Yes, changing the rules of the electoral system now might result in some other parties getting a voice in parliament, but why is that bad? If the ideas of the Conservatives (and Liberals) are so weak as to be overcome by the ideas of minority parties, then maybe they aren't good ideas after all! Do Canadians want to protect the jobs of current politicians, or tease out the best ideas to run our nation?

So given those choices, STV.

That said, I also dislike systems that require voters to rank candidates (due to the extra confusion/costs of making sure people know how to vote) and systems that require yet more seats in government. So my preference is the percentage proportional system. Hm. I should probably do up a web-page about it and perhaps see what the data from this most recent election would have given.

People say that the West would lose influence in a fairer proportional system, but that is also untrue. Even in Alberta, 33% of voters did not vote Conservative. That could have translated into a significant number of seats for non-Conservative parties. The Bloc Québecois would, unfortunately, have gotten 23% of the seats (hopefully a continuing trend) in Québec, but it is still a lot less than what they had in the past.

The German version of proportional representation is very interesting, in that it combines our present and inadequate system with a proportional system, in that half of the seats are according to ridings and half of the seats are proportional, hence, there is more fairness without the extreme volatility as seen in some other countries.

Typically water/sewer is and should be run on a cost-recovery basis, so that would seem moot.

In other words, boo hoo. You sound like you are oblivious to the benefits that accrue to you out of the arrangement.

In Halifax that bus literally stops at the edge of urban centre but the rural residents of HRM still pay for it, still pay its unionized driver, still pay for the library 45 mins away, still pay for a sewage treatment plant when everyone is on septic, still pay for water when everyone has a well, still pay for a downtown convention centre…

I'm living the dream and have zero influence over my backyard. The city represents itself, not the rural communities it has annexed. PR doesn't and will never work.

In this environment, it's more tenable for parties to work together. Especially when vote-splitting isn't such a deadly problem to parties. There can be two ideologically related parties that can coexist and cooperate, like Reform and the Progressive Conservatives.

I agree that the size of districts is a problem. The best solution is probably to increase the number of legislators overall (which has some other benefits) and keep rural districts smaller (like two or three members).

As for not being able to vote without ID, suck it up. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

And I do realize that smaller numbers tend to reduce the proportionality of the results – I'm just indicating that I would settle for somewhat less than perfect proportionality in order to keep the ballots a little bit smaller. Also, if I understand correctly, running an STV system with one seat per riding basically amounts to having an instant runoff system, which I would also be OK trying for a few elections, fully realizing that instant runoff only goes very slightly in the direction of pure PR.

As far as the counting goes, I would be very disappointed if we let that stand in the way of adopting STV. Obviously computers could be used, and if we don't trust those, then, yes, we would need to be prepared to invest a few more hours while election officials do the tedious task of hand counting. We only get to vote every four years, lets get it right.

Don't have a good argument against it being harder to understand, other than I will volunteer to explain it to up to 100 people in my riding.

If true, well done, that's a fine cause.

OK. I get it now. Apparently we can't ever change the constitution, so no electoral reform is possible. Because that Constitutional door is slammed shut for ever and ever. Actually, I think the Queen chewed up and swallowed our only copy right after signing it in 1982. So we can't change it. Ever. Got it.

Clegg & Cameron are fighting! We'd better not go down that road!!!

OTOH, there are occasions where I think that Emily's comments are actually somewhat insightful which then reminds me of that old saw "There is a very fine line between genius and insanity."

See choices here: http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/es/esd?toc

I'd probably go with MMP, myself.

The first and third points don't seem to be relevant to the discussion at all.