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Huron Expositor, 2007-09-12, Page 12ten at TH Sea ;E t --t 'MA 7ok ; St. Page 12 The Huron Expositor • September 12, 2007 News - Referendum allows voters a choice about how provincial parliament members will be elected Jordan Baker For the first time since 1792 Ontario voters are getting a choice as to how their members of provin- cial parliament (MPP) will be elect- ed. With the Ontario general election coming up, voters are being askedto be more aware than ever of the choice they are making, for this year's election has more riding on each ballot than it ever has. On October 10, voters will be electing new MPPs and voting on whether to keep the current first - past -the -post voting system or adopt a variation of the mixed -member proportional (MMP) system. The voters need to be educated, and Loren Wells, deputy chief elec- toral officer at Elections Ontario, says, "We do have educational mate- rial out there." She says people should watch for the television ads and check the website to learn or set up informa- tion sessions. The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform was instituted on Mar. 24, 2006, as an independent body representing the electors in Ontario. Its purpose was to assess Ontario's current electoral system, as well as different electoral sys- tems, and recommend whether Ontario should retain its current system or embrace a new one. The Assembly consisted of 52 men and 52 women, aged 19 to 78, ran- domly selected from each of the province's electoral districts. Their proposal to support the MMP sys- tem resulted in this referendum, after the referendum law was passed in April, requiring the vote in the next provincial election if the Assembly saw fit to conduct elec- tions in a different manner. Clinton -born Goderich resident Scott Allen was Huron -Bruce's rep- resentative on the Citizens' Assembly. He Cars with 8111 Sherk. the Ofd Car Detective BROUGHT HEARTLAND TO YOU BY CREDIT UNION "SHARKNOSE" GRAHAM IN ENGLAND LONG AGO By BM Sherk "The Old Car Detective" A delightful letter arrived recently from Peggy McEwen of Perth, Ontario: "Dear Bill: I enjoy reading CarStory in one of our local papers, and just had to send you the story of my dad's Graham automobile during the Second World War. "My dad was a Canadian soldier during the First World War and was badly wounded at the Battle of Arras. He was sent to England to recuper- ate, and there he fell in love with my mother. After the war, they got mar- ried in Edmonton and three of us kids were born there. Then my mother got homesick and we all trooped back to England. "We settled in the Farnborough, Aldershot area, which was a military zone. Dad started what was to become the largest military laundry ever seen. My husband, Stuart McEwen, was the nephew of one of my dad's good friends and we were married in May 1943. "My dad liked big cars but petrol was hard to come by. He drove a Studebaker, but one day he was at the local garage and saw this 'Graham - Paige.' He knew it was going to cost the Earth to put petrol in it but he WANTED that car! "First, for fuel, he tried a coke -fired stove in the trunk which was some- how wired up to the engine (don't ask me how!). It worked to a point but made the back seat unbearably hot. Then he thought of the gas bag, a mon- strous contraption which could be filled from the gas meter at home. It took a lot of shillings to fill it up! "If it wasn't too windy a day, we would drive to Staines, where we kept a sailboat on the Thames. A garage there would fill it up again for us while we were gone. Sometimes, if the wind got up when we were driving, we would be wafted about a bit, but she was a pretty heavy vehicle. "My husband, Stuart McEwen, died six years ago. We had many trips in cars and on planes and trains, but I have never forgotten the old days." The Graham brothers entered the car business in Detroit in 1927 with the purchase of the ailing Paige Motor Car Corhpany. They built Graham - Paige cars until 1930, after which they were known simply as Grahams, although many people continued to call them by their previous name. In a desperate attempt to survive the Depression, the Graham for 1938- 40 was radically restyled in what it called the "Spirit of Motion." Because of the forward thrust of the grille, these cars were nicknamed 'sharknose' Grahams. Sales were disappointing but these cars are highly prized by col- lectors today. You can visit CarStory online at www.CarStory.com. Email: bill@carsto- ry.com or write Bill Sherk, 33 Oak St. E., P.O. Box 10012, Leamington, ON N8H 2C3. spent every other weekend from September 2006 to May 2007 in Toronto with the other Assembly members; to sit in meetings and learn about dif- ferent kinds of electoral sys- tems. "There was a lot of input, a lot of expert opin- ion," he says. "What we had to ask was: How will it work for Ontario. "We knew the referendum would happen if we suggested