6- The Oakville Beaver, Friday August 24, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com OPINION & LETTERS The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. NEIL OLIVER Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director TERI CASAS Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA CALHOUN Circ. Manager Make your voice heard Contrary to an old and often quoted saying, you actually can fight City Hall -- well in Oakville's case, Town Hall. More importantly, rather than fighting Town Hall, municipal government gives local residents the best opportunity to influence policy making of any level of government in Canada. Look at the makeup of the current Oakville Town Council. It wasn't that long ago that some of the councillors -- including Mayor Rob Burton -- were actually on the other side of the podium fighting Town Hall. Through its various committees, subcommittees, advisory boards and council meetings, the Town provides residents with many opportunities to express their views on issues crucial to the well-being of Oakville. Still, despite all these opportunities to share their views, residents often complain no one at Town Hall is listening. Well, now is your chance to be heard. To its credit, the Town is hosting two public information meetings over the next two weeks essentially asking residents to "Tell us what you think." We think this is marvelous and we urge everyone to attend. In its advertisements, the Town is asking residents to come prepared to discuss: · ways to enhance municipal government accountability; · ways to enhance Oakville's natural environment; · how to continuously improve program and services; · how to make these programs and services fiscally sustainable. Now is your chance to be heard. Don't just sit there. Get out and attend one of these two public meetings and tell our elected officials and civil servants what you think. The first meeting is at Town Hall, 1225 Trafalgar Rd. from 7-9 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 27. The second meeting is on Thursday, Sept. 6 at the Oakville Central Library, 120 Navy St., from 7-9 p.m. Residents are asked to take part in just one meeting, so as many residents as possible can attend. To reserve your seat call Nicole Wedgerfield at 905-845-6601, ext 3163 or e-mail nwedgerfield@oakville.ca. Don't hesitate -- call today. The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR MMP system ensures stable coalition governments Re: Brendan Stewart's letter, Mixed-member Proportional system costly and undemocratic, Oakville Beaver, Aug. 22. To begin, he states that one-third of the MPPs "will not be elected, but appointed." Being that there has been some talk about electing the federal senate instead of appointing them, as they do now, using the word appointed to describe the list seats in the recommended MMP voting system, is misleading. The 39 list seat members are elected. There will be an ordered list of MPPs from each party that will only be elected if their party has not garnered the number of seats they deserve in the 95 local ridings. This number will be based on the "new" party vote on the other side of the ballot which will be used to ensure that the number of seats that a party wins will be based on its provincial percentage of party votes. He also states that with the proposed MMP voting system that "Ontario could be stuck with minority governments for eternity. That means an election every 18 months." In countries like Germany and New Zealand that already use a MMP voting system, they tend to form coalition majority governments. When this doesn't happen, a minority government is the alternative, but lasts much longer than 18 months and usually to full term. In Ontario or Canada when we have minority governments, as Mr. Stewart states, the average time minority governments survive is 18 months. The reason is that the political parties call an election when the polls show that their popular vote has increased to at least 38 per cent, because they know with the current voting system that they could form a majority government with only 38 per cent of the vote. With the proposed MMP voting system, no party could form a one-party majority government, unless they garner at least 50 per cent of the vote. Interestingly enough, in Ontario, no one party has garnered 50 per cent of the popular vote since 1937. So with countries with MMP voting systems, political parties do not have that carrot of a majority government with only 38 per cent of the vote, so they tend not to call early elections and instead work together to bring in the policies that are backed by at least and usually more than 50 per cent of the people. That sounds like democracy to me. I urge your readers to find out more about this proposed voting system. This system was recommended by 103 randomly chosen Ontario citizens, one from each constituency. Please visit their website www.citizensassembly.gov.on. ca or call Publications Ontario at 1-800-668-9938 for a copy of their brochure and/or report. BRONWEN BRUCH Pud BY STEVE NEASE snease@haltonsearch.com The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council.The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206,Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone 416-340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline.