Full speed towards a two-party system: How voting Liberal or Conservative in the 2025 Election Perpetuates a Broken Democracy. Go ahead downvote someone who's trying to get proportional representation
Facts:
- Neither the Liberal Party nor Conservative Party support proportional representation.
- To be Canadian is to be in favour of Democracy, and in a democracy everyone is deserving of proportionate representation. Therefore, not supporting proportional representation is anti-Canadian.
- If you aren't voting for a party that supports proportional representation, you are a part of the problem.
The Math Doesn't Lie: We're Running Out of Time
With Duverger's Law in action, Canada is steadily moving toward a two-party system. Our effective number of parties has already declined to 2.76 in 2021 - compare this to the US at 2.00. Unless we implement proportional representation, our multi-party democracy will continue to erode until we're locked into the same polarized two-party deadlock that plagues the United States.
The Liberal Party's Long History of Broken Promises
- Liberals have campaigned on proportional representation since 1919, starting with Mackenzie King
- In 2015, Justin Trudeau promised over 1,800 times that it would be "the last election under first-past-the-post"
- After securing a false majority, Trudeau abandoned reform when he couldn't get his preferred non-proportional ranked ballot system
- In 2024, Trudeau admitted that Liberals were "deliberately vague" about electoral reform to appeal to PR advocates
- Mark Carney claims to be "open" to electoral reform while avoiding firm commitments - despite being an economist who should understand the mathematics of fair representation
- In 2024, 107 Liberal MPs (68.6% of Liberal MPs) voted against creating a National Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform
The Conservative Position: Status Quo Benefits Them
- Conservatives consistently favor maintaining FPTP
- Pierre Poilievre shows no interest in changing the system that could benefit his party with minority support
- The current electoral system enables single-party rule with a minority of votes
- Both major parties benefit from policy lurch, where each new government undoes the work of the previous one
The Democratic Deficit: Millions of Votes That Don't Matter
Our current system systematically discards millions of perfectly valid ballots. In the 2025 Ontario election, 51.6% of voters in Hastings-Lennox and Addington had no representation whatsoever in Queen's Park. This isn't a bug - it's a feature of winner-take-all systems like FPTP.
In a democracy, citizens are deserving of and entitled to representation in government, and only proportional representation can dependably deliver that.
The Only Viable Solution: Proportional Representation
Only proportional representation can ensure that every vote counts toward electing representatives. Both Mixed Member Proportional and Single Transferable Vote would maintain strong local representation while ensuring proportional outcomes.
This isn't a partisan issue - it's about fundamental democratic legitimacy. A system where roughly 50% of ballots make no difference to election outcomes cannot be called a full democracy, regardless of how well the elections themselves are administered.
Who Actually Supports Proportional Representation?
Only the Green Party🟢, NDP🟧, and Bloc Québécois⚜️ consistently support proportional representation.
When 76% of Canadians support electoral reform but both major parties refuse to deliver it, something is fundamentally broken with our system.
The Strategic Voting Trap
Many will argue that voting for PR-supporting parties will "split the vote." This circular logic perpetuates the very system that makes people feel their votes don't count. If you keep voting strategically for parties that refuse to implement PR, you're guaranteeing the system will never change.
The only wasted vote is one cast for a party that won't fix our democracy.
Downvote Away
I know this post will likely be downvoted by those invested in maintaining our broken system. But consider this: in 2025, do you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem? Are you willing to perpetuate a system where millions of votes make no difference, or will you stand for a democracy where every vote truly counts?
If democracy matters to you, then your vote should reflect that.