What Factors accont for the longevity of Conservative Party rule in Ontario in the post – part 7
Posted by admin in Description EssayAlphabet organizations generally fail to function as responsible parties because they have been used mainly as campaign vehicles by candidates who act as independents when elected. Faced with an overwhelming majority of Ontario residents opposed to local party politics, members of electoral slates have been extremely reluctant to impose bloc voting on council. A candidate in one of the elections stated that his party’s nominees "would work as a team although occasionally there would be differences of opinion and they would be on opposing sides." (Nossal 1989) Alphabet organizations’ loose structure and lack of sanctions preclude the exercise of party discipline.
Alphabet organizations usually languish after each election, only to revive just before the next, when they often either splinter, with dissidents initiating yet another electoral organization, or adopt another name, possibly that of a defunct party. Another factor weakening local parties is that they seldom run enough candidates to capture a majority of council seats, let alone a full slate. In the last decades support for local party politics has declined in the province’s largest cities. A shift in the ideological position of a city’s political opponents has taken place so that they no longer fit neatly along a classic left/right political continuum. Just emerging in Ontario is a new politics based on environmentalism. As environmental and related growth issues become increasingly important, one can predict that once again local political parties will appear to clarify these new issues for the electorate.
In an ideal democratic voting system, each person has one vote and the candidate who receives a majority of the votes cast in the election wins. Simple as it may sound, few municipalities achieve this ideal. The system of representation employed in a municipality can be structured to accomplish certain ends. A ward system is generally most advantageous to those at the margins of society; an at-large system of representation favours the middle and professional classes. However, the wards that eventually replaced at-large representation in Ontario were far too big to represent minorities adequately, and the middle and professional classes soon learned how to manipulate ward representation to their own advantage.
