“The Struggle for Canadian Democracy: The Politics of Voting System Reform Today” with Dr. Dennis Pilon
There is a very real and serious struggle going on today in Canada to either further or limit our democracy. The efforts to change our voting system over the past two decades offer a window into this struggle, helping us to identify who is on what side and what they are trying to accomplish. By reviewing these efforts to change the voting system provincially in BC, Ontario, PEI, and Quebec, as well as at the federal level, we can better understand what the current struggle is all about, how to effectively engage with it, and how to assess why the voting system itself has become a key battleground.
Dr. Dennis Pilon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics at York University. He is Canada’s leading expert on the issue of voting system reform and the author of two books on the topic, The Politics of Voting: Reforming Canada’s Electoral Systems (2007) and Wrestling with Democracy: Voting Systems as Politics in the Twentieth Century West (2013), as well as 15 book chapters and academic journal articles.