NDP Leader Jack Layton

NDP government would move to proportional voting

Updated Tue. Dec. 27 2005 5:47 PM ET

Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Should Jack Layton's New Democrats hold the balance of power after election night, the price for its support is sure to include a move to a new voting system - one that could give Canadians a steady string of minority governments.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Layton's eyes shone at the prospect of moving the country towards a voting system of proportional representation. That was key party issue in the 2004 campaign, but was pushed aside when the NDP came up two seats short of holding a real balance of power in the last Parliament.

"I don't want to be two votes short," again, Layton said recently.

"I want us to have the ability to achieve what we came here to do. . .and proportional representation will be a big part of any discussion."

Proportional representation is a type of voting system that gives parties seats in proportion to their total national vote count.

That would help the NDP, which tends to win larger numbers of votes across the country than its relatively small number of seats in the Commons reflects.

But in more evenly distributing seat numbers among political parties, the system - which has about 300 variations - may prevent any one party from forming a majority.

To help promote PR, Layton has convinced former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, who at 69 is retiring from public life, to stick around a little longer to advise him on how to push through changes to the way Canadians vote.

Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin brushed Layton off earlier this year, after an initial promise to pursue electoral reform, the NDP leader recalled with some frustration and a hint of anger.

"He said, 'You're two votes short,' " to make any demands, said Layton.

"And that was the story of this Parliament. Arrogance. 'You're two votes short, you haven't got enough power to keep me in power, so to heck with you.' "

Layton clearly enjoyed the turnabout that came a few months later, when Martin needed every NDP vote as well as the support of Independent MPs in the Commons to pass the Liberal budget and keep his minority government alive through the summer and into fall.

Layton's price for supporting the budget?

The Liberals were forced to revise the document to eliminate corporate tax cuts and boost spending by $4.6 billion on NDP priorities like social housing and public transit.

"It's interesting how things change with your perspective," Layton recalled with some satisfaction.

"When you're hanging on the edge of the cliff, the guy who wanted to reach out a hand to get some work done turns out to be relevant."

Layton has run a smooth but low-profile campaign so far with few of the problems he ran into in 2004 - most notably, when he irked his own party by suggesting he would scrap the Clarity Act on Quebec's future if the opportunity arose.

Layton admits he learned a few hard lessons from the 2004 campaign.

"I've learned that you don't have to answer hypothetical questions," he said.

"I'm an academic, and of course when students would ask me hypothetical questions in the classroom, naturally you'd answer them," he added.

"What I found (in 2004) was you can spend your whole life answering questions about what might be at some time in the future if this happened and if that happened. It can steer you into all kinds of hypothetical corners."

The NDP also learned from the bitter, close defeat in 2004 of Layton's wife Olivia Chow, a veteran Toronto city councillor.

Chow, who is running again for a federal seat, is concentrating this time on the fight in her own riding and staying away from Layton's national campaign.

"She does that with my full support, because I want to make sure she does everything she possibly can to be elected," Layton said.

In the final week of the last campaign, over-confident party organizers shifted volunteers from Chow's riding to help other local campaigns, only to be stunned by defeat.

"In some ways we've now been through it, so. . .whatever happens, we're ready."

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