it. So most people went in with an open mind. The thinking was, if something is bet- ter, let's let Ontarians know that." He says there were people on the Assembly that disliked the current system, those who didn't know about other options and those who knew very little about the system we're under now. He says they drew up a set of principles they wanted to stick to. "This [the MMP] was the 'best option we had when we presented our principles. It was important for us to maintain local ridings. And this one seemed simple, practical and effective." He says they heard a lot from a New Zealand woman in the meet- ings, and this MMP system is mod- elled after that country's. What voters need to know is: how the system in place works, and how the propped MMP system will dif- fer. "Each and every person needs to decide what the factors are for him or herself," says Wells. "This is a big decision." The first -past -the -post system works with 107 electoral districts - Huron -Bruce being ours - where candidates run from each political party. Voters get one vote and ballot, and the candidate with the most votes wins the district. The party with the most elected MPPs forms the gov- ernment. Under the MMP system there would be 129 seats but only 90 elec- toral districts, and the other 39 seats will be filled by "list" mem- bers. Voters would get two votes: one for a local candidate, and one for a political party. The vote for the local candidate will still be under the first -past -the - post system. In each of the 90 dis- tritts, the candidate with the most votes wins the district, accounting for 90 of the 129 seats. Votes for political parties deter- mine the _number of list members each party gets. If a party is entitled to more seats than it won locally, list members are elected to make up the difference. For example, if a party wins 45 of the 90 local seats, but their party votes demonstrate they should have 50 seats, the party receives five of the 39 list seats. Which parties get list members, and how many, is determined by a formula where the number of party votes is divided by a quota. This quota is determined by the total votes cast, divided by the total num- ber of seats (129). To see examples of the formula and calculations done practically, you can download a detailed description of the Assembly's MMP system from their website at www.citizensassembly.gov.on.ca. List members can only be elected from a party that received more than three per cent of the party votes. List members are candidates from registered political parties only. Before an election, parties would create a list of candidates they would like considered as list mem- bers. These candidates would be made public well before the election. Carol Mitchell, Huron -Bruce MPP, says she has some concerns with the proposed MMP, issues that need to be considered when voting. . "The ridings may become much larger, the size may become unman- ageable," she says, noting our Huron -Bruce riding could span from Grand Bend to Tobermory. "Losing the ability to get out and talk to constituents is a piece of the job that shouldn't be lost by MPPs." She says how the roster is devel- oped - as the list members - is a crit- ical piece. "Who do they represent? How do they share the workload?" She says these questions need to be considered, though answers won't come unless the MMP is made law. To ratify the referendum, 60 per cent of the valid vote across the province needs to be in favour, and at least 64 districts need to vote 50 per cent or more in favour of the change. The referendum law states that if the voters decide to change the elec- toral system, the elected govern- ment must make that system law and introduce it by Dec. 31, 2008. Wells explains, "They will set the legislation, then work on implemen- tation." Then subtleties of the new system will be drawn out, like when list members would be released publicly and where the new boundaries for electoral districts will be in order to make 90 of 107. Mitchell says what she's heard from local people in her riding is there's a group in favour and a large group against it. But the largest group, she says, is people who don't know where they stand. "There are concerns about what will happen to the rural voice," she says. "People need to take the time and find out as much as you can. If there is a majority this will change how you are represented." For more information be alert for Elections Ontario's Understand the Question campaign; voters have several outlets they can take advan- tage of to get their questions answered. Check out the website at www.yourbigdecision.ca or the Facebook group or call the hotline at 1-888-ONTVOTE (1-888-668- 8683). Resource officers have been dispatched to each of the 107 dis- tricts to deliver local community information sessions across the province. To set one up in your com- munity go to the website above and send an e-mail to info@yourbigdeci- sion.ca or call the hotline.