[To see the submission in its original format, see the liked
document, below]
Written submission accompanying oral presentation made to
the Citizens' Assembly public hearing, May 3, 2004, Wosk Centre for
Dialoque, Vancouver, BC
Introduction
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to you
regarding the efforts I made as the Proponent of the Initiative to
Establish a Proportional Representation Electoral System under BC's
Recall and Initiative Act during the summer of 2002.
But first I would like to commend Citizens' Assembly members for
your dedication and enthusiasm in undertaking the task of
considering electoral reform in BC. As you may have noticed, I have
attended every one of your six weekend-long learning sessions. It's
like a free university course. I am impressed by the breadth and
substance of education you've been given and by the depth of your
questions. The process you are engaged in gives me hope for BC.
I am often asked what motivates me to be so passionate about
electoral reform. My motivation stems from the fact that I cherish
democracy and believe it is the cornerstone of a fair, just and
healthy society. I believe that my children will have a better
future if our democracy works well.
Equally, I believe our democracy in BC is broken (the last few
weeks have made this all too evident). Election outcomes are
unfair, voters are unhappy, our legislature is unrepresentative and
our politics have become increasingly adversarial and
polarized.
How does an Initiative under BC's Recall and Initiative
Act work?
I would like to make it clear that I am appearing before you
tonight as the citizen proponent of the Pro Rep Initiative and not
in my capacity as Leader of the Green Party of BC. Under BC's
Recall and Initiative Act, groups or political parties cannot
launch initiatives; only individual citizens can. An Initiative
tests BC-wide voter support for a citizen-written piece of
legislation through the signing of a formal petition. It is the
only vehicle we have in our democracy for a citizen to directly
force government to pay attention to an issue. In order to be
successful (which means that government must then either introduce
the proposed legislation into the house or put to a referendum vote
the question of introducing the legislation into the house), 10
percent of the registered voters in BC in every one of BC's 79
electoral districts must sign the official Initiative petition.
There are actually 79 versions of the petition, one for each
electoral district and voters can only sign the petition for the
electoral district in which they are a registered voter. Every
signature must be witnessed by a volunteer (unpaid) canvasser who
must be a registered voter and pre-registered as a canvasser for
the Initiative with Elections BC. This all has to be completed in
90 days. Because it is a formal Elections BC process, people take
it seriously.
Broad public support is needed
To even have a faint hope of gathering enough signatures, a
proponent has to gain broad non-partisan support across the whole
province. It is a massive job of public education. We produced a
newspaper titled Free Your Vote, explaining to citizens who were
considering canvassing and signing the petition why the need for
electoral reform, how our proposed Mixed Member Proportional voting
system would work in BC and how it would fairly translate a
political party's popular vote into an equivalent share of seats.
(A copy of this newspaper is attached.) (Note: the key elements of
our MMP proposal were to achieve overall proportional election
results based on voters getting two votes, one for a local
representative and one for the party of their choice. The
legislature would comprise 50% local constituency seats and 50%
party list seats. The electoral districts would be larger, using
Federal Riding boundaries (currently 36) for the local seats. The
other 36 seats would be filled using province-wide closed party
lists, submitted by political parties before the election, with
candidates ranked by that party in order of who would fill the
party list seats first, not subject to change by the voters. Party
list seats are allocated to parties to ensure that their overall
share of seats in the legislature equals their overall share of
party ballot vote. If a party deserves more seats than they won
locally, their seats are topped up with candidates from their party
list. To gain a proportional share of party list seats, a party
would have to pass a threshold of winning 5% of the
province-wide party vote or winning at least 1 local constituency
seat.)
By the end of the process we had distributed 280,000 of these
educational newspapers; handing them out at public meetings,
inserting them into various newspapers and magazines throughout BC
and putting them into the hands of canvassers to use. Our outreach
was especially successful through the hard work and dedication of
the Initiative's 4,002 volunteer canvassers. Many of these people
spent the summer of 2002 (May 13 to August 12) collecting
signatures. Quite a few collected over 1,000 signatures. Six
political parties, including the BC Unity Party, BC Marijuana Party
and the BC Green Party endorsed the proposal. A number of citizens
groups, unions (such as the BC Nurses Union and Pulp, Paper and
Woodworkers of Canada) and businesses endorsed it as well.
