Albertans are served poorly by a voting system which doesn't give them the representation they voted for. The majority of Albertans rejected Ralph Klein's Tories in the provincial election. Nevertheless, three quarters of the MLAs in Alberta's legislature are Progressive Conservatives.

A better voting system would give Albertans what they really voted for: a legislature with 39 PCs, 24 Liberals, eight New Democrats, eight Alberta Alliance, three Greens and one Socred MLA.

Alberta's "first-past-the-post" system, by which some MLAs are elected with as little as 30% of the vote in their ridings, is designed to provide a direct link between voters and their MLAs.

In theory, this system provides direct accountability, because the MLA must try to earn and keep the support of the people in his or her riding.

But in practice, Alberta's political system is completely dominated by political parties, whose leaders have the legal right to ban or exclude any candidate of whom the leader disapproves. The current system forces candidates - and MLAs, once the candidates are elected - to be "yes-men" to the party leaders. Candidates win and lose primarily on the strengths - and weaknesses - of their party leaders. Party discipline is extremely tight. Any "speaking up for constituents" takes place out of public view, behind the closed doors of party caucus meetings. That's why Alberta taxpayers cannot hold their MLAs accountable because every major decision - whether on car insurance or health care or education - is made behind closed doors, not in the legislature.

If there was genuine public debate in the legislature, followed by free votes that taxpayers could monitor, then our current voting system could provide us with real accountability. But with the extreme dominance of parties and party leaders - to the exclusion of individual MLAs - it is unfair for parties to have representation in the legislature which does not match their share of the popular vote. Hence the need for a different voting system.

In B.C., Gordon Campbell's Liberals created a Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform after winning 77 of the 79 seats in the province in the 2001 election. This Assembly consists entirely of citizens - two per provincial riding. Without the involvement of politicians, this Assembly studied different voting systems used in countries around the world. The Netherlands and many other countries have voting systems by which a party wins seats in direct proportion to its percentage of the popular vote. France has a "second round" or run-off election between the top two candidates, in districts where no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the first round. Other countries like Ireland allow voters to rank candidates, so that a voter's second choice is considered if the voter's first choice did not receive enough support. The Assembly's recommendation for a new voting system for B.C. will be accepted or rejected by voters in a referendum in May of 2005.

We Albertans pride ourselves on being leaders and innovators. But when it comes to voting reform, we're stuck in the nineteenth century. It's time for Alberta to create its own Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, so that taxpayers will get the transparency and accountability they deserve, and citizens will get what they actually voted for.