Step back and observe the configurations, compositions and driving cogs of today's democratic societies, and one will find that there is one repeating theme; the sharing of power. Corporations, religious sects, universities, unions, and hospitals make decisions through committees, conferences and compromises. Why is it then that when it comes to running our country we still entrust power to a single select group and expect them to make the most auspicious decisions for Canadians every time? The Canadian government is a concentrated power structure out of step with other aspects of society. For our democracy to keep pace with the developing world, Canadian citizens must face these facts, as citizens in other countries have, and restore our political structures to mirror the broad range of political dispositions in today's diverse communities. This goal can only be achieved by abolishing the current electoral system of plurality and implementing proportional representation.

The current political electoral system in place in Canada today is called the plurality system or first past the post. Under this system adopted from the British, the country is divided up into 30

The most commonly accepted rule of democracy is that government should make decisions according to majority rule. However, under the plurality system, the Progressive Conservative Party was able to pass the Goods and Services tax (GST) while it's MP's were only representing 43% of Canadian voters. Another bias of the first past the post system is that some parties have promoted separatism and plurality gives them more power than the electoral support wants. The Bloc Quebecois won 72% of the seats in the 1993 Quebec provincial election, with only 49.2% of the votes. Once again we see evidence of one of the plurality system's major flaws, inequity. It makes one person's vote count for less than another's. In the 1997 federal election, 886,000 voters in Ontario supported the Reform party, however, they did not earn one seat. Conversely, in Alberta 577,000 voters for Reform earned 24 seats which meant that a vote in Alberta is worth more than a vote in Ontario.

8) Wilma, Rule and Steven Hill."Ain't I A Voter?" (October 1996) http://www.igc.apc.org/enVISION/women.html

4) CPB Web Publishing "Canadians for Proportional Representation" http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbailie/C4PR/ (October 27,1999)

7) Amy, Douglas "What is Proportional Representation?"( January 12, 1996) http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/whatispr.html (October 24, 1999)

Adopting mixed PR would be a giant leap forward for Canadian democracy. It is apparently obvious to everyone that something must be done to resurrect our current political attrition. In a federally commissioned study, obtained by The Citizen under the Access to Information Act, it says Canada must "overhaul its system of government, especially the Senate and electoral process, or face the risk of disintegration....at present Canada seems to be sleepwalking toward disaster." The candidly worded paper by C.E.S. Franks, a political scientist at Queen's University in Kingston also said that "the Canadian government seems to be paralyzed, a cobra hypnotized by the mongoose of disunity and unable to arouse itself to positive action." Mr. Franks, a veteran analyst of politics and government, completed the study last May for the federal Privy Council Office.

11) Barker, Paul and Mark Charlton. (eds.), Crosscurrents: Contemporary Political Issues, Vol.III, pp. 428-451.

However, electing more women to legislatures is not only a matter of fairness. The increasing presence of women in legislatures makes a substantial difference in the types of legislation that are proposed and passed into law. In a study comparing legislation in major democracies, Dr. Arend Lijphart, professor of political science and president of the American Political Science Association, found that "countries with proportional representation -- which generally elect a much higher percentage of women than Canada -- have enacted more laws that benefit women and children" . His research shows that "the number one predictor of women's success in national legislative elections, when tested with other political and socio-economic variables, is the presence of proportional representation (PR) voting systems" . One could argue then that plurality should be abolished if not for the many reasons listed thus far, than simply because it impedes the progression of women's rights and prevents them from being equally represented in the governing of our nation.

Proportional representation also carries other significant political advantages. Under PR, women would have a much fairer chance of being elected. The under representation of women in municipal, provincial and federal legislatures is an ongoing problem in our political system. Despite recent gains for women, they occupied a mere 17 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons in the '93 election and a mere 11 per cent of the seats in the U.S. Congress. "PR countries typically have much higher rates of female elected officials in their national legislature - 41 per cent in Sweden, and

Some common words found in the essay are:
Ontario Third, Science Association, Bloc Quebecois, Britain Western, Lithuania Hungary, Congress PR, Canadians Canadian, Italy Israel, Tory MLA, Chimpanzee Party, proportional representation, plurality system, electoral system, votes elect, seats house, bloc quebecois, federal election, party lists, vote party, people vote, democracies eastern europe, europe former soviet, former soviet union, eastern europe former, canada's electoral system,
Approximate Word count = 2904
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)