly more . - likely to support the reform. PC partisans who knew Taken together, our results indicate that information that the party preferred the referendum to fail were the about the proposed electoral system change clearly con- only others who were influenced by a party position. tributed to support for MMP, mostly by activating the Thus, it does not appear that, on average, the parties effect of attitudes that are commonly associated with provided useful cues for their partisans in the referen- support for electoral reform. Those who were not famil- dum choice. The ambiguity of the positions adopted by iar with MMP did not consider how the electoral system both the PCs and the Liberals — official neutrality, could affect the proportionality of election outcomes, or combined with either covert (as in the case of Dalton how it could address the perceived fairness of the elec- McGuinty) or outright (in the case of John Tory) oppo- toral process, in their voting choice. It is possible that sition among party leaders — may well have actually these individuals were affected by a bias in favour of increased support for MMP. If the parties had been the status quo, the FPTP system, for which they under- more vocal about their positions and better communi- stood the outcome and consequences. Clearly, the infor- cated those positions to their supporters, perhaps the mation that circulated during the referendum campaign outcome of the referendum would have been much did not do a good job of providing basic facts for citi- different and even less in favour of MMP. zens about the likely consequences of the electoral sys- Finally, our paper examines the role of information, tem change. The debate that did occur, too, may have O O n n t or lack thereof, in determining the referendum vote. We underemphasized some of these basic considerations t a a r r i found that a substantial majority (just over 65 percent) because of its focus on the appropriateness of province- i o o ’ ’ s s

of voters felt that they were either very familiar or wide party votes and closed party lists. R R e e f somewhat familiar with the MMP system proposed by Regardless of the role of information, however, our f e e r r e the citizens’ assembly — something of a contrast with simulations demonstrate that even if the referendum e n n d d u the media portrayal of the situation at the time. Not sur- campaign had been more informative, the MMP pro- u m m prisingly, it was better-educated, wealthier and more posal would not likely have obtained the necessary 60 o o n n interested or attentive voters who felt the best informed. percent support required in order to pass. This brings us P P r r o o p Furthermore, we found that better-informed voters were back to our comments about the desire for electoral p o o r r t more likely to support the electoral change. This may reform in Ontario. Even if individuals were familiar t i i o o n have been driven by the greater weight that feelings with the electoral system, and were influenced by con- n a a l l about fairness and preferences for minority govern- cerns about proportionality and fairness, these attitudes R R e e p ments had in the voting decision of more informed indi- were not dominant in society, and therefore having cit- p r r e e s viduals. Interestingly, only those who felt familiar with izens more likely to make the connection between the s e e n n t the MMP electoral system considered attitudes that referendum vote and these attitudes would not have t a a t t i i o relate directly to electoral reform in their referendum changed the outcome. o n n : : voting decision. Those who felt less informed, even if In conclusion, our findings in this paper suggest that W W h they felt strongly about proportionality and fairness in Ontario’s flirtation with electoral reform was largely elite h y y

C C i elections, were not influenced by those attitudes to sup- driven and without general public support. Not only did i t t i i z port the change to an electoral system that promised to citizens express modest support for such a democratic z e e n n s address both of these issues. However, those who felt reform, but the political parties and the information s

S S a less informed were more likely to be swayed by partisan campaign did little to facilitate a true debate over the a i i d d

N considerations, although not specifically by the prefer- electoral system best suited for Ontario. As a result, even N o o , , ences of their preferred party. Liberal and Green parti- those who held opinions that are related to support for b b y y sans were less and more likely, respectively, to vote in electoral reform were not fully engaged by the referen- L L a a u favour of MMP, in keeping with the interests of those dum. Clearly, Premier McGuinty kept his election prom- u r r a a parties, but just knowing that the Green Party favoured ise by moving forward with democratic reform B B . .

