In support of the Yukon electoral reform plebiscite

Later this year, alongside the next Yukon territorial election, we’re having a plebiscite on electoral reform in the Yukon. I am extremely stoked that this is happening, and I hope fellow Yukoners vote “yes” to changing to a new electoral system. Curious why? Read on!

What’s happening?

Alongside the next Yukon territorial election – taking place sometime between now and November 2025 – there will be a plebiscite on electoral reform in the Yukon.

This follows a citizens’ assembly that was formed between 2023 and 2024 to look at options for electoral reform in the Yukon. The assembly, made up of 38 randomly-selected interested citizens from across the territory, landed on ranked voting as their recommended change. If implemented, this would replace the current “first past the post” electoral system.

If you’ve never heard of first past the post, or electoral reform, or any of this, that’s okay! The downside of doing an undergrad in political studies (hi, it’s me) is that your parents will wonder the entire time if you’ll ever have a real job. The upside is that you’ve got opinions on electoral systems that you’ve been saving for just the proper occasion.

Like almost anyone who has studied electoral systems (ie., how people vote), I think first past the post is terrible. It’s so exciting that the Yukon is considering a new option, and in my mind it follows in the footsteps of other recent (excellent) decisions to just go for it while other provinces spend a lot of time dithering. Getting rid of daylight savings time in 2020, for example (the best!), or dropping X/Twitter and using other social media channels for government communications instead.

In both cases, just taking the plunge and making a change was a fantastic choice, and one that would have been a lot less likely in a larger and more slow-moving jurisdiction.

For electoral reform, the upcoming plebiscite isn’t binding (it’s not a referendum), but I hope that a vast majority of Yukoners vote in favour of changing our electoral system, and that the next government in power goes ahead and implements the change.

Why it’s good for the Yukon

The Yukon is a jurisdiction with a small legislature (just 19 seats), and recent elections have tended to be very tight races. In 2021, memorably, one constituency ended in an exact tie as the balance of power in the legislature hung in the balance.

First past the post (our current electoral system) is a poor fit for an environment like this. (Not that it’s a good fit for anywhere!). It exaggerates election outcomes so that a minor difference in popular vote leads to large changes in legislative seats. Policies and legislative choices tend to swing from one extreme to the other as a result. Instead of being incentivized to compromise and find common ground, politicians are incentivized to stake out more extreme views and rile up their core supporters.

Over time, first past the post tends towards duopolies at the expense of smaller parties and a wider range of viewpoints.

When your political allies and your political opponents alike are friends and neighbours, it’s not a great fit.

The Yukon citizens’ assembly recommended changing to ranked vote (sometimes called “alternative vote” or “ranked choice voting”), as an electoral change that would work well for the Yukon’s context. Here’s how they described it,

Ranked Vote ensures that more voter preferences are captured in the outcome of an election. The winning candidate in each riding must receive a majority of the votes cast, 50 per cent plus one, requiring them to have broader support across their riding. This can lead to greater voter participation and an outcome that can be seen as more legitimate in the eyes of voters.

Local representation and accountability are extremely important to Yukoners and Ranked Vote maintains this value. Voters continue to have a clear, direct, local connection to representatives who are accountable to their constituents. This is something that we value in the current system.

In the current system, voters may feel compelled to vote strategically for a candidate they think has the best chance of winning, rather than their preferred candidate. With Ranked Vote, voters can honestly rank their choices without feeling their vote is wasted.

Why it’s good for Canada

Canadian politics – at the federal level and across provincial and territorial jurisdictions – has been disappointing people since, well, probably Confederation. Regardless of the parties in power, our legislative, political, and bureaucratic processes are too slow to keep up with fast-moving social, economic, and international issues.

Public servants (and I am one) cope by focusing on mundane processes and compliance oversight. Politicians respond by riling up their core supporters with fear campaigns and dog-whistle issues (far too often at the expense of marginalized or vulnerable people).

