What is a high voter turnout? It depends where you ask the question. The 57.43% recorded during the 2008 Quebec election represents a historic low in the province; but if that turnout were achieved in Ontario this year, it would be the highest since the 2003 election.
The lack of interest in provincial politics in Ontario is mainly about identity, according to several experts. Ontarians identify primarily as Canadians, so they pay less attention to provincial issues than elsewhere, they say. “Few Ontarians could identify the Liberal leader or even the NDP leader [Andrea Horwath] — and she has been in office since 2009,” notes political science professor Jonathan Malloy of Carleton University in an interview.
This lack of enthusiasm is reflected at the polls: an average of 53.9% of Ontario voters voted in the last six provincial elections, compared to 68.59% of Quebec voters. According to an analysis signed by Alberta professors, between 1965 and 2014, Ontarians’ turnout in provincial elections was second-lowest in the confederation; that of Quebecers, the third. At the federal level, however, the two provinces vote at almost the same rate.
“Ontarians tend to see their provincial government as a manager,” says political scientist Greg Flynn of McMaster University. “They are not looking for great charismatic leaders,” he continues. Former Prime Minister Mike Harris, in office from 1995 to 2002, would also symbolize this preference. “ blandworks (“Dull management works”), said Progressive Conservative Premier Bill Davis during his 14 years in office, between 1971 and 1985.
Electoral reform on the horizon?
According to Duff Conacher, co-founder of the organization Democracy Watch, countering this lack of political participation requires electoral reform. But the provincial parties are not ready to undertake it, he judges. Eliminating the first-past-the-post system alone could boost voter turnout by 5 percentage points, he said, while a combination of measures would triple that increase.
Two of Ontario’s main parties have promised to introduce electoral reform if they take power.
Liberal leader Steven Del Duca has even made it a matter of life or death: if he does not introduce a preferential ballot during his first term as prime minister, he will give up his place. Under this method, voters make a first, second and third choice. If a candidate does not obtain a majority through the first choices, the last candidate is eliminated from the race and their votes are redistributed according to the voter’s second choice, and so on.
The New Democrats and their leader Andrea Horwath are instead proposing a mixed member proportional system. In this case, voters would continue to elect one MP in their constituency, but other parliamentary seats would be distributed based on the total number of votes for each of the parties.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.