S MMP influenced nonpartisans to support the reform. initiatives. Electoral change, however, was simply not a S t t e e p Curiously, Green partisans who knew their party’s posi- popular target for democratic renewal. p h h e e n tion on the issue actually reacted in the opposite direc- n s s o o n tion, toward preferring the status quo. Those who were n

a a n more informed about MMP were also swayed by consid- n d d

B erations of their preferred party, but only in the case of B r r i i a PC supporters who knew their party’s preferred out- a n n

T come. T a a n n g g u u a 21 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 Vote inreferendum:1=votedthereferendum,0 Vote forMMP:1=votedMMP, 0 = voted for FPTP. Appendix: Variable Coding Government isrunbybiginterests: “Would yousay Government iscrooked: “Doyouthinkthatquite a Government wastes:“Doyouthinkthatpeopleinthe Government isright:“Howmuchdoyoutrustthe P Government cares:“Idon’tthinkthegovernment Interest inelection:0-1.Recodedfrom0-10 scale. Interest inpolitics:0-1.Recodedfrom0-10 scale. University education:0-1.1=bachelor’sdegreeor Income: 0-1.Recodedfrom1-10 scale.Missingdata Age: 0-1.Recodedfromoriginalvalues(18-95). Informed aboutMMP:scaledfrom0-1,1=very arliament losestouch:“ThoseelectedtoParliament question ofhowvoted). did notvoteinthereferendum/did(from reported “don’tknow”wereexcluded. only. Those whorefusedtoanswerthequestionor Restricted tothosewhovotedinthereferendum recoded tomodal category benefit ofall, 1 =fewbiginterests.Missing data run forthebenefitofall people?”0-1,0= interests lookingoutforthemselves orthatitis the governmentisprettymuch runbyafewbig recoded tomodalcategory the governmentarealittlecrook crooked, 1=quiteafewofthepeoplerunning little crook few ofthepeoplerunninggovernmentarea Missing datarecodedtomodalcategory. waste alotofthemoneywepayintaxes. taxes?” 0-1,0=don’twasteverymuchofit,1 = government wastealotofthemoneywepayin to modalcategory. always, 1=almostnever government todowhatisright?”0-1,0=almost data recodedtomodalcategory. strongly disagree,1=agree.Missing soon losetouchwiththepeople.”0-1,0= data recodedtomodalcategory strongly disagree,1=agree.Missing cares muchwhatpeoplelike methink.”0-1,0= Missing datarecodedtomean. Missing datarecodedtomean. higher. Missingdatarecodedto0. recoded tomean. Missing datarecodedtomean. data recodedtomodalcategory. familiar, 0=haveneverheardofMMP. Missing ed?” 0-1,0=hardlyanyofthemare N . Missingdatarecoded . . = 1,000. . ed. Missingdata N = 743. Partisanship: foreachparty, coded1ifindividual Dissatisfaction withdemocracy:“Onthewhole,are Minority governmentbetter:“Doyouthinkitisbet- FPTP outcomeunacceptable:“Underourpresentelec- P C roportionality appropriate:“Imaginethatapartywins ynicism/political efficacy:summaryvariableof specific party indicated heorshefeltveryfairlyclosetoa recoded tomodalcategory at all.Recodedfrom0-3scale.Missingdata Ontario?” 0-1,0=verysatisfied,1notsatisfied you satisfiedwiththewaydemocracyworksin 0-1, 1=minority. government oritdoesnotmake adifference?” ter tohaveamajoritygovernment,minority an opiniononthis?”0-1,1=unacceptable. this acceptable,unacceptable,ordoyounothave without winningamajorityofvotes.Doyoufind toral system,apartycanwinmajorityofseats 0-1, 1=about40percentoftheseats. or not,doyouthinkthatthepartyshouldget…” the vote.Regardlessofwhetheryoulike theparty the mostvotesinanelectionwithabout40%of dard error=0.008. b Government iscrooked, Governmentisrunby Government isright,wastes, Government cares,Parliament losestouch, ig interests.0-1,mean=0.615, linearizedstan- 22 , 0otherwise. . Notes 8 BC-STV is a proportional electoral system. Voters would 1 The survey was conducted by Léger Marketing. It was vote for between two and seven candidates in one of designed by the authors and Éric Bélanger, Jean Crête twenty ridings across the province. Voters would have and Richard Nadeau. It was funded by the Social the opportunity to rank the candidates in order of prefer- Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the ence, and candidates would be awarded seats when they Institute for Research on Public Policy. reached a specific quota of votes. If a candidate received 2 Seidle cautions, however, that the experience of New more votes than needed to reach the quota, a redistribu- Zealand, which switched from FPTP to a German-style tion of votes to second-place preferences would occur. MMP system in 1996, is inconclusive: “The significant To ensure that everyone’s vote counted equally, the debate about [electoral] reform as well as its successful redistribution would be done by calculating all of the implementation has not improved participation rates second-place preferences of the voters who chose the much beyond the 79 percent of 1993,” when FPTP was winning candidate as their first choice, and then these in use. He also notes that voter turnout has been drop- second-place votes would be transferred at reduced value ping in the past decade in most OECD countries, (the number of surplus votes divided by the overall num- including those with PR systems, like the Netherlands, ber of votes for the winning candidate). This process Ireland, Finland and Austria (Seidle 2002, 28). For a would be repeated until all of the seats were filled. full discussion of the relationship between PR and 9 See the discussion of the BC experiment in direct democ- turnout, see Blais and Aarts (2006). racy in Tanguay (2007). O 3 This was not the first time that electoral reform had 10 The Béland Commission issued its report just before the O n n t provincial election of April 2003, in which the Liberals t a been discussed in Canada. For a review of the earlier a r r i under Jean Charest defeated the incumbent Parti i o waves of electoral reform initiatives, see Massicotte o ’ ’ s Québécois government of Bernard Landry. The Liberal s (2008). R R e government’s electoral reform proposal (Massicotte 2004) e f 4 Stephen Harper’s Conservative government eliminated f e e r funding to the Law Commission of Canada in can be downloaded from the Web site of the Secrétariat à r e e n la réforme des institutions démocratiques et à l’accès à n d September 2006. d u u m 5 Under the proposal, voters would cast two ballots, one l’information: http://www.institutions-democratiques. m

