Winston Churchill never did endorse our first-past-the-post voting system

Re: Last two federal elections prove our current voting system just isn't working

Jack Fountain's rambling rant against proportional representation (PR) leaves a lot to be desired. PR is endorsed by people of all political stripes, not just the left, who want Canada to adopt a better system for electing our governments. PR is used by most of the nations in the world because it is the best system we've come up with.

Churchill never endorsed our first past the post system. In endorsing democracy, he uses it in the correct sense of "rule by the people", not as a reference to a particular system of voting. In fact when the victors in WWI and WWII set up new electoral systems for the defeated nations, they went with PR because it prevents a minority from hijacking the government.

Fountain bizarrely ends his rant by complaining about the results of our last two elections which were done under first past the post (FPTP). The Conservative minority government is in power because that is how FPTP works. If the elections had been held under PR, a coalition of the other parties may have formed the government instead. Under PR you would have the satisfaction of knowing that the government represents the will of the majority of the voters. Right now we have governing party that got a little more than a third of the votes.

There's a reason why most of the world's democracies use PR. They use it because it works. Rather than complaining that Belgium hasn't had a functioning government for two years, Fountain should raise the example that Canada hasn't had a functioning government for at least three.

Gary Dale