UNews - political scientist

No easy solution to electoral reform

caroline.zentner — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 20:10:26 +0000

Changing Canada’s electoral system will mean making compromises, a point that ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge political science professor, Dr. Harold Jansen, stressed during his appearance before a recent meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform.

Federal elections in Canada use the first past the post (FPTP) system where the candidate with the most votes in a riding becomes its Member of Parliament. As a result, many candidates win their seats with less than 50 per cent of votes. About a year ago when he was Liberal leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would, if elected, create a committee to look at alternatives to the FPTP system. Alternatives include proportional representation, ranked ballots, mandatory voting and online voting. Jansen was one of several experts to testify before the special committee.

“I would support moving to a proportional system but there are absolutely some costs to that and some uncertainty about what that might mean. We don’t know entirely what that effect would have. You can’t anticipate all the outcomes,” he says.

In his role as a political scientist, Jansen fully grasps the complexity of political systems and he knows easy answers and simple solutions aren’t part of the picture.

“With electoral systems, there are all these competing things we’re trying to achieve at the same time and they don’t go nicely together,” says Jansen. “Canadians tell us they want a system that’s fair, where if you get 20 per cent of the vote you should get 20 per cent of the seats. At the same time, they want majority governments. We can’t have both those things so we have to make tradeoffs.”

Proportional representation (PR) is one of the alternatives to the FPTP system. In PR, the percentage of votes a party gets is the percentage of seats they get in the House of Commons. In the alternative vote (AV) system, the voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. A candidate who gains more than half the votes as the first preference among voters would be elected. If no candidate attains a majority of votes, the candidate who received the fewest first preferences would be eliminated and their votes moved to their second preferences. The process continues until one candidate has half the votes. Much like the AV system, the single transferable vote has voters rank candidates but more than one candidate can be elected.

“With the single transferable vote, you tend to get pretty good correspondence between the percentage of the vote and the percentage of the seats in that district,” he says.

Jansen did his doctoral dissertation on the use of the single transferable vote and the alternative vote in Alberta and Manitoba between 1920 and 1955. He currently researches online citizenship or how people engage in politics through the Internet. Surveys show about 38 per cent of Canadians are concerned about the safety of online voting. Even though they think it’s risky, Jansen found many are enthusiastic about online voting. People with high incomes are more likely to vote online, as are those who feel comfortable online and have good technical skills. Older people who didn’t grow up with online technology are the least likely to want to vote online.

“When it comes to paper voting, the older you are the more likely you are to vote. So the message that I wanted to get to the committee was that, if you do decide to make online voting an option, it should be something supplemental. We shouldn’t have fewer polling stations or cut back on the traditional kinds of things that we do. We don’t want to disenfranchise people,” says Jansen.

After his initial presentation, many MPs had questions about how to get citizens to buy into a new electoral system, whether a referendum should be held and the effects of various kinds of systems.

“I told them I didn’t think the alternative vote was a very good option because I don’t think it fixes the fundamental problem that we don’t get a House of Commons that looks like how people voted,” he says.

Overall, Jansen says he found the experience a positive one. MPs on the committee were curious, respectful and willing to grapple with a difficult task on a short timeline. The committee will likely have to report this fall because Elections Canada needs about two years to implement any kind of change.

“I was excited to get the invitation and honoured to have been asked,” says Jansen. “Some of the other people they had testifying are giants in the discipline. How on earth did they ask me? I am still a little baffled by that.”

Border policies greatly affect communities

trevor.kenney — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:45:55 +0000

Close co-operation between municipalities and chambers of commerce on both sides of the border is important to ensure that decisions made in Washington, DC and Ottawa will serve the interests of most residents of the region, according to ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge political scientist Geoffrey Hale.

Groups like the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) do an excellent job of promoting broader regional interests on cross-border economic co-operation, says Hale, but there are enough different interests at play on border issues that area business groups can't take political responsiveness for granted.

"Governments in both countries naturally tend to be focused on big ticket items and the busiest border crossings, especially when they're stretched financially" says Hale, noting the ongoing work of the "Beyond the Border" Task Force announced by President Obama and Prime Minister Harper in early 2011. "This can lead to the emergence of 'nickel and dime' irritants that create unnecessary barriers to economic activity."

Recently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed that the U.S. Congress authorize a study to explore the feasibility of collecting a fee for both Americans and visitors returning to or entering the United States across its land borders with Canada and Mexico. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, about 193 million people crossed the U.S. land border in 2012 – including 1.5 million across Montana's 13 border crossings with Canada.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee quickly passed an amendment to the comprehensive immigration bill now before Congress to scrap the measure. Congress is also considering proposals to allow Canadian "snowbirds" not working in the United States to stay an additional two months (above the current six) if they own or rent property there without triggering tax penalties under complex IRS rules. Canadians have invested heavily in vacation and other properties in the Flathead Valley and elsewhere in Montana in recent years.