o gouv.qc.ca/reforme-des-institutions/mode_scrutin.htm o n for their preferred candidate in a constituency, and the n

P other for a provincial or regional party list. Two-thirds 11 The complicated chronology of the Quebec electoral P r r o reform proposals is traced in Barnes and Robertson o p of the members of Parliament would be elected in con- p o o r (2007, 11-12). r t stituencies, while the remaining one-third would be t i i o drawn from the party lists. A party’s share of the seats 12 The Parti Québécois fears that a more proportional vot- o n n a ing system would doom the sovereignty project, while a l in Parliament would be roughly proportional to its l

R the Liberals — despite their ritual genuflections before R e share of the votes. e p p r the idea of democratic reform — are quite content with r e 6 In addition to the 158 randomly selected citizens in e s s e the assembly, there were two Aboriginal members (one the existing rules of the game. The position of the e n n t Action Démocratique du Québec is less clear. Its success t a female and one male) and a nonvoting chair, Jack a t t i in the 2007 election likely increased its comfort with the i o Blaney, a former president of Simon Fraser University. o n n : For more information on the selection of members, see FPTP system, but its electoral result in 2008 may have :

W caused the party to rethink the value of a more propor- W h British Columbia, Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral h y y

Reform (2004). The structure of the citizens’ assembly tional system. C C i 13 Elections PEI notes that no official count of electors was i t reflected a strong desire on the part of the British t i i z z e Columbia government, of advocacy groups like Fair available for the plebiscite, since no enumeration was e n n s conducted. “An approximate idea of voter turnout can be s

Vote Canada and of key individuals involved in push- S S a ing for electoral reform (such as Gordon Gibson, for- calculated using the 2003 Provincial General Election a i i d d

mer leader of the provincial Liberal Party) to take figure of 97,180 eligible electors” (Prince Edward Island, N N o Elections PEI 2005; emphasis in original). A total of o , politicians out of the process of change. The constitu- ,

b 32,265 voters cast ballots in the plebiscite, putting the b y tion of the citizens’ assembly, drawn up by Gordon y

