Last week was Democracy Week in Canada, and it is great that we are discussing democracy and proportional representation on the letters page.
One writer wants to throw out representative democracy because political parties have hijacked our democratic system to form governments that do not represent the voters and who make decisions with little regard of the consequences for many citizens.
But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The leaders of those parties who have won office in this country have been able to centralize power within their parties and within the legislature, partly because of our voting system, which allows parties to get a majority of seats with less than 40 per cent of the vote while keeping at bay other parties with substantial, but less, voter support.
Changing to a proportional voting system can help invigorate our representative democracy by forcing the political parties to really compete during elections while forcing them to co-operate between elections.
When a party with 40 per cent of the popular vote only gets 40 per cent of the seats, then it must work with other parties to govern, or lose forming the government to a coalition of parties who can work together.
Newer parties with 10 per cent or 20 per cent of the popular vote are able to win seats and so challenge the established parties, forcing them to change or lose relevance.
As well, many more voters will find that they have a representative they voted for.
Wendy Bergerud
Saanich
