Is It Time For Electoral Reform at Havergal?

Over the past few years, Canada has been hearing the term “electoral reform” relatively frequently—in 2015, Justin Trudeau campaigned on electoral reform in Canada. In Canada’s  most recent election when the Liberal Party formed a government with the lowest popular vote in Canadian history, many have questioned whether or not we should implement it. 

What exactly is electoral reform? Verbatim from the Wikipedia page, “Electoral reform is change in electoral systems to improve how public desires are expressed in election results.” Electoral reform could be something as small as changing the ballot design to something as large as changing the voting system  altogether.

However, this is not an article about the effectiveness of the Canadian electoral system, it’s about the effectiveness of Havergal’s own voting system.

Havergal models its electoral system after the Canadian electoral system  (with a few adjustments).

Throughout most of our lives, we are taught that democracy is the most effective government system for a country to use, and are provided  countless examples of evidence throughout the centuries in class . Naturally we, too, as a school have a student government that is modelled after one; we vote for house captains to represent issues specific to us in the greater school community just as an MP would represent issues specific to the riding they represent in Parliament. 

As stated by Mr. Nichols, by its very definition, “Democracy is a popularity contest.''  In an academic setting where you are voted upon by your peers, we must consider that the person who has the most friends may not be the best leader. 

We need to be as informed about school elections as we are when voting for a federal election.—We need to be familiar with their platform, their qualifications, their visions, and their overall ability to motivate others to follow them. 

When casting votes in Havergal elections, in the words of Mr. Nichols, it’s not enough to just hope that “an engaged voter would be able to think critically and take the time to make an informed decision based on the speeches and the responses given by prefect candidates”. Most Havergal students lead incredibly busy lives and don’t have time to read through around seventy pages of seemingly identical leadership applications. Therefore, many simply choose a familiar face instead of thinking critically about  who could make an excellent leader.

Because of this hasty choice on the part of voters, there is a bias towards more extroverted candidates who, by their very nature, are able to reach more people. In order to create more informed voters who think critically about who to vote for—I believe we must modify our system. 

We can clearly see the flaws in this system by talking to the people who work the closest with student leaders. Mr. Nichols, the Vice Principal of Student Engagement and Experiential Development, says that “a lot of the work [in formal leadership roles] is behind the scenes and in small groups of people, where introverts can thrive,” and he even goes as far as to say that “a lot of the time more introverted or quiet people can perform much better in formal leadership roles,'' contrary to popular belief.

So, how would the school be different if we had a more diverse group of personalities in our leaders? How do we achieve that? This is a question every Havergal student has a different answer to. Mr. Nichols had an idea I found particularly interesting.  He suggested that “before [a leader puts their name] forward for elections [they] have to go through an interview process with whomever is going to be [their] faculty advisor as well as other students and teachers.”

Kendall Simon, one of this year’s Choir Heads, raised an example of a problem in  representation of the Middle School students. When voting for prefects, Middle School students’ votes are worth the least out of the entire student body and faculty, giving them a lesser say in who represents them. The Middle School Prefects work very closely with the Middle School students, and are the main resource they have in this part of the school for students to spark change in the greater Havergal community. Since prefect roles are decided by faculty and not students, this raises the question: is this fair? Whether perhaps this should even be a separate category, voted upon only by Middle School students?

Although there are no definite solutions , and one can clearly see the flaws in all of these proposals, it is clear that strides can be made towards a more fair and more ethical election process. When changes do come to pass, whether it be next week, or five years from now, we must take it upon ourselves to voice our opinions, and thoroughly inform ourselves on the subject.