L Gibson and ratified (with slight modifications) by the unofficial turnout at a meagre 33.2 percent. L a a u 14 Under this system, voters would cast two ballots, one for u r provincial legislature in the spring of 2003, specifically r a a

a preferred candidate in a constituency and the other for B excluded the following individuals from serving in the B . .

a party, and there would be a 5 percent threshold to be S citizens’ assembly: members or officers of the S t t e Canadian Parliament, legislative assembly or local eligible to win any list seats. e p p h 15 Pilon points out that on the surface, Ontario’s FPTP elec- h e government bodies; candidates in the previous two e n n s federal, provincial, municipal or regional elections and toral system seemed to be delivering precisely what its s o o n defenders claimed to be one of its principal virtues: n their official representatives; current provincial party a a n officials; and elected First Nations chiefs and band alternation in power of majority governments with dis- n d d

B councillors. tinct policy prescriptions. Yet he also argues, quite justi- B r r i i a 7 See Warren and Pearse (2008) for discussion of the cit- fiably, that “these results also served to highlight how a n n

arbitrary and unrepresentative plurality results could be, T izens’ assembly process. T a a n n g g u u a 23 a y y

IRPP Choices, Vol. 15, no. 10, September 2009 4 Notethattherelatively small 24 Oddsratiosreporttheamountbywhichoddsofa 23 MinutesofmeetingFairVote Ontarioandriding 22 LarryGordon,August11, 2008,personal communica- 21 Technically, FairVote OntarioisaprogramwithinFair 20 19 The Harequotaiscalculatedbydividingthetotal 18 ElectionsOntariosent120,000letterstovotersonthe 17 Allcontributionstopartiesorleadershipcandidates 16 is 50percentlesslikely. positive outcomebelow1—that is,apositiveoutcome the independentvariableistoreduce theoddsofa effect). Anoddsratioof0.5indicates thattheeffectof of apositiveoutcomearetwice aslikely (apositive 1 isneutral;anoddsratioof2 indicates thattheodds increase intheindependentvariable.Anoddsratioof positive outcomeshouldbemultipliedforeveryunit Toronto. captains, November24,2007, RyersonUniversity, tion bye-mail. personal communicationbye-mail). Gordon, president,FairV activists, itwasaseparatelyincorporatedentity(Larry Vote forMMPmayhavebeendominatedbyFVO one inW Vote Canada,andsoallthelocalchapters,suchas of coursebeaninterestingtopicforfutureresearch. question wordingonreferendumresults.Thiswould necessarily basedonscientificstudiesoftheeffect MMP wasjustthat—aperception,onenot wording wasnotfavourabletotheproponentsof perception amongmembersofFVCthatthequestion the W involved inthereferendumcampaignasco-chairof One oftheauthorsthispaper(T number ofvotesbytheseats. 2007, 9-10). bly reflectedthatoftheprovinceasawhole(Rose dom draw. Theagedistributionofthecitizens’assem- province. Theactualmemberswereselectedbyaran- selection meetingsheldinvariouspartsofthe and ofthese,1,253wereinvitedtoattendone29 assembly. Slightlymorethan7,000citizensagreed, consent tobeingconsideredformembershipinthe register ofelectorsaskingindividualsiftheywould ca/rtd/jsp/en/RTDParty.jsp Web site:http://www2.elections.on. D sand dollars.Alistofinitiativessponsoredbythe tions leavesapartyliableforfineofuptofivethou- O deposited. ThecontributionsarelistedonElections Elections Ontariowithin10 businessdaysofbeing o reputation onitshead. 2 a muchmoreright-wingvariantthistime)”(2004, prising NDPmajority, andfinallybacktothePCs(and L as governmentlurchedfrommoderatePC,toa iberal/NDP coalition,toaLiberalmajority, toasur- ver onehundreddollarsmustnowbereportedto 55). Thus,the1990sturnedprovince’s“moderate” ntario’s Web site.Failuretoreportthesecontribu- emocratic RenewalSecretariatcanbefoundonits aterloo RegionchapterofFairV aterloo Region,wereFVCchapters.While ote Canada,August11, 2008, R 2 values inthese analy- anguay) was ote Canada.The 3 2 ThecoefficientsforOLS regressioncanbeinterpreted 32 7 Oddsratio=0.148,robuststandarderror0.065, 27 We excluded fromtheanalysisthosewhodidnotvote 26 Turnoutisknowntobeassociatedwithseveraldemo- 25 0 The measureissignificantlyrelatedtopoliticalinterest 30 We classifytheLiberalParty asopposingtheelectoral 29 HereweconsidersupportforMMPonlyamongthose 28 1 robust standarderror=0.0 OL information abouttheMMPsystem.However change mayhavebeenmotivatedtogathermore electoral reform,becausethosewithapreferencefor tion, itmayhavebeeninfluencedbypreferencesfor As ourmeasurewasspecificallyaboutMMPinforma dependent variable of0.2. 