An Afterword to Proportional Representation
As I wrote in an earlier blog, I have become less enamored with Proportional Representation since my support of it between 1995-2005. I have arrived at the conclusion that representative policy is not worth a whole lot if the people implementing that policy are not capable or willing to enforce the policy. Representation is not enough as demonstrated in the corporate business world.
A modern business corporation will have departmental representation from Finance, HR, Technology, Administration, etc. It is important to have representation from each of these segments for a corporation to run effectively and to be competitive. It needs to know what is going on with its resources in its various forms (people, money, manufacturing, etc). But does having this representation guarantee that the corporation will succeed?
No. There are plenty of examples of very rich corporations who have a CEO, COO, CFO, CHRO, CTO, CAO, and Chief Whatever Officer who also spend millions in additional consulting costs and still end up losing money or going under. Thanks Enron for providing such a glorious example.
PR is no different. It ensures that everyone has a place at the table which is important for healthy functioning, but what is done once everyone is at the table returns to the realm of human relations and individual competency. We as voters are stuck because for the most part we have not developed a consistent way of knowing the quality of the people we are electing. Diversity is a worthy value to pursue, but even more so we need competent leadership.
It all comes down to this: A good leader will ignore bad policy and enforce good policy. A bad leader will ignore good policy and enforce bad policy. The good and bad policy will exist regardless of who is in power, but the quality of the leader will determine the experience of that policy. I have witnessed well-meaning but incompetent managers turn a blind eye to workplace harassment despite a well-written and comprehensive anti-harassment policy being on the books. Good policy is meaningless without enforcement. It is the same thing with governments. The best written legislation made by a PR elected government is useless if its people are incapable to actually enforce the law.
Proportional Representation is simply a fairer way of electing our governments, but it does not guarantee good government. Good government is determined by the quality of people you elect. PR would guarantee fair government in terms of electoral accountability and is really like the computer programming acronym of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). If you have dumb, short-sighted people standing for election in all the political parties, you will end up with a dumb, short-sighted government that just so happens to be fully represented thanks to PR.
Do we need PR? Yes, but I don’t agree with Fair Vote Ontario’s 2007 Referendum Campaign recommendation for a Mixed Member List system which emphasizes too much ideological purity. An ideal voting system needs to combine aspects of fairness tempered with the ability to choose styles of personality and leadership. That is why if I was to endorse a voting system, it would be the STV (Single Transferable Vote) system. Vote for who you like according to your spectrum of affinity. It puts more control in the hands of the voter and I think would force political parties to find better candidates.
I am far less interested in a candidate who stands for a particular party, but one who demonstrate the essential skills of emotional intelligence. I hope to blog in the future about ways to tease out the competency and leadership of the people we elect.
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