TL;DR sign this: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-2315 (2020–03–11 update: this petition’s deadline has passed)

Imagine a jolly group of folks. We’ll call them the People of Eh.

Now imagine another smaller group. We’ll call this second group the Legislators. The Legislators are elected by and make decisions for the People of Eh. Also, the Legislators vote among themselves each time they’re making one of these decisions.

Let’s focus on one looming decision that the Legislators have to make for the People of Eh: what to do about the Crazy Experiment. The Crazy Experiment is where people change the composition of Earth’s atmosphere and see what happens.

The People of Eh are divided into three equally sized groups that each have a stance on what to do about the Crazy Experiment: the Naaah people, the Mmmkay people, and the Wtf people. The Naaah people deny the craziness of the Crazy Experiment and think everything will turn out fine. The Mmmkay people are worried about the Crazy Experiment but aren’t in any terrible rush to deal with it. The Wtf people think the Crazy Experiment is exceedingly crazy and spend a great deal of time vocalizing their name to the other two groups.

The Legislators, just like the People of Eh, are divided into three groups that each have a stance on what to do about the Crazy Experiment. However, there’s a problem: a flaw in the voting system made the three groups of Legislators unproportional to the three groups of the People of Eh, so that 14% of the Legislators represent the Wtf people, 35% represent the Naaah people, and 51% represent the Mmmkay people.

The Mmmkay Legislators are the majority (51%) of Legislators, so they make a decision about the Crazy Experiment on their own. Their decision is imposed upon both the Naaah people and the Wtf people, which, together, are 66% of the People of Eh.

Let’s call this a semi-dictatorship.

The story’s not over; what happens next for the People of Eh is crucial.

66% of the People of Eh are upset, so they ask for the voting system to be fixed. But lo and behold, the Mmmkay Legislators say no.

The voting system stays as is. This is a perfectly rational thing for the Mmmkay Legislators to do because they like their majority power, and the only reason they have their majority power is because of the flaw in the voting system.