Deachman: ‘It’s not democratic’ — Why one Canadian says he won’t vote

Patrick Hertel won’t be voting on April 28, just as he didn’t vote in the federal elections in 2019 and 2021.

I told him I wanted to change his mind about that, and he agreed to hear me out. But he doubted I’d succeed. “In fact,” he said, “I think I could convince you NOT to vote.”

Gauntlet dropped. And picked up.

Hertel, 74, hasn’t always been a non-voter. He used to vote regularly, most recently in the 2015 federal election. And he recalls voting in a subsequent provincial election, although only to spoil his ballot in protest. He does, however, vote municipally.

Hertel isn’t what you might think of as a typical non-voter. Nearly 56 per cent of non-voters, according to Statistics Canada, cited being too busy or disinterested in politics to vote in the last federal election. Hertel, though, actively and consciously doesn’t vote.

The reasons he cites for not voting include a lack of appealing candidates, but, more significantly, his belief that his vote simply doesn’t matter.

The blame, he says, falls on our current first-past-the-post, or winner-take-all, electoral system, in which candidates with the most votes in their ridings win the seat, even if they don’t get a majority of the votes. There’s no prize for second place.

Hertel instead wants to see some system of proportional representation, creating a House of Commons that better reflects how all Canadians vote.

For instance: Had 2021’s popular vote nationally translated into seats in the Commons, it would have been Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives, not the Liberals, who would have had the highest number; they won 33.7 per cent of the popular vote, more than any other party. So they likely would have had first crack at forming a minority government or coalition. The NDP, Greens and People’s Party would have got more seats than they did in reality (17.8, 2.3 and 4.9 per cent of the popular vote respectively), largely at the expense of the Liberals (32.6 per cent) and Bloc Québécois (7.6 per cent), each of which would have been allocated fewer seats than our current system gave them.

First-past-the-post allows parties to more easily form majority governments, even without the support of a majority of Canadians. Brian Mulroney’s Conservatives got a majority of seats in 1988, with only 43 per cent of the popular vote. Jean Chrétien, Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau each subsequently formed majority governments while winning the support of fewer than 40 per cent of voters.

“It’s not democratic,” says Hertel. “So I don’t want to do it.”

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau promised electoral reform in the 2015 campaign, but reneged after winning a majority, which didn’t surprise Hertel. “Why would they kill the goose that laid their golden egg?” he asks.

Hertel’s riding is Lanark-Frontenac (redrawn in 2022 from Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston), which for the past quarter century has been represented by Conservative Scott Reid. In the last election, Reid was re-elected with 48.9 per cent of the vote, 14,000 ahead of the second-place finisher. One more vote for or against Reid wouldn’t have made a difference.

But does that mean that Hertel shouldn’t vote? I don’t believe so. There are any number of examples of high turnouts affecting results. Ottawa Centre boasted the country’s highest turnout in the 2015 election — 80 per cent — as Liberal Catherine McKenna defeated popular NDP incumbent Paul Dewar, who four years earlier had commanded the majority of votes in the riding.

Just because change doesn’t come overnight doesn’t mean it’s not worth what may seem like tilting at windmills. In 2015, Karen McCrimmon won Kanata-Carleton (now just Kanata) with a majority of the vote and a 7,600-vote cushion over her nearest rival. It might have been easier for non-Liberal voters to abandon all hope after that, yet four years later, McCrimmon’s plurality had dwindled to just under 4,400 votes. Two years after that, Jenna Sudds won the seat for the Liberals, but only by about 2,000 votes.

I have no insight into how voters there will mark their Xs in this election. But I wonder how some of the eligible electors who abstained from voting in Châteauguay-Lacolle (now Châteauguay-Les Jardins-de-Napierville) in 2021 must have felt when Liberal incumbent Brenda Shanahan won the seat by only 12 votes.

I understand Hertel’s frustrations with the system, though. I, too, have frequently cast ballots that would have been just as effective had I torn them into bits and tossed them to the four winds. Yet I still feel that change requires participation. If you want proportional representation, vote for a party that supports it. Maybe you lose this time, and maybe the next time, too, and the time after that. But if the gap narrows, then perhaps more non-voters will follow your lead.

I agree that first-past-the-post isn’t ideal, and there are strong arguments to be made in favour of proportional representation. I just don’t think refusing to vote is one of them.

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PATRICK HERTEL RESPONDS

Hertel is not convinced by my argument. “Trudeau had 10 years to do it and he didn’t,” he said. “You can say, ‘Oh, yeah, wait,’ but any party that gets in on first-past-the-post is not going to do anything about it. They’re just going to keep kicking the can down the road.”

Further, he points out that some of the numbers I’ve cited, such as candidates’ and parties’ share of the vote, are inflated. In other words, Scott Reid’s 48.9 per cent of the vote, for example, would drop to just 34 per cent if calculated as a percentage of ALL eligible voters, not just the ones who actually showed up at the polling station. “Democracy?” Hertel asked.

I suggested to him that not voting as a matter of principle doesn’t look any different to outsiders than not voting as a matter of convenience, but he’s sticking to his guns. “I don’t care what other people think,” he replied. “I wouldn’t mind if the turnout was just 10 per cent and it opened the floodgate to something.”

He cited data from Fair Vote Canada, a group advocating for proportional representation, showing that countries with proportional representation and parliamentary elections by and large enjoy higher voter turnout. “Just about everywhere where they switched over, participation went up,” he said. “And a large number of countries have it. It’s not like it’s a new thing or something strange.”

So, that’s one non-voter I’ve so far failed to convince to return to the fold. But he’s thought hard about this, and at least he didn’t convince me NOT to vote. See you at the ballot box.

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If you’re a non-voter who would like to share your story, contact Bruce at [email protected]