Are Canadian Voting System Reform "Trade-Offs" Really Trade-Offs? Operationalizing Voting System Values and Assessing the Evidence

The debate over voting system reform in Canada has been framed as a choice among competing but equally valid values as they are embodied in or produced by different voting systems, typically represented as trade-offs. The key point of such discourse is that whatever choice is made will unavoidably produce both benefits and costs (e.g., more proportional outcomes but less local representation, or stable governing majorities but less party competition). Yet what is striking about this approach when examined is how weakly operationalized the value-based claims are and the lack of evidence sustaining them. Because public debate over policy choices is best conducted with a ready source of evidence to help participants assess competing claims and judge potential benefits and costs, the absence of empirical support in this discussion is deeply problematic. To address this information deficit, this article attempts to operationalize what the claimed values supporting different voting system choices in the Canadian debate might mean concretely in four areas - voting complexity, governing stability, local representation, and representational accountability - and then explore comparative evidence about their workings and impact to assess their legitimacy.