0.1; acoefficientof-0.2indicates adecreaseinthe 0.1 indicatesanincreaseinthe dependentvariableof increase intheindependentvariable. Acoefficientof as thechangeindependent variableforeachunit enced votingbehaviour. made asignificantdifferenceforthefactorsthatinflu- a voterfeltaboutthespecificreferendumissue(MMP) minority governmentswerenot.Clearly, howinformed icant inbothmodelsandcynicismpreferencesfor tiation betweenthemodels,inthatfairnesswassignif- information aboutMMP, therewasmuchlessdifferen- sample wasdividedbypoliticalinterestinsteadof relate totheresultspresentedintable12.When significant predictors.Themostinterestingdifferences some differencesinwhichindependentvariableswere political interestasaproxy forinformationandfound ses replacingourinformationmeasurewithgeneral political information,wereplicatedsomeofouranaly the resultswoulddifferwithageneralindicatorof among supporters,0.71 amongopponents).To seehow although significant,werenotextreme(mean=0.77 those whosupportedandopposedMMP ferences intheaveragelevelofinformationbetween p i report theresultsfrommorebasicmodel. r tion andinterestinpoliticsascontrolvariables,the age, universityeducation,income,interestintheelec- g voter’s decision,thisdoesnotaffectourresults. s Clarke 2009).Aswearemostinterestedinwhether iour, includingturnout(see,forexample,Borgesand m ses, aswelltheothersinthispaper, arenotuncom- ( position. would experience,aswellMcGuinty’sperceived change giventhepotentiallossofpowerthatparty they casttheirballot. who votedinthereferendumandrememberedhow election interest( 0.045, n thereferendumordidnotrememberhowtheyvoted. ␤ esults weresimilar. Forsimplicity, wehavechosento pecific factorshaveeffectsratherthanexplainingthe raphic variables.Whenweranthemodelincluding on forworkthatexaminesreferendumvotingbehav- = 0.000. S regressionresults. = 0.293,robuststandarderror0.040, p = 0.015) anduniversityeducation( 24 ␤ = 0.109, robuststandarderror= 16, p = 0.000),accordingto p ␤ = 0.000), , thedif = 0.084, , - - - 33 The MMP information variable was divided at its mean Chung, Emily. 2007. “Ontario Referendum 2007: Electoral to create the low- and high-information categories. Reform or Not?” CBC News. Accessed July 9, 2009. 34 To run these simulations, we manipulated the values http://www.cbc.ca/ontariovotes2007/features/features- for political information while allowing the remaining referendum.html variables to retain their true values and used the “pre- Clarke, Harold D., Allan Kornberg, and Marianne C. dict” command in Stata. 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es dernières années, partout au pays, de nombreux démocratie et les opinions concernant la juste proportion- appels en faveur d’une réforme démocratique se nalité des résultats d’un scrutin n’ont semblé avoir C sont fait entendre. L’Ontario y a répondu en envi- aucune incidence réelle sur les électeurs ayant participé sageant l’adoption d’un système mixte proportionnel au référendum. (SMP), suivant la proposition de l’Assemblée des citoyens Les auteurs ont aussi analysé l’influence des partis et sur la réforme électorale. Mais lors d’un scrutin des intérêts qu’ils défendent sur les attitudes des électeurs référendaire tenu en octobre 2007, les Ontariens ont et la façon dont ils ont voté au référendum. Leur analyse clairement rejeté le SMP proposé. révèle une division entre les grands partis (libéral et con- Dans cette étude, Laura Stephenson et Brian Tanguay servateur) et les petits (néodémocrate et vert) en matière examinent plusieurs