Blessed by the Potato

Garth Turner, former Conservative MP had a press release today to talk about some issues that arose after becoming an independent, and the conflicts between his local riding association and Conservative central. I agree with a lot of what he says, and I think it highlights the need to include the ability to elect independents in any electoral reform process we undertake. I truly do think we can do better than the current first-past-the-post system, but I really do fear that proportional representation with party lists will only give the parties more power to nominate drones rather than representatives. It might give us a parliament divided by parties closer to how we support them, but less of what we really want in the end: effective representation that is accountable to the electorate.