Ultimately 98,165 registered BC voters signed the petition
sheets.
Although my Initiative failed to get the needed 10 percent of
registered voters in each electoral district (212,483 signatures in
all), we did achieve the 10 percent in 9 electoral districts (Comox
Valley, Kelowna-Lake Country, Malahat-Juan de Fuca, Nanaimo,
Nelson-Creston, North Island, Powell River-Sunshine Coast, Saanich
North and the Islands and Victoria-Beacon Hill). Following the
Initiative, a core group of volunteers formed the Free Your Vote
“ Pro Rep Society to continue to keep the volunteer
canvassers informed and involved in the process of achieving
electoral reform in BC.
An Initiative requires draft legislation
BC's Recall and Initiative Act requires the proponent to draft
workable legislation. It took a team of volunteer lawyers several
months to draft the 35 page proposed legislation to amend BC's
Elections Act and change our current First-Past-the-Post voting
system into a Mixed Member Proportional voting system. Elections BC
vetted the proposed legislation several times before they approved
it as workable. This process forced me into thinking concretely
about a fairer voting system and fashion a workable model from an
endless list of complex, theoretical possibilities -- not unlike
the task you have to do.
Why choose Mixed Member Proportional for
BC?
Many people approached me after the 2001 election, expressing
interest in working on electoral reform. Amongst them was the late
Dr. Brahm Wiesman, who for years before he retired, was head of the
UBC School of Planning. He volunteered to do the background
research, analyzing the pros and cons of voting systems used
elsewhere in the world. Our priorities were to maximize fairness
(in terms of peoples' votes counting and proportionality between a
party's share of votes and share of seats), retain local electorate
representation and achieve more cooperative politics which could
result in more effective legislation. Dr. Wiesman concluded that a
Mixed Member Proportional voting system, similar to the one adopted
in New Zealand by referendum in 1993, was the one best suited for
BC.
Checking out New Zealand's experience
Before advocating such a system I decided I had to see
first-hand how the system was working in New Zealand, a
commonwealth country about one-third the size of BC with a similar
range of minority groups and about the same population as BC. They
also had a recent history of unfair electoral results, unpopular
governments and smaller parties that deserved but did not get their
fair share of the seats. Despite some continued disgruntlement with
politics (confirming that changing the voting system doesn't
resolve all problems related to politics) I found solid support for
the new voting system, especially when I described the 2001 BC
election results.
The first thing I learned was that New Zealand had undergone a
long process including a Royal Commission and two referendums to
arrive at the change in their voting system. Despite the Royal
Commission recommending a Mixed Member Proportional voting system
for New Zealand in 1986, the major political parties were reluctant
to implement it. Citizens had to campaign for another five years
for electoral reform. Finally, voters were presented with a
complicated, non-binding two-part referendum in which they were
asked whether they wanted to change the existing voting system, and
then to indicate support for one of four voting system options:
Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), the Single Transferable Vote
(STV), Supplementary Member (SM) or Preferential Vote (PV). The
government promised to hold a binding referendum on the most
popular reform option the following year if there was majority
support for change. Although only 55% of electors took part, an
overwhelming 85% voted to change the electoral system. In the
second part of the poll 70% of those who wanted change favoured
MMP. Only 17% voted for changing to STV.
While in New Zealand I met with the Clerk of the House of
Parliament who explained how MMP had resulted in more effective
parliamentary checks on government, a stronger role for
parliamentary committees in modifying and improving legislation and
overall more cooperative government. He also explained how MPs
elected from party lists served constituents by opening regional
offices and representing country-wide 'constituencies of interest.
By offering choice to local constituents, list MPs actually
improved the overall accountability of MPs to the electorate. I met
with legislative reporters who told me that MMP had resulted in
more interesting politics and an obligation for them to cover a
wider range of political views.
I also met with the electoral reformers who for years had been
advocating a change to a fairer system. They stressed the need to
be concrete in detailing an alternative system, the importance of
public education, and the threat of an anti-electoral reform
campaign well-funded by forces that benefit from the current voting
system. In New Zealand the 'no' campaign was funded by big
business. In the end, MMP passed by just 54% of the vote in a
referendum attached to the 1993 general election.
