100 Prominent Ontarians Call For Voting Reform
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Fair Vote Ontario (FVO), a project of Fair Vote Canada, today released the names of more than 100 prominent ontarians who are petitioning the provincial political parties to support a public process that will lead to the adoption of a fair voting system for Ontario. Among those supporting the petition are former Ontario Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander, former Premier Bob Rae, former Tory MP Patrick Boyer, former Canadian Alliance advisor Rick Anderson, and former Liberal advisor and Royal Commission chair Tom Kent.
“The current winner-take-all voting system distorts election results and almost always produces phony majority governments in Ontario,†said Fair Vote Ontario director Wayne Smith. “The voting system routinely gives a majority of seats in the Ontario legislature to a single party, even when that party fails to win a majority of votes cast. The last time Ontario was governed by a legitimate majority government, put in place by a majority of voters, was 1929-1934.â€
Other petition supporters include business leader Avie Bennett, noted authors Pierre Berton, Farley Mowat and Alice Munro, taxpayers’ advocate Walter Robinson, former Olympic athlete Bruce Kidd, economist Sylvia Ostry, Toronto mayoral candidates Barbara Hall, John Nunziata and David Miller, and entertainers Gordon Pinsent, Karen Kain, Bruce Cockburn, Stompin’ Tom Connors and the cast of the Royal Canadian Air Farce. Also included are scientist Ursula Franklin, former church leader and Senator Lois Wilson, and former Canadian Political Science Association presidents Sylvia Bashevkin and Peter Russell.
@ August 29, 2003