Submission CARR-0635 (Online)

A Submission by Adriane Carr, Leader of the Green Party of BC  [6 pages]

[To see the submission in its original format, see the linked document below]

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to make this submission as Leader of the Green Party of BC regarding my party's views on changing BC's voting system. As you probably can guess, we are in support of change. We have been outspoken in our support of a mixed member proportional representation voting system for BC.

I first became interested in electoral reform in 1982. I was part of a group involved in starting the Green Party of BC, North America's first Green Party. We were inspired by the first-ever election of Green Party representatives to the German parliament. Some people here told us that there was no point in starting a Green Party in BC. 'You'll never elect anyone. We don't have proportional representation as they do in Germany.' That was the first time I had heard about this kind of voting system.

Knowing the tough odds of getting elected under BC's first-past-the-post system, in February of 1983 we formed the Green Party of BC anyway, dedicating ourselves to slowly building public support for our principles and sustainable solutions.

Achieving a fairer, proportional representation voting system in this province has been a fundamental plank in our party platform right from the start.

The BC Green Party has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Citizens' Assembly. As Leader of the party I attended all six of your weekend learning sessions this spring and found them exciting and informative. This May and June I attended five of your public hearings as an observer.

The BC Green Party was one of six political parties that backed the Initiative that I undertook in 2002, not as leader of the party but as a private citizen under BC's Recall and Initiative Act to Establish a Proportional Representation Electoral System in BC. I presented to your first public hearing in Vancouver on May 3 from my viewpoint as the citizen proponent of this Initiative, describing how, in the summer of 2002, 4002 volunteer canvassers collected 98,165 signatures of BC voters endorsing a mixed member proportional representation voting system similar to the one they have adopted in New Zealand. These canvassers are amongst the core supporters and proponents for electoral change in BC. Details can be found in my first submission to you now tabled on your website: www.citizensassembly.bc.ca.

Cynics have said to me 'Of course the Green Party is keenly interested in electoral reform. You have the most to gain!' I counter this by saying that all political parties will gain, because inevitably every party gets an unfairly small share of seats compared to their share of vote, or maybe even loses an election despite getting more of the vote than another party. But most importantly, the citizens of BC will benefit, especially those who have felt frustrated by their vote 'not counting', because their votes will count and the legislature will faithfully reflect how they vote.

While observing your Assembly's educational sessions and the public hearings this spring, I couldn't help but notice peoples' negativity, anger and cynicism towards political parties and the suggestion that maybe it would be better if there were no political parties and simply independent politicians in our legislative assembly.

I'm worried that some of you may share this negativity towards political parties and make it your first priority to try to 'weaken party control' in the mistaken belief that the problem with our democracy is political parties.

In fact, political parties came into being in the 19th century because of the corruption, pork barreling and abuse of power that was rampant amongst individual independent politicians. Parties were originally formed to provide more transparent, fair and accountable politics: to give ordinary people access to candidacy and to give information to voters about platforms so they could hold parties accountable.

Political parties are not inherently evil. But many are not functioning very democratically. One big reason why is that our voting system is flawed. Our voting system is the democratic means by which voters delegate their power. Every vote should count. The power of a party should not be less nor more than voters determine in the ballot box. Power corrupts. Unfair power creates unfair governments. Changing to a more fair and democratic voting system in BC will change political parties and governments for the better.

If old parties keep getting more power than by their vote they deserve, or they begin thinking they have power wrapped up, they get more and more arrogant, corrupt and self-serving. They start paying less attention to what voters actually want and more attention to the tactics of how to win under our unfair voting system.

I urge you to make it your priority to recommend a new voting system that never delivers an unfair majority government, a government that wins less than 50% of the vote yet gets a majority of seats and virtual dictatorial power.

I urge you also to recommend a new voting system that gives young new parties with fresh new ideas a chance to get elected. People want new parties. For example, an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted a year and a half ago revealed that two-thirds of British Columbians want Green Party MLAs elected in 2005. But unless Green Party voters are concentrated in certain electoral districts instead of being relatively evenly spread out across BC, our voting system can't give expression to that public desire.

By stifling smaller parties and thwarting their electoral chances, our current system reinforces the older parties' grip on power. The only thing that ultimately forces parties to examine their platform, their performance in office and their appeal to voters, is the competition for votes. Effective and electible new parties help keep old parties honest and accountable to the public.

