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No: It would mean the start. Under PR, to win a majority of the seats, you actually have to win a majority of the vote (or something close to it). It’s true that this seldom produces a majority government of one party: it’s rare for one party to win more than 50 per cent of the vote in either system.

But whereas in our system the consequence, when no party wins a majority of the seats, is usually a minority government — in which a single party, outnumbered as it is in the House, nevertheless tries to nerve its way through by sheer brinksmanship — under PR the more normal result is coalition government: with a majority of the seats, but divided among two or more parties.

Minority governments, as we know them, are indeed unstable: the average duration of a minority government at the federal level in Canada is a little more than a year. But we should not mistake this for the very different experience of coalition governments typical of PR. It isn’t just that coalition governments actually do tend to have the support of a majority of the legislature. It’s that the incentives built into the two systems are completely different.

As mentioned, in our system it only takes a swing of a few points in the popular vote to lead to dramatic changes in the party standings. There’s every incentive, then, for whichever party happens to be up in the polls at any given moment to trigger a snap election.

Whereas under PR there’s no such “leverage”: small changes in the popular vote only lead to small changes in seats. So there’s less incentive to go to the polls. The average European PR country has held about 20 elections since 1945. Canada has had 22.

Moral: The case for electoral reform isn’t just about what happens on election day. It’s what happens every day in between.