aspects de cette tentative de réforme de soutien au système électoral proposé, mais aussi une électorale, de la conjoncture politique qui a donné nais- grande incertitude chez les partisans des trois principaux sance au processus, au fonctionnement de l’Assemblée partis provinciaux (libéral, conservateur et néodémocrate) des citoyens, en passant par les différentes attitudes des quant à la position de leur propre parti face au SMP. On Ontariens face à la réforme électorale. Or, constatent-ils, ne s’étonnera donc pas que les préférences partisanes et l’enjeu a été très faiblement politisé dans la province. Il la connaissance de l’option préconisée par les différents n’y a eu aucune intervention d’acteurs politiques de cali- partis aient eu peu d’influence sur les résultats du bre visant à mobiliser les appuis à un mode de scrutin référendum. plus proportionnel. Ils observent aussi que l’Ontario n’a Les auteurs ont enfin analysé le rôle joué par l’infor- connu récemment aucun triomphe électoral du « mauvais mation. Plus de 65 p. 100 des électeurs se sont dits bien vainqueur », c’est-à-dire d’un parti qui arrive au deux- informés ou plutôt bien informés sur le SMP proposé par ième rang en termes de nombre de votes obtenus mais l’Assemblée des citoyens, et ce groupe était aussi plus qui décroche une majorité de sièges grâce aux singula- susceptible de donner son appui au changement du sys- rités de l’actuel système majoritaire uninominal (SMU). tème électoral. Toutefois, seuls ceux qui se considéraient Perçu comme un enjeu secondaire dans la campagne comme bien informés ont voté au référendum sur la base électorale de 2007, le référendum aura par conséquent de leurs attitudes directement favorables à une réforme suscité peu d’intérêt dans la population. électorale. Les électeurs se disant moins informés, même Les Ontariens ayant prêté si peu d’attention au référen- lorsqu’ils accordaient une grande importance à la propor- dum, il devient donc particulièrement intéressant tionnalité et à l’équité d’un scrutin, n’ont pas été influ- d’analyser leur participation et les raisons qui les ont encés par ces attitudes pour appuyer une réforme motivés. Pour ce faire, les auteurs ont étudié les données électorale pourtant censée viser ces deux questions. Ce d’un sondage réalisé auprès de 1 000 Ontariens sitôt après groupe d’électeurs moins informés était toutefois plus le scrutin, en ciblant trois aspects des votes exprimés. susceptible d’être influencé par des considérations parti- D’abord, ils ont examiné les différentes attitudes des sanes, sans qu’il s’agisse nécessairement de la position Ontariens à l’égard des élections, de l’exercice du droit de privilégiée par le parti qu’ils appuyaient. vote, de l’équité et de la proportionnalité. Les auteurs Même si l’information avait été plus complète pendant cherchaient à déterminer si ces attitudes ont constitué la campagne référendaire, les auteurs concluent donc que d’importants facteurs d’appui ou de rejet du SMP. S’ils le SMP proposé n’aurait sans doute pas obtenu les ont trouvé peu d’éléments probants qui dénoteraient une 60 p. 100 d’appuis nécessaires à son adoption. Car cer- forte insatisfaction à l’égard du système électoral, ils ont tains électeurs étaient bien au fait du changement du sys- toutefois découvert que le cynisme à l’égard du gou- tème électoral proposé et se souciaient des enjeux de vernement a eu une incidence sur le référendum. Leur proportionnalité et d’équité, mais ces attitudes favorables recherche démontre que les électeurs les plus cyniques à une réforme n’étaient pas prédominantes dans l’ensem- sont les plus susceptibles de s’abstenir de voter, tandis ble de la société. De sorte qu’on n’aurait pu modifier le que les électeurs cyniques mais bien informés sont nette- résultat du référendum et influencer les intentions de vote ment plus enclins à s’opposer au changement du système en faisant valoir auprès des citoyens le lien entre la électoral. En revanche, l’insatisfaction à l’égard de la réforme proposée et leurs attitudes.

