My take on MMP: Lists (pt 1)

Well, in my summer MMP series, I figure I may as well start it off with a bang and tackle the issue that it seems most people are wary about. From the arguments I heard last weekend at the OYL's SummerFling, these lists are the largest contention point, and somewhat ironically, are the least elaborated in the entire proposal, basically with the Citizen's Assembly saying, "we'll let the parties figure it out." So with that, here are some arguments I've heard, followed by my comments on them. Part 1 will focus on how the list MPPs are nominated, and who they will be:

If parties aren't responsible filling their lists, people won't vote for them

My take: I would love for this to be true. I think it would be great if the Liberals fill our list with equal numbers of people from each region and group, then we will get more votes from people. That would be great, except I don't expect that to happen too much. Oh, it may make a difference of a few votes, but I don't see this as a great selling point, since I highly doubt that very many people will actually know too much about the lists.

The lists will be filled with party hacks!

My take: This is somewhat fair, since I do believe that the list MPPs will tend to be fairly well-connected members of the party. But how is that too much different than the other MPPs parties nominate? We don't know how the parties will nominate people on the lists, but I don't think it will be much different than how we nominate candidates, so I don't see this as a major drawback. You still need to be involved and connected in the party (or a celebrity) to get elected.

All the list MPs will be white men from Toronto

My take: This could be a problem, but I don't see it as a major one, since I doubt it will happen. Honestly, I'd fill the top spots on my list with people from the areas that I would have the weakest party support, since then I could make sure when I win to have ministers from various areas. I mean, which party wants all their MPPs from one region? Doesn't make for a very balanced cabinet.

No way will there be MPPs from the North, since the party elite in Toronto will run the lists

My take: Again, this could be some trouble, but I'm pretty sure the parties will try to balance it out. Yes, there is the potential to screw some people over, like ignoring the North, but I don't think that would be too much trouble.

The parties will be responsible and make sure that the lists are representative

My take: Well, so far I've been mentioning this quite a bit, and this is one place where stuff can go wrong. As I pointed out above, I do think that parties won't be crazy with lists, but I still wouldn't be surprised if 15-20 of the 39 list MPPs are from Toronto. Sucks, I know, but we can't have everything perfect.

The lists will be a great opportunity to get [insert minority group here] a fairer representation

My take: This is where I feel the lists will be the most useful. I don't mean any disrespect for certain gender or ethnic groups, but they do often have troubles getting nominated, and are thus under-represented in the legislature as a whole. People don't want a "token ethnic" on the list, but I don't see any trouble in being able to better represent certain communities by having a list MPP.
I'll add even more to this: I think it would be a great way to add people who would do very well in cabinet, but may not be the easiest ones to get elected. I'm not a big fan of taking hints from the Americans too much, but one of the supposedly better parts of their system is that since their cabinet is appointed, and not made up of elected members, they could be specialists in their field. Now, they screw that up most of the time, but it could be nice to be able to bring in someone who may not be the campaigner, and be able to bring them into cabinet in a specialist role.

I'll stick with this for now, but I welcome any comments or other criticisms about how these people will be nominated and who they may be, and will do my best to respond to other comments. I will be coming back to discuss the List MPPs later on, probably more in regards to their actual roles in parliament, and depending on what other arguments I hear, I may revisit the way they're nominated again.