In 2012, almost one million vehicle crossings occurred at 13 ports of entry into Montana, including 737,724 personal vehicles, with 1,300,642 passengers, 175,770 trucks, 843 buses, 21,342 passengers; and 5,145 pedestrians – most of the latter between the border communities of Sweetgrass and Coutts. The top three crossings – Sweetgrass (I-15); Roosville (US-93), and Peigan (US-89) – account for 86 per cent of passenger vehicle and 84 per cent of truck traffic entering Montana from Canada.

"Cross-border travel, particularly for tourism and recreation, is a major engine for the economy of Flathead Valley," says Hale, who studies economic, security, and other cross-border issues between Canada and the United States. "In addition, Canadian travelers have generated much of the traffic growth at Kalispell / Glacier Park and Kalispell Airports in recent years."

Hale notes that Montana's members of Congress and area legislators have a record of engaging business interests from Montana's northern border regions with a view to promoting economic development and job creation. With members of Congress from both northern and southern border states weighing in on these types of issues, sometimes with very different priorities, it's important for Montanans who benefit from continued cross-border traffic to ensure their voices are heard on these issues, says Hale.

A Year In Review

trevor.kenney — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:05:40 +0000

Pronghorn Women Are National Rugby Champions

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns women's rugby team captured the program's first Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) national championship in November 2007.

The Horns beat the host Western Mustangs 15-10 in the title game, giving Pronghorn Athletics its first national championship since the men's hockey team captured the 1994 CIAU title. The women's rugby team had previously won a silver medal at the 2003 tournament and a bronze at the 2006 event.

Award Winners

Dr. Stewart Rood, a U of L professor of biological sciences and Board of Governors Research Chair in Environmental Science, was a 2008 recipient of the Killam Research Fellowship – one of Canada's most distinguished research awards.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ judo coach Yosh Senda (LLD '89) was invested into the Order of Canada in April for his longtime commitment to the sport of judo.

The Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program awarded U of L political scientist Dr. Chris Kukucha the 2007 Fulbright Scholarship.

The Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations presented Lisa Doolittle (Theatre and Dramatic Arts) and Emily Luce (New Media) with the organization's 2007 Distinguished Academic Award and Distinguished Academic Early Career Award, respectively.

The art of making policy

trevor.kenney — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:53:15 +0000

If you've gone through airport security lately, you've probably grumbled once or twice about the long security lines and 'random' pat-downs.

While you may blame this inconvenience on precedents set by our neighbours to the south, the policy creation is far more complicated, explains U of L Master of Arts (Political Science) student Christina Marcotte.

For her thesis, Marcotte analyzed the creation of two post-9/11 policies: the Container Security Initiative (CSI) and the NEXUS Trusted Traveler Program, using the Policy Streams model developed by American political scientist, J. Kingdon.

"I wanted to take a look at where the ideas for these programs came from and what the impetus was for adopting them," says Marcotte, who was supervised by political science professor
Dr. Geoffrey Hale.

Marcotte first became interested in security policy as a student intern at the European Institute of Public Administration, in the Netherlands. She worked for a researcher who asked her to gather details about North American foreign policy to compare with EU policy.

Hale says Marcotte is an unusually thoughtful student with a penchant for time management. "Not only did she stay ahead of her deadlines – which few students do – she also made time to serve as vice-president internal for the Graduate Students' Association."

From his office across the hall, Hale was often pleased to see a steady stream of students visiting her office.

"That is a wonderful sign of leadership," he says.

Now that she has completed her thesis, Marcotte is gearing up for a job as a junior commerce officer with Industry Canada – a position where Hale knows she will find success.

"Christina has the capacity to bridge worlds. That's a skill set she strengthened very well while she was here."

A Year In Review

trevor.kenney — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:38:35 +0000

Pronghorn Women Are National Rugby Champions

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns women's rugby team captured the program's first Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) national championship in November 2007.

Award Winners

Dr. Stewart Rood, a U of L professor of biological sciences and Board of Governors Research Chair in Environmental Science, was a 2008 recipient of the Killam Research Fellowship – one of Canada's most distinguished research awards.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ judo coach Yosh Senda (LLD '89) was invested into the Order of Canada in April for his longtime commitment to the sport of judo.

The Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program awarded U of L political scientist Dr. Chris Kukucha the 2007 Fulbright Scholarship.

The Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations presented Lisa Doolittle (Theatre and Dramatic Arts) and Emily Luce (New Media) with the organization's 2007 Distinguished Academic Award and Distinguished Academic Early Career Award, respectively.

UNews - political scientist

No easy solution to electoral reform

Related Topics

Border policies greatly affect communities

Related Topics

A Year In Review

Related Topics

The art of making policy

Related Topics

A Year In Review

Related Topics