Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Why one MPP is not enough

I sent an email to my federal member of parliament. I did provide my name, city, and riding. This is the response I received from her office:

In order to serve the constituents of Don Valley East better Ms. Ratansi requires your postal address when you e-mail her. Due to the high volume of e-mails received non-constituents may not receive a reply.

Frozan Shaikhmiri
Constituency Assistant Office of Yasmin Ratansi, M.P., Don Valley East
Chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women
220 Duncan Mill Road Suite 211
TORONTO ON M3B 3J5
Phone: (416) 443-0623
Fax: (416) 443-9819

I understand that a politician would like to correspond to real people living in real places. I didn't like the fact that her office assistant replied that people who provide full addresses may not receive a reply if they do not live in the constituency.

I know the above is a federal example. Voters use the same voting system to elect representatives to the federal House of Commons and Ontario Legislative Assembly. We need the Mixed Member Proportional voting system in Ontario because voters deserve greater choice and better representation. If a local constituency representative will not correspond with those of us not living within his/her constituency, then we need province-wide representatives who will.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Then there was the elected representative in Toronto (i can't remember who at the moment), who told a constituent to bugger off because he didn't vote for the guy and therefore didn't represent him - just the people who voted for him.

Skinny Dipper said...

I wouldn't have voted for that person as my local representative, but I could have voted for his party with MMP.