Interview with Matthew Rowlinson, NDP candidate for London West

Hurley: So in your view, the only poll that matters is on election day, correct?

Rowlinson: Well that's the cliché, but it's often true. But I think that the outcome of the Ontario election last year also matters. Peggy Sattler is a good friend and colleague of mine, she's a terrific MPP, and she's been out there canvassing with me, to get the vote out, and together we get a great reception.

My observation on the doorstep is that this is a three-way race. As I've already said, the Conservatives seem to be in trouble here, and we (the NDP) are definitely in this.

I don't believe the Environics poll, and it was a strange poll. The first question you want to ask about any poll is "who paid for it?" Leadnow has been doing its polling through Environics, but as far as I know, the Environics poll of London West last week was not a Leadnow poll.

Hurley: The poll that I'm referring to was conducted by Environics between October 2nd and 4th, so about ten days ago.

Rowlinson: Yes, but who paid for it? I really don't know the answer to that question. And that matters, because polls tend to produce favourable results for the people who paid for them. That is empirically true, as there are Liberal polling companies and Conservative polling companies and so forth.

So we don't know where (the funding for) this poll came from, I don't believe it, and the bottom line is that a poll is supposed to represent voter intentions, it's not supposed to shape them.

I think the use of polling to drive or change how people vote is a terrible idea. I don't really like it when Leadnow does it and I really don't like it when the Liberal Party does it. And the Liberal Party has been promoting this poll as well. The Liberals have been putting this poll front and centre on Kate Young's Facebook page. So they're telling you to vote for them because the polls say that they can win. Well, what does that tell you about their confidence in their program?

Voters in London West should vote for the NDP if they like our program, and they should vote for me if they think I'm the best candidate.

Hurley: Directly related to the issue of strategic voting is the call among many citizens for electoral reform in Canada. 

Most public opinion polls show that over two-thirds of voters plan to vote for the NDP, Liberals, Greens, or Bloc Quebecois on October 19th, but thanks to our broken electoral system, the Conservatives might still win the election and form a government.  

Is the NDP committed to making our voting system fairer and more representative of voters' wishes? And if so, how will your party achieve this?  

Rowlinson: The NDP is, of the three national parties, the only party that has committed to electoral reform in our platform. And I really want to underscore that. For people who are concerned about this issue, the Conservatives pay no attention to it, and the Liberal position is that they will consult – they'll set up a Royal Commission. Well there have already been Royal Commissions on this issue.

The NDP has, for as long as I've been a member, been committed to proportional representation. And that would mean a Parliament in which a party's representation is proportional to the number of votes that they receive (in an election). That's the basic standard of democracy.

And Canada is a huge outlier in not having a proportional representation legislature. It's essentially us, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which has a much different history. Our democracies date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and countries with more modern electoral systems have democracies that more accurately reflect the way the public actually feels.

We should not have majority governments elected with a little over thirty percent of the vote, as Stephen Harper's was. That shouldn't happen.

So yes, we are committed to proportional representation in Parliament, and we are therefore committed to a Parliament that actually reflects the votes that Canadians cast. We are committed to a Canada in which there is no longer such a thing as a "wasted vote." That's a phrase that should horrify everyone.