Democracy & Electoral Reform
Today, 86 per cent of Canadians believe corrupt backroom deals are common in Ottawa, 88 per cent believe corruption is easy to get away with, and 93 per cent have little or no confidence that politicians follow the rules. Canadians have reached this consensus because the evidence is everywhere, the same corporations that gut working Canadians' wages and jack up the price of groceries are the ones funding the campaigns of the politicians who are supposed to regulate them, through third-party advertising, leadership race financing, and the informal networks that connect corporate Canada to the parties that govern in its interest.
Liberals and Conservatives have for decades coalesced around one another, agreeing to dole out billions to corporations and cut the public services working Canadians depend on to pay for it, while tearing each other apart in the press to maintain the fiction that they are any different from one another. The only way to end it is to put power back in the hands of working Canadians over our own government. That is what proportional representation, campaign finance reform, and real ethics enforcement make possible. Everything else we are fighting for depends on it.
“The greatest way to defend
democracy is to make it work.”
—Tommy Douglas
Proportional Representation
New Democrats have long supported moving Canada to a system of proportional representation, one where the number of seats a party wins in Parliament actually reflects the share of votes it receives from Canadians. Under first-past-the-post, a party can win a majority government with as little as 38 per cent of the vote, leaving the majority of voters unrepresented in government. This is a distortion of democracy that has for far too long allowed the ruling class to exercise its will without accountability. New Democrats will make every single vote count; from Abbotsford to Skookumchuck, we’re committed to making every single voice in our riding heard. The leader of the New Democratic Party has stated clearly: if we are made kingmaker in a minority government, we will make one demand: proportional representation. Because everything we're fighting for, an end to monopoly power, an end to corporate welfare, real investment in housing, healthcare, and transit, none of it is achievable until we end the two-party duopoly; until we put power back in the hands of working Canadians.
Senate Reform
The Senate of Canada remains an appointed body, appointed by Prime Ministers, accountable to no one, and capable of blocking legislation passed by an elected House of Commons. New Democrats have long called for the abolition of the Senate, or failing that, fundamental reform that makes it elected and accountable. An unelected chamber with the power to delay or defeat legislation is incompatible with the basic democratic principle that those who make laws should answer to the people they govern.
Strengthen Federal Ethics And Accountability
While the Prime Minister is required to put all their investments in a blind trust to prevent them from being influenced by their personal holdings, MPs, those whom we entrust to speak up for us, are required to do no such thing. Even as they’re paid an exorbitant salary of more than $200,000 per year, are flown to and from their riding for free, and have their housing paid for in Ottawa, 40 per cent of Canadian MPs still feel it necessary to invest in the housing market, making them a part of the class that benefits from the housing crisis. These are the same MPs calling for and voting to defund your healthcare, your transit, your housing. New Democrats are demanding strengthened conflict of interest rules that require the full divestiture of interests in regulated industries by Cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister, independent enforcement of those rules, and real penalties for violations. We can no longer allow Members of Parliament to exploit their position for profit, nor allow corporate interests to influence our most trusted institutions.
Lower The Voting
Age To 16
Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds in Canada can work and pay income tax, but they can't vote on the government that taxes them or the policies that will shape the rest of their working lives. Parliament has debated lowering the voting age to 16 more than ten times over the past two decades, in bills sponsored by New Democrats, Greens, Liberals, and independent senators alike, yet every one has died on the order paper. In Austria, where the voting age is 16, turnout among 16- and 17-year-olds in federal elections reached 64 per cent, higher than turnout among first-time voters aged 18 to 20. That's why New Democrats will lower the federal voting age to 16, giving young people a say in the decisions being made about the country they'll spend the longest living in. No longer should workers, paying into the system, whose lives will be impacted by the decisions made by politicians today, be taxed without representation.