Proportional representation: the Scottish model applied to the 2015 Canadian Election.

• Author: Gray, Ian

The purpose of this paper is to calculate what the results of the 2015 federal election in Canada might have been using a system of proportional representation based on the system in use for elections to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish model was recommended by the Law Commission of Canada in its March 2004 report (1). This paper does not attempt to deal in any depth with the implications of a proportional representation system, such as the tendency for it to result in a minority government, or with the relative merits of the various possible systems for proportional representation. Those matters are canvassed more fully in the Law Commission report.

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The Scottish Model

The Scottish Parliament uses a mixed proportional representation system to elect its members. There are 129 seats (for a population of about 5 million). There are 73 constituencies where the person receiving the most votes is declared elected (termed first past the post or constituency seats). The other 56 seats are filled from slates of candidates proposed by the parties, or by individuals--7 seats for each of 8 regions of varying population size (termed proportional or regional seats). Thus, 57 per cent of the total seats are first past the post and 43 per cent are proportional.

The constituency elections and the regional elections take place at the same time and each elector has two votes--one for a constituency candidate and one for a party or individual on a regional list. A person can be a candidate for a constituency seat as well as being on a party list for a proportional seat. This gives parties an opportunity to ensure that a particular candidate gets elected, if not as a constituency member then from the slate. It could also facilitate the election of more women members and members from minority groups if parties chose to organize their list in such a way. In the 2011 Scottish elections, 45 out of 129 elected members were women (35 per cent)--20 out of 73 constituency seats (27 per cent) and 25 out of 56 proportional seats (45 per cent). In the Canadian election, the percentage of women elected was 26 per cent.

The method of calculating the proportional seats is as follows: for the first proportional seat, divide the number of votes cast in the region for each party's regional slate or for each individual regional candidate by the number of constituency seats that they received in a region + 1. So for a party (say Labour) that won 10 constituency seats in a region, its total number of regional votes would be divided by 11 initially. For a party (say the Green Party), or individual, that got no constituency seats, their number of regional votes would be divided by 1. The party or individual with the highest number after the division is completed gets the first proportional seat.

For the second proportional seat, the same...