A few good reasons for a strong 'no' vote Oct. 10

Progressive Conservative leader John Tory became the first party leader in the current election campaign to state his personal opposition to the electoral reform proposal that will be put to voters in a referendum to be held in conjunction with the Oct. 10 provincial election.

The National Post says he told that paper's editorial board that he is wary of the proposed mixed-member proportional (MMP) system because some MPPs would be "appointed by party bosses and accountable to no constituents."

He said he was "very skeptical about a system that ... adds more politicians to begin with," adding: "I haven't met a single voter yet who has told me they're looking to add more politicians to the Ontario legislature, or any other place."

Tory criticized the proposed system, which would raise the number of seats at Queen's Park to 129 from 107 but would also reduce the number of ridings to 90. Under the scheme, the parties would create lists of candidates from which an additional 39 MPPs would be selected.

"The notion to me that you'd have a whole bunch of people that would be down there now who will be accountable only to party bosses who put their names on the list, to me seems to be making the place less democratic, not more, and less accountable."

At Premier Dalton McGuinty's request, the system was developed by an independent citizens' assembly of 103 voters from across the province. The assembly did not suggest how political parties should draw up their lists of candidates, and to date McGuinty has not taken a stand for or against the idea.

Tory said that if he became premier he would favour parliamentary reform instead. One of his top five priorities would be to introduce changes that would give MPPs a more meaningful role.

Supporters of MMP argue that the list system could make the legislature more diverse if parties included more women and ethnic minorities as "list" choices. The number of female candidates in New Zealand, for example, has jumped to one-third from one-fifth since voters there approved MMP in a 1993 referendum.

In our view, the least significant reason for opposing MMP is the proposed addition of 22 MPPs. Far more significant is the absurd requirement that, in the face of Ontario's growing population, the number of ridings should be slashed so as to require "ordinary" MPPs to represent far more residents than their counterparts in Ottawa.

Were MMP to be implemented, the average MPP would not only have a riding much larger than the federal constituency but would have to represent about 140,000 Ontarians - almost exactly the current population of Prince Edward Island!

Over the years, successive governments have already gone a long way in terms of enlarging the provincial ridings, the last major change being the Fewer Politicians Act of the Mike Harris government, which eliminated about one-third of the legislature seats by adopting the federal electoral boundaries.

As a result, for the first time in Ontario history, our federal and provincial politicians will represent the same constituents, and in our case MP David Tilson and whoever wins Dufferin-Caledon on Oct. 10 will try to serve the interests of the same 120,000 residents.

Clearly, the only real benefit achieved by some form of proportional representation would be its guarantee that a political party supported by a significant portion of the population gets some presence in the legislature. In recent times, New Brunswick and British Columbia have provided examples of the "first past the post" system giving too many seats to the winning party.

In 2001, the B.C. Liberals captured 77 of the provincial legislature's 79 seats despite the fact the NDP garnered about 21.6% of the popular vote. In 1987, New Brunswick's Liberals, led by Frank McKenna, won all of the province's 58 legislature seats with just 60% of the popular vote.

At present, the major beneficiary of MMP in Ontario would be the Green Party, which will probably win about one vote in 12 but no seats in the House.

All the reform that's really needed in our current multi-party system is a guarantee of some representation for a party that garners at least 5% of the popular vote. That could be accomplished by maintaining the existing electoral boundaries and having 10 or 20 "at large" MPPs, who should all be required to have run unsuccessfully in the election.

The currently proposed form of MMP richly deserves to be rejected as fundamentally flawed.