And it hasn't even gotten out of the Assembly. The Citizen's Assembly seems poised to recommend MMP with 90 constituency seats and 39 extra seats to be divided proportionally. They are going to recommend this brand of reform, because they are convinced Ontarians want local representation (and I think they are right) and wouldn't accept a smaller number of constituency seats. The "problem" in going this route is the extra seats. The Tories and Liberals are already running against the proposal because it adds more "politicians" (like they aren't politicians themselves)to the legislature (John Tory and Greg Sorbara were on CBC Toronto this morning complaining). The current size of the legislature is 103 seats.
It was always a doubtful proposition to believe the two big parties would support proportional representation. It is obvious now that they will ignore the reasoning behind the Assembly's proposal in order to try to scuttle any reform that will challenge their unfettered control of the levers of power. We, who believe the current system is broken, have a lot of work to do. The media seems only too likely to simply repeat the propaganda of the big parties, rather than actually examine the issue.
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