We need more checks on those in power. According to Elections BC officials, our election laws place very few controls on political parties, but there is nothing stopping you from including some controls in the changes you recommend making to our voting system. You could, for example, require that all political parties nominate all candidates by publicly registered transparent democratic processes. Our party recommends that you do this.

There are other checks on political parties' abuse of power that are beyond your mandate. Two in particular are changing electoral financing laws to replace corporate and union funding with public funding, and parliamentary reforms that give more power to the legislative assembly and less power to the cabinet and premier's office. I'd suggest these reforms be pursued by future Citizens Assemblies.

The mandate of this Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform is to consider whether or not to change how votes are translated into seats in our provincial legislative assembly and if you recommend change, to clearly spell out the details of a new voting system and write a referendum question for our May 17, 2005 election, only 340 days from today. I congratulate the BC Liberal government for putting this power into your hands. As your Assembly chair, Jack Blaney says, 'This really is power to the people.' You are required to work within our Westminster parliamentary system. I found it helpful to be clear about what this really means. The Westminster system is a system of democracy based on political parties. Parties nominate candidates who, if elected, theoretically at least, act as representatives of those that elected them. If a party wins enough seats it forms government. If not, it forms the opposition with the role of holding government in check. The will and power of the people is expressed through the voting system.

The most fundamental question you need to address is: does our current voting system fairly and accurately translate the will of voters in terms of which parties form government and opposition?
The answer is clearly: No.

Our first-past-the-post voting system worked when there were just two parties. It does not work when there are multiple parties. Votes get 'split' in capricious ways and our voting system delivers unfair results, including 'wrong winners' as happened in 1996 when the NDP won a majority government with 39% of the vote, less of the vote than the Liberals. The results in 2001 were also unrepresentative of voters' wishes, giving 58% of voters 97% of the representatives (the Liberals), 22% of voters just 3% of the representatives (the NDP) and 20% of voters (including 12.4% of Greens) no representatives at all.

Please do not let any other issue take precedence over achieving fair election outcomes. I urge you to deal with the greatest of integrity and priority with this most fundamental issue: changing our voting system so that election outcomes and our legislative assembly, particularly which parties form government and opposition, accurately reflect the will of the people.

If you make this your priority, you will undoubtedly come to the same conclusion as the vast majority of citizens who have presented to you: to recommend a proportional representation system so that a party's share of seats equals as closely as possible its share of votes.

The most popular recommendation made to your Assembly is for Mixed Proportional Representation. It is popular for good reason: people want the fairness of proportional representation and, especially in rural BC, they want local representation, too.

In consort with these people, the Green Party of BC recommends that you develop a Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) voting system for BC, incorporating list-PR with a province-wide party ballot giving people two votes: one for a local representative and a second vote for the party of their choice. This is the most fair and democratic option. It maximizes voter representation. Every British Columbian's vote, whether they live in Burns Lake or Burnaby, will count equally in determining the election outcome.

In terms of the specifics of designing a 'made-in-BC' MMP system, we recommend that you:

Because a significant number of citizens have recommended a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system to you, although far fewer than those recommending MMP, I felt it important to spell out why the BC Green Party does not favour this system.

In summary, the recommendations of the Green Party of BC are to:

Change BC's voting system.

So far, 98 percent of the submissions to your assembly are calling for change. Honour the will of these good citizens and recommend the system that most of them prefer.

Choose a Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) voting system, combining list-PR with local constituency representation.

This system is most faithful and fair in translating the will of voters into election outcomes and the make-up of the legislative assembly, which is the fundamental goal of a democratic voting system. MMP is also the choice most widely supported by citizens in your public input process. It gives voters more effective representation than any other voting system, retaining local representation and providing representation for 'constituencies of interest' so that every voter, in every part of BC, is represented by the election of some MLAs to whom they can turn for help and to whom they feel akin as their politically aligned advocates. MMP leaves out the fewest voters. It gives us the greatest chance to get effective government and effective opposition over the long-term.

The success of the Citizens' Assembly process rides with you. You have to design not just a detailed system that works for BC and is more fair, but also one that people can easily understand and vote 'yes' for in a referendum in May of 2005.

I thank you for your diligence, your hard work and your commitment to revitalizing BC's democracy.