29 Ontario’s Referendum on Proportional Representation: Why Citizens Said No Summary Laura B. Stephenson and Brian Tanguay

alls for democratic reform have been common across Canada in recent years. Ontario’s experi- C ence with addressing this issue included consider- ing a change to a mixed member proportional (MMP) The authors also analyze whether the political parties, electoral system, which was proposed by the Citizens’ and their interests, played a role in people’s attitudes and Assembly on Electoral Reform. In a referendum vote, held in how they voted in the referendum. The results suggest in October 2007, Ontarians clearly rejected the switch to that there was a division between the larger (Liberal, PC) the proposed MMP system. and smaller (NDP, Green) parties in terms of support for In this paper, Laura Stephenson and Brian Tanguay the proposal, but that partisans of the three main parties investigate several aspects of Ontario’s recent experience in the province (Liberal, PC, NDP) were largely unsure of with electoral reform, from the political context that the positions on MMP adopted by their own parties. Not brought about the process, to the details of the citizens’ surprisingly, then, partisanship, as well as specific knowl- assembly, to attitudes of Ontarians about electoral reform. edge of the preferred outcome of a party, had little effect They argue that the issue of electoral reform in Ontario on the outcome of the referendum vote. was not highly politicized. There was no history of mobi- Finally, the role of information in the referendum vote lization by high-profile political actors in support of a is analyzed. Over 65 percent of voters felt that they were more proportional electoral system, and Ontario had not either very familiar or somewhat familiar with the MMP experienced a recent electoral triumph by a “wrong win- system proposed by the citizens’ assembly, and these vot- ner” — a situation where the party with the second-most ers were more likely to support the electoral change. Only votes obtains a majority of the legislative seats, thanks to those who felt familiar with the MMP electoral system the peculiarities of the current first past the post (FPTP) considered attitudes that related directly to electoral system. The referendum also received limited attention reform in their referendum voting decision. Those who from the public, being almost an afterthought in the 2007 felt less informed, even if they felt strongly about propor- campaign. tionality and fairness in elections, were not influenced by Given the lack of attention to the referendum, the those attitudes to support the change to an electoral sys- question of how Ontarians voted in it, and why, is partic- tem that promised to address both of these issues. ularly interesting to investigate. The authors draw upon However, those who felt less informed were more likely to data from a survey of one thousand Ontarians conducted be swayed by partisan considerations, although not immediately after the election to analyze the factors that specifically by the preferences of their preferred party. contributed to voters’ choices. Three particular aspects of The authors demonstrate that even if the referendum voting are explored. First, the authors explore the atti- campaign had been more informative, the MMP proposal tudes that Ontarians hold about elections, voting, fairness would not likely have obtained the 60 percent support and proportionality, and whether these attitudes were required in order to pass. Even if individuals were famil- salient factors in voting for or against the MMP electoral iar with the electoral system, and were influenced by system. Although they find little evidence of strong dis- concerns for proportionality and fairness, these attitudes content with the electoral system, they do find that cyni- were not dominant in society, and therefore having citi- cism about government was a factor in the referendum, zens more likely to make the connection between the ref- as the most cynical voters were more likely not to vote, erendum vote and these attitudes would not have and informed cynical voters were significantly more like- changed the outcome. ly to oppose the electoral change. However, dissatisfac- tion with democracy and opinions about the appropriate proportionality of electoral outcomes did not even regis- ter as significant influences on referendum voting for those who did go to the polls. 30