In the three Federal by-elections just concluded, Elections Canada reports that in two of them, the majority voted against the person who won. Two of the so-called winners were supported by only 37% of the voters because of vote splitting among the other candidates. If you believe representative democracy means majority rule, this amounts to the counterfeit of democracy.
Farmers who ran the elections for Canadian Wheat Board Directors had a better way. They voted by ranking each of the candidates in a district on a “Preferential Ballot.” By indicating their first, second, and third choices, farmers insured that the winner was always supported by at least 50% plus one of the voters. In every CWB election, eight out of the 10 farmer-elected directors supported keeping the CWB as the exclusive marketer of wheat and barley so we know the majority of farmers supported the single desk.
We don’t know who the second, third and fourth choices of voters would have been in these Federal by-elections in Calgary and Victoria but we do know the majority are unhappy with the results.
The farmer-democracy at our single-desk CWB was so good Agriculture Minister Ritz took it away. He threw out the farmer-elected CWB Directors and appointed his own people to run his counterfeit version of the farmer-run CWB, (now called “Canadian Wheat and Barley”).
Federal Justice Campbell said of Ritz’s actions that they were “an affront to the rule of law.” They were also an affront to a better form of democracy than what Canadians now have.
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