What does this look like in practice? This Andrew Coyne piece from 2023 has lived rent-free in my head ever since I read it:

Presumably the feds can’t be happy to see provinces defying the law, treating other Canadians as second-class citizens and tearing down national institutions. But they dare not do anything to stop it, because they lack the legitimacy: because in any confrontation with a provincial government, Ottawa is likely to emerge the loser.

It’s easy to blame the Trudeau government for this state of affairs: its constant denigration of our history and symbols; its tendency to play one part of the country against another. But in truth this is a problem going back decades. To be sure, any government that was elected with just 33 per cent of the vote – the weakest mandate in our history – would have some legitimacy issues. But the broader problem is structural. The problem is that governments can be elected with 33 per cent of the vote.

Indeed, thanks to our first-past-the-post, winner-take-all electoral system, it takes little more than that to win a majority. As the number of parties has proliferated, and the distortions from vote-splitting have grown more acute, governments have been elected off a narrower and narrower base of support.

Our current first past the post system, as Coyne points out, is a root cause of a lot of the malaise and dysfunction in Canadian politics today. Electoral reform would dramatically change politicians’ incentives for the better.

Larger jurisdictions have had halfhearted attempts at electoral reform over the past few decades. Ontario had a referendum in 2007 that ended with 36.8% support for changing. British Columbia, in a heartbreaking outcome, had a 2005 referendum where 57.7% of the population voted in favour of change, but the threshold to actually go ahead had been set at 60%. Subsequent BC referendums in 2009 and 2018 had lower rates of support.

At the federal level, the previous prime minister committed to electoral reform in 2015, abandoned that promise in 2017, and then – years later – described not following through on electoral reform as one of his biggest regrets.

In those undergrad political studies classes, one of my favourite professors described herself as a “reformed electoral reform advocate”. After having been passionate about electoral reform for years, she had resigned herself to expecting that it would never take place in her lifetime.

Nevermind that most countries around the world – the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada excepted – have switched to more well-designed electoral systems over the years. We’ve been stuck with first past the post for so long that even leading advocates for reform have given up.

If the Yukon votes in favour of electoral reform, and if the next government goes ahead with the change, it will show the rest of Canada that this is actually possible. That would go a huge way towards improving our political ecosystem across the country.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good

When the Yukon citizens’ assembly came out with their recommendations – to switch to a ranked voting system – advocates for proportional representation quickly came out and said they wouldn’t support the proposed change.

I can understand where they’re coming from – ranked voting isn’t as proportional to popular vote as some other voting systems – but frankly I think that any change at all is better than the status quo. (Provided, of course, that the change doesn’t disenfranchise people, which as we can see from the United States is an active concern.)

That’s my constant thought – any electoral reform change that improves things even a little bit is better than nothing at all, because it creates more opportunity for future positive changes. As long as an electoral reform change ends up encouraging more eligible people to vote, and helps a wider range of diverse voices be heard, it’s a good thing.

As all of the engineers in my family say, “static friction is stronger than dynamic friction”. Once things start moving, it’s easier to keep them moving forward.

For electoral reform, just showing that some kind of positive change can happen in Canada is a massive win. I hope it happens later this year!

What’s the takeaway?

Whenever the Yukon territorial election takes place, there will be a plebiscite on electoral reform. You can find out more on the Elections Yukon site here.

The question on electoral reform will be:

“Should the way members of the Yukon Legislative Assembly are elected be changed from the current system of first past the post to a different system of ranked vote?”

Which, let’s be honest, is sort of a terrible way to ask the question. (“Different”, there, is doing a lot of work to discourage people from voting for it, which I can only assume was decided by politicians or senior public servants who are happy with the status quo.) Different is good, really, when our political system is as broken as it is. And it’s still great to be asked.

If you’re an eligible Yukon voter, I’d recommend voting “yes”! And telling your friends to vote yes too.

Let’s show the rest of Canada that we can just go for it – just like getting rid of daylight savings time changes – when no one else has the guts to make it happen.