It took me a while to come around to supporting Fair Vote Canada.The reason that I didn't for some time was because they seemed to be promoting a specific solution to the problem of electoral reform, and a specific solution with which I disagreed.They have modified their aim, somewhat.  They now propose a process toward electoral reform as opposed a specific reform.  However, their instincts are the same.Take the example of this fact sheet on why Alternative Voting is a phony reform.Look at their arguments against it.

1. Like our current system, the Alternative Vote is a winner-take-all system. Ineach riding, one group of voters elects an MP (and wins representation inParliament) while all the other voters in that riding lose their right torepresentation.Yes... but under AV, the "group" of voters is actually a "majority."  That's not true now.
2. Many voters are already in ridings where the MP is their second or thirdchoice. That’s the problem, not the solution.The problem, if you want good local representation, is that often for a majority of voters there was a more preferred candidate who didn't get elected.  AV solves that problem.
3. This system “guarantees” the winner has majority support? Counting ballotsin a different manner does not magically produce a politician with majoritysupport when it didn’t exist otherwise.What exactly are you suggesting?  That we should have a "none of the above" on the ballot?  Do you have an electoral method that produces politicians with majority support?  So who cares?
4. The Alternative Vote can actually distort election results more dramaticallythan our current system. For example, in the 1997 election the Liberals won38% of the votes but captured 51% of the seats. A study of voter preferences1found the Liberals would have gained 57% of the seats, even with the samelevel of support, had the Alternative Vote been used. Why? When forced torank parties, most voters who supported other parties would have ranked theLiberals second, not because they wanted Liberal representation, butbecause they disliked other parties even more.Now this is a legitimate complaint.  AV tends to select compromise candidates in a single riding.  That will tend to result in a House of Commons overwhelmed by the "compromise" party, even if individuals' first preferences did not go to that party in any comparable proportion.  AV is designed to have the single representative from a riding be more representative of that riding.  Proportionality is designed to have the House of Commons be more representative of the entire country.  Both objectives cannot be served at the same time.  Pick which is most important to you.  Also, consider what forcing parties to play to the middle would mean for electoral politics in this country.
5. Not surprising, due to these shortcomings, only 3 of 211 countries in the worlduse this system to elect their parliaments (Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji).We use FPTP.  Should people take us as evidence that PR is bad?  Or because we are in the minority, are we calling Canadians stupid?

The only real objection here is that AV makes things less proportional, not more.  But national proportionality is not the only reason you might want to reform the electoral systems in this country.  Our existing system pleases no one.  Whatever principles you think our electoral system should serve (save randomness), the current electoral system does not serve them.  And Fair Vote alienates people who might otherwise be willing to submit the electoral system to review by arguing that their preferred systems cannot be considered in that review.And why?  If these systems are as bad as Fair Vote claims they will not stand up to authentic scrutiny.  So why attack them at all?  And if you're going to attack them, why attack them in a way that reduces your credibility like this?The facts speak for themselves:  When Canadians have the alternatives explained to them, they always pick a more proportional alternative than the one we have.  So Fair Vote's best strategy is to promote a truly impartial process in which all alternatives are considered.  Because who can disagree vehemently with looking over our options?Attacking the validity of other potential reforms, however, puts the lie to the idea that Fair Vote is in any way impartial.  So it shoots itself in the foot.