Voter response to the Initiative's proposed MMP voting
system
We found the appetite for electoral reform in BC to be very
strong. Many people who signed the Pro Rep Initiative petition told
us they had stopped voting because their vote didn't count. Many
didn't like the 1996 BC election results. Most didn't like the 2001
election results. Even voters who wanted the change in government
in 2001 didn't like the exaggerated outcome of 97 percent of seats
in one party's hands.
There is no doubt in my mind, that if the rules for an
Initiative petition were different, especially if we had more than
the allotted 90 days and didn't have to use 79 different petition
sheets, we would have easily got the required number of
signatures.
Voters who signed the petition frequently noted the following
'pros' to MMP:
-
Proportional election outcomes. People liked the fact
that MMP is designed to be proportional and deliver fair election
outcomes with a party's seat share equaling its vote share.
-
Almost all votes count. People hope that youth and
non-voters will be inspired to get involved if their votes count,
and hope this may lead to higher voter turnouts.
-
Two votes (one for a local representative, one for a
party). People described it as a good balance between the
limited choice now and too much choice with long lists.
-
More balanced legislatures. People want a better balance
between government and opposition, smaller party representation,
and more women and minority voices elected.
-
Less adversarial politics. People liked the idea of
minority and coalition governments forcing parties to be less
adversarial and more cooperative. They hope that this will lead to
better, longer-lasting legislation.
-
5% threshold. People want a threshold that will help
avoid the 'Italy' situation of too many parties being elected.
Voters raised the following questions and concerns, especially
in the over 100 public meetings I held in conjunction with the
Initiative:
-
Will MMP deliver 'unstable governments like in Italy and
Israel?
-
Aren't coalition governments ineffective governments that can't
make decisions?
-
Federal riding boundaries are too large in BC.
-
Will closed party lists give party leaders too much control?
-
What do party list MLAs do and to whom are they accountable?
-
No one mentioned 'zombie' politicians.
Voters also asked about other electoral reform options like
preferential balloting and single-transferable vote. Almost
universally, people did not favour changing to a system that did
not maximize proportional outcomes and voters' first choices
counting. People also found STV very difficult to understand.
Most of peoples' concerns about MMP were allayed by explaining
the role that a threshold plays in limiting the number of parties
elected; explaining how list MPs have the same duties and
obligations as constituency MPs; offering examples of how coalition
and minority governments deliver good legislation and more
cooperative politics in other countries (and Canada, too); and
explaining how closed party lists achieve better representation for
women and minority groups.
Some suggestions for changing the proposed MMP voting
system
The MMP model proposed for the Pro Rep Initiative could be
changed to accommodate outstanding concerns. For example:
-
Keep 79 MLA seats in BC's legislature and change to a ratio of
two-thirds constituency seats and one-third party list seats. This
would mean 53 constituency seats and 26 party list seats for all of
BC.
-
Require political parties to run candidates in at least 50% of
the constituency seats in order to qualify for list seats.
-
Require political parties by law to select list candidates in a
democratic way that grants every party member a say in the
selection process and require that they file with Elections BC a
detailed description of how their party's selection system
works.
-
Have flexible lists where a voter can choose either to accept
the list as ranked by the party or choose one candidate on a
party's list to be placed at the top of the list (as recommended
for Canada by the Law Commission of Canada). If a candidate exceeds
a threshold of 8% of the party's voters placing that person first,
the candidate moves to the top of the list.
Confidence in the Citizens' Assembly
Process
I have confidence in the process underway and the members of the
Citizens Assembly in reaching a decision that will be in the best
interests of British Columbians. I am concerned that naysayers will
try to convince people that involvement in the process is not
worthwhile. The public commitment of all major political parties to
implement a positive referendum result would help allay peoples'
concerns. Finally, I believe that, should you choose a new voting
system for BC, the BC government must adequately fund an
independent, well-structured public education campaign for the
five-month period prior to the May 17, 2005 election. It is my
experience that, if people are given the opportunity to learn about
how a fairer voting system would work in BC, they will vote for
it.
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