Thomas Hall, a retired procedural advisor to the House of Commons writes in this week’s edition of The Hill Times that the proposal for Mixed Member Proportional representation in Ontario’s legislature may be in conflict with the Constitution of Canada and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. [the full text of The Hill Times opinion piece is available only to subscribers]
An simplified version of Hall’s argument is that the constitution only provides for the election of individuals to represent the citizenry in Parliament. There is no provision for electing parties or their representatives and certainly no consideration of empowering political parties to appoint members of parliament.
Hall also presents the opinion that MMP would contravene the Charter’s guarantee that any citizen can run for and be elected to sit in parliament or a provincial legislature. A citizen cannot run for one of the provincial list seats without being approved by one of the recognised police parties and a class of citizens – those who do not belong to a political party or who belong to a party with less than 3% support – are excluded from seeking the 1/3 of the seats in the Ontario legislature that would be set aside for partisan appointees.
Hall’s concludes, based on his reading of the Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms and judicial rulings is that MMP may very well be unconstitutional. Maybe it won’t be over on October 10th if the MMP side wins the referendum vote.
An simplified version of Hall’s argument is that the constitution only provides for the election of individuals to represent the citizenry in Parliament. There is no provision for electing parties or their representatives and certainly no consideration of empowering political parties to appoint members of parliament.
Hall also presents the opinion that MMP would contravene the Charter’s guarantee that any citizen can run for and be elected to sit in parliament or a provincial legislature. A citizen cannot run for one of the provincial list seats without being approved by one of the recognised police parties and a class of citizens – those who do not belong to a political party or who belong to a party with less than 3% support – are excluded from seeking the 1/3 of the seats in the Ontario legislature that would be set aside for partisan appointees.
Hall’s concludes, based on his reading of the Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms and judicial rulings is that MMP may very well be unconstitutional. Maybe it won’t be over on October 10th if the MMP side wins the referendum vote.
