By Daisuke Sawatake

Exploring Ontario's current election system, the 103 members of the Citizens' Assembly embarked on deliberation on potential recommendations likely to change the way Ontarians vote.

The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform is an independent body established last year, composed of 103 provincially appointed citizens, one from each of Ontario's electoral districts.

Its mandate is to assess Ontario's electoral system and make a recommendation to the government on whether to maintain it or to adopt an alternative. The assembly had a two-day meeting at Osgoode Hall at York University on Feb.17 and 18 to begin deliberations on recommendations on the provincial electoral system, in which the members selected a system called mixed member proportional, or MMP, to work up first.

"They are going to mark up one or two alternatives they can flesh out," explained Barry Koen-Butt, executive lead and communications officer of the assembly.

"Once they get two systems, they are going to look at them in detail and decide which one of those two is the better alternative to compare against the current system."

In the last weekend's meeting on March 3 and 4, members selected single transferable vote, or STV as a second alternative to consider, which was tabled as an alternative by the British Columbia Citizens Assembly but defeated in a 2004 referendum. Designed to produce less wasted votes, STV system is being used in countries such as Ireland and Malta.

George Thomson, chair of the assembly, is being cautious about a Toronto Star report suggesting the assembly gravitates to recommendation of MMP as an alternative to replace the current electoral system, stating the article left impression the assembly is close to making a decision.

"They haven't (made a decision)," said Thomson, adding they are a the long way from reaching a conclusion.

During the consultation phase from November to February, the assembly hosted 41 public meetings around the province, gathering more than 2,000 people. About 500 made formal presentations and almost twice as many made informal presentations, with opinions both in favour of and against the current system, called single member plurality, which has been familiar to Ontarians since 1792.

While the current system is favoured as simple and less costly, opponents argue the current system does not represent the views of most voters and a single party can win with a small minority of votes. In the 2003 provincial election, the Liberals won the majority of 72 seats with 46.4 per cent of the popular vote, while the Progressive Conservatives gained 24 seats and NDP was given seven seats, with 34.6 and 14.7 per cent of the vote respectively.

Mixed member proportional system, however, would earn more small parties representation and lead to more frequent emergence of minority governments, according to the summary of the consultation meetings. According to Koen-Butt, there is solid support for a change to a more proportional system.

"That seems to be what people want. We hear tendency for a change," he said.

Meanwhile, the Students' Assembly on Electoral Reform, a grass-roots parallel assembly for Ontario high school students, recommended the province adopt the mixed member proportional system as an alternative, which happened to be the same system the Citizens' Assembly marked up as a first choice. Thomson said the Citizens' Assembly is unique model of citizens' involvement in democracy, in stark contrast to conventional ways of involvement where citizens have to voice to their government what they think promptly, usually without enough knowledge over issues posed to the public.

With eight months being invested, the assembly helps citizens learn about issues thoroughly. "A big challenge for me as a chair is make sure every assembly member feels they get involved in decision-making," said the chair.

Koen-Butt said some people are critical of the Citizens' Assembly, expressing skepticism about the capability of the randomly-selected members.

"That's so wrong. These members are so capable, so committed and learned so well. They don't need anyone to tell them what to do," he said. "Citizens make decisions for themselves. Neither a panel of experts nor academics make decisions for them."

The final recommendation of the assembly is due on May 15. If the assembly recommends the government adopt a new electoral system, its recommendation will be put to a province-wide referendum in conjunction with the provincial election in October.