By Jim Snider 

As expected, the big news on citizens assemblies continues to come out of Ontario.  All eyes are now focused on the referendum scheduled for October 10,when the public will have a chance to vote up or down on the Ontario Citizens Assembly’s policy recommendations. 
 
On June 20, Ontario’s Government announced the wording of the referendum question that will be placed on the ballot for the October 10 election.  The question reads:

Which electoral system should Ontario use to elect members to the provincial legislature?

Option #1:   The existing electoral system (first past the post).

Option #2:   The alternative electoral system proposed by the Citizens' Assembly (mixed member proportional).

On August 1, Elections Ontario launched a $6.8 million education campaign on the referendum (this comes out of a total $92.9 million budget for the provincial election).  The campaign is called “Understand the Question.”  Most of the campaigns big expenditures come after Labor Day.  They include a TV ad blitz, a newspaper and community paper ad blitz (in 25 different languages), and 4.8 million pamphlets mailed to households. Online ads and YouTube videos are also part of the campaign.

Several Major Websites  
 
Elections Ontario cannot endorse either of the two referendum choices; it must remain strictly neutral.  Its mandate is to alert the public to the existence of the referendum and describe the mechanics of the two types of electoral systems.  Its special campaign website at http://yourbigdecision.ca says it “ provides voters with impartial tools to define and understand both the First-Past-the-Post and the Mixed Member Proportional electoral systems and to assess these systems against individual voter priorities and considerations.”
 
In addition to the government website, there is a Yes MPP (http://www.voteformmp.ca/) and a No MPP (http://nommp.ca/) website/campaign.  All reports indicate that the Yes MPP is better funded and organized, with much greater grassroots support.  A quick look at the two websites will confirm this impression.
 

Impact on the Media, Electorate and Political Parties

Having said the above, it’s not clear how much impact any of this is having on the electorate.  There has been lots of newspaper coverage.  Since late May more than 300 articles of one nature or another has appeared.  But most of these articles are reruns of the same article in different publications and many are in the back pages of the newspaper. An Environs poll of 585 Ontarians in early June found that only 28% were familiar with the Citizens Assembly’s proposal.
 
On the other hand, the wide circulation Toronto Star has run more than a dozen articles since the middle of May.  Indicative of the relatively high salience of the referendum, The Economist, a high prestige Canadian national publication, on September 1 ran an article on referendum.  This could improve the proposal’s visibility in Ontario before the election.
 
An important feature of the debate over the referendum is that the major political parties are not taking a position on it.  This significantly lowers its visibility during the provincial election campaign.  Only leaders of the small parties, the Greens and New Democrats, have staked out a public position (both in support of the Citizens Assembly’s recommendation).

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