Teardown by Dave Meslin

Author:Dave Meslin [Meslin, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Published: 2019-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

Canada wouldn’t be the first to try this. There are at least three countries that don’t arrange their national parliaments based on party affiliation. Both Norway’s Storting and Sweden’s Riksdag, for example, have seating plans based on geography rather than party. Former Austrian foreign minister Bruno Kreisky once wrote: “In Sweden, for the first time, I was able to observe a well-functioning democracy. Those holding different political views were treated with the utmost respect; they were not regarded as opponents, if only because in the Swedish Parliament the seating of delegates was not arranged according to party, but by the regions from which the representatives came. Thus, Social Democrats sat next to Conservatives, Communists next to Liberals, peasants next to industrial workers; they came from the same region, they were ‘Landskap’ in Swedish, and had often been friends since childhood.”

The Icelandic parliament, the Alϸingi (pronounced “all-thing-y”), has used random seating for a hundred years. At the beginning of each legislative session, each member reaches into a box of numbered balls, just like a Bingo draw, to determine where he or she will sit. I asked Thorstein Magnusson, deputy secretary general of the Alϸingi, about the benefits of this approach, and he told me, “Heckling is more forceful when members are together in one group. Randomized seating has contributed to greater acquaintance between members of different parties than otherwise would be the case.”

We have few examples of non-partisan seating arrangements in North America, but one of the best case studies is Toronto City Council, which has no official parties. I asked Councillor Joe Mihevc to explain the impact that randomized seating has on civility in the chamber. He said: “Politics is about many things, including working out ideological differences and building trusting relationships, where people agree on some issues and disagree on other issues, all within a context of understanding and respecting differences. It may seem superficial, but the seating plan at council allows for these trusting relationships to form. When you sit beside someone for meeting after meeting, people with different views often see the good reasons behind a difference of opinion. That often leads to a different conversation and a creative solution. It makes council more of a human place.”

I asked Joe what he thought the council would be like if the right and left factions sat in groups on opposite sides, as they do in Parliament. “This would be disastrous for council,” he told me. “It would polarize municipal politics needlessly.” Precisely. Randomized seating could also increase the independence of MPs, allowing them to represent their constituents more effectively, rather than just toeing the party line. “Right now, we are all lined up,” said Hyer. “If one of us stands up contrary to the wishes of the leader or the party, everybody notices instantly.” But with random seating, he noted, “When you vote your constituents’ wishes or your conscience, it will be less obvious that you have voted differently than the other members of your party.”

Randomized seating is just one of many reforms that would change the physical nature of our political spaces.

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