The following is a letter sent to The Toronto Star this morning in which I pose a question for The Star's Editorial Board to consider as they sit down today with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. My question has to do with whether his party has the courage to champion and bring into being some form of proportional representation. It's an important question that should be asked of all party leaders.

To the Editorial Board,

Our first past the post system excludes representation for millions of Canadians. For example, some four hundred thousand Albertans did not vote for Conservative candidates in the last general election, accounting for about one third of total votes cast. In my view the dominance of single-party politics in some regions of Canada, indeed within some regions of each province or territory, is damaging to the unity of our country.

An electoral system based on proportional representation would see other voices emerge from areas where first past the post precludes those voices from being heard. This can only be positive for national unity when tough questions -- such as the competing issues of energy and environment -- need answering.

Canadians are not binary and it is not only this election where the electorate has demonstrated that it prefers a multitude of voices. One could call this the Canadian way.

In light of our absolutely entrenched multi-party political system, Does Mr. Ignatieff see value in modernizing our country's electoral system? Would a Liberal led government have the courage to introduce and get passed some form of proportional representation in its very next mandate? If so, how would you contemplate stick handling this through the Conservative dominated Senate?

Best regards

Michael Watkins

Per-vote subsidies for political party funding were brought in by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien in conjunction with tough new limits on corporate and personal political donations. The idea was to make political funding less of an impediment for a flourishing democracy. Stephen LeDrew, a former president of the Liberal Party, back then called the idea "dumb as a bag of hammers", yet since that infamous comment was made we've seen elections partly fought on this funding formula and here we are again. Stephen Harper has vowed to eliminate this funding formula.

Elizabeth May's Green Party are likely more reliant on the vote subsidy than any other party. Maybe this particular challenge should be a focus for her rather than participation in the leader's debates. Did the Green Party arrange its 2 million dollar line of credit for this election campaign in part on the promise or assumption that the vote subsidy will be there afterwards to help pay the debt?

Lest someone paint me as a carbon loving dinosaur, I'm a "green" voter through and through but these days can't bring myself to waste my vote on a local Green candidate because my vote truly is wasted here in my home riding of Vancouver-Kingsway. Truth be told I'm also of like mind with David Suzuki who once said, paraphrased, that he wished the Green Party would completely disappear because green politics needs to be a fixture of every party, not seen as a special issue for a special issue party. Our current political system is not friendly to parties seen as single issue focussed; maybe in some future Canada I'd change my mind altogether but not now.

One assessment we can make with certainty is that Stephen Harper's Conservative Party and government are the least green option out there. If you want to see carbon-loving dinosaurs walking the earth today, look toward the dark blue political signs.

Harper vows to end party subsidies (April 1, 2011 - CBC News) Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is still committed to scrapping party subsidies but says it would be impossible unless he formed a majority government.

Tired of constant campaigns, Harper says he'll scrap per-vote subsidy (April 1, 2011 - The Globe and Mail) Stephen Harper is blaming per-vote taxpayer subsidies for causing frequent elections and is promising to cut this assistance if he wins a majority government.

On this morning's Bill Good show - right wing talk-back radio here in Vancouver - Mr. Good wonders aloud where all the good folks from Vancouver-Kingsway are on the potential defeat of the Harper government by a coalition. Good implies there may be some sort of double standard in the comparing today's community response to that over David Emerson jumping from Liberal to Conservative parties less than 24 hours after the ballots were counted.

Before responding to Good's challenge, let me first turn the question around.

Where were you, Bill Good, when Emerson ignored the will of the people here?

I'll answer for Good: You were silent on the issue. Sure, the Emerson affair made for good copy on the more pedestrian CTV nightly news show you anchor, but it was clear from your ongoing commentary on talk radio that you never took the side of real democracy and indeed in later times you expressed nothing but support for Emerson.

As for where voters here are on the issue, I imagine there are a mixed range of thoughts and emotions, many of which are bound to be as ill-informed as is clearly in evidence all across this country. The parties, and fairly we can single out the Conservatives especially, are further confusing the public with overheated rhetoric and misinformation as to the nature of our parliamentary system of governance.

Speaking personally, not as a spokesperson for the Campaign to De-Elect David Emerson, I opposed what Emerson did not because he had no right to do it as an MP (he did have the right) but because he violated the trust of voters. Had he sat as a CPC back bencher and voted along the same lines as he had as a Liberal, I'd have had much less of an argument with him. However by accepting a cabinet position, Emerson was duty bound to work against the very campaign platform he was elected upon, and that is a breach of trust. I support anti-floor crossing legislation because more often than not floor-crossing results in such undemocratic flip flops.

As for the current drama, it would be helpful if the media could at least de-mystify the proceedings. What is being proposed is entirely democratic - a majority of members in the House of Commons are not Conservative Party MPs, and they represent a majority of Canadians who elected them from across the country. Thus from a democratic principles perspective, it is easy to support the right of the opposition parties to try to form a government, whether one agrees with the outcome or not.

Whether now is the time for such a move, and whether such a coalition can ultimately be successful in delivering positive results for Canada, are entirely different questions.

When the furore in Ottawa has died, and when the economic issues facing the country have been well addressed, parliamentarians and Canadians should return their attention to one of the root problems in our country: Our first past the post electoral system. In the past my traditionalist tendencies have prevented me from accepting it was time to change our antiquated electoral system based on plurality voting. I'm not so hesitant these days.