First-past-the-post

I find it frustrating reading the comments in the Star and Globe and Mail, etc., as most everyone seems to buy into the present system of electing our federal politicians. I just finished reading Doris Anderson's book, "Rebel Daughter". In the final chapter she does some wishing about how else things could be. I was particularly in agreement with her description of proportional representation. She asks, quite rightly, why Canada continues to cling to the out-of-date electoral system, which by the way, is only used in the USA and the UK, besides in Canada. In our present system a party can win an overwhelming majority with less than 40% of the vote. That's exactly what the parties are vying for in this 2011 election. Once in power they operate like little dictators all the while claiming that they have the will of the people with their "majority" win. To quote Anderson for a bit: "Proportional representation, used in most western democracies, is much fairer, more representative, and accommodates itself to a much wider diversity of political opinion. Each party gets the same proportion of members in parliament as they garner in votes." (p.278)
She goes on to say that in our present system the parties all try to crowd the middle of the political spectrum to the point where it's difficult to differentiate between the parties. We need to consider a more amiable way of electing politicians if we are to avoid heading further towards a two-party system where little is left to distinguish the two from each other. Otherwise, we simply vote for the ones we like the best at the moment and then are ignored till the next election is called. A choice between twiddle-dee and twiddle-dum.
As I see it, it's a lot like school yard bullies trying to impress the crowds with their bravado and hoping to get as many on their side as possible in order to "win" the fight. They make promises they can't keep hoping to attract the crowds. They hide their weakness so as to impress everyone with their abilities that are to be seen as beyond the normal reach of the common folk. No wonder we are disappointed when we find out our political leaders are only human and make mistakes.
I would like to be able to vote for a party that closely represents my world view and know that there's an excellent chance that there'll be a representative in parliament to reflect these views, even if it's not the "ruling" party.
I think it would allow for more tolerance of diversity and limit the amount of name-calling and the us-vs-them mentality we see in the present campaign here in Canada.

(Link goes to a humorous look at First-Past-The-Post. Enjoy!)