This past spring, I attended every educational session of the
Citizens' Assembly open to the public in the Wosk Centre for
Dialogue. I found them interesting and informative. However,
already knowing quite a bit about the Mixed Member Proportional as
well as other electoral systems, there were times that I found that
the explanations of how these systems worked was not as thorough or
accurate as they could have been.
Gradually I became alarmed that there was a growing bias towards
STV from the instructors that was rubbing off on Assembly members.
Assertions were made that STV systems gave voters 'maximum voter
choice' and that these systems 'weakened political parties'. I
could see that these points resonated with many Assembly members
who were disgusted with the major political parties in BC and that
Assembly members accepted these assertions without question.
On one occasion an instructor said that MMP elected 'Zombie
politicians' (politicians who voters rejected at the constituency
level yet got re-elected via a party list so that voters couldn';t
get rid of them). I had never heard of this term, despite studying
various European and New Zealand systems. This piece of information
made headline news in the Vancouver Sun, prejudicing people against
MMP.
As part of the preparation for this submission I made a Google
search on the web for the term 'Zombie Politicians' and found that
the only reference to this term as used by your instructor for the
election of a list MP or MLA was on the Citizens' Assembly
website!
STV was held up as a type of proportional representation system,
which I found out is not the case by questioning David M. Farrell,
the author of the main text used by Assembly Members - Electoral
Systems: a comparative introduction. Dr. Farrell supports STV and
came to explain STV to the Assembly members. During a break he was
asked if, indeed, STV was a proportional representation voting
system. He said that it was not a proportional system by design but
by chance it can give some proportional results depending on the
district magnitude.
Factual information about exactly how STV works in Ireland and
Malta, the two countries where it is used, was not given in much
detail to Assembly members. Interestingly, when Dr. Farrell was
asked directly by an Assembly member, 'Why do you prefer STV?'
during question period at the end of his lecture he replied bluntly
that his preference was 'irrational'. It was simply the that it was
the system he grew up with.
Armed with the education from Farrell's book and the information
gathered at the six weekend sessions, Assembly members went out to
gather public input at 50 public hearing around the province. I
personally attended the first two public hearings as well as three
others. From observing these meetings I got the impression that
many of the questions asked by Assembly members of MMP supporters
were obtuse and designed to elicit answers from the presenters that
demonstrated that either the person hadn't fully considered STV or
that the person might be comfortable with another unspecified
proportional system (STV was not mentioned but perhaps implied).
These were 'fishing questions' looking for an answer that could
later be interpreted that the person really didn't understand the
MMP system or the virtues of a STV system.
Subsequently, I read every summary of the presenters at the public
hearing posted on the Citizens' Assembly website and this pattern
persisted.
Also undue weight was put on the submissions of the few supporters
of STV who did present. In Nelson, when one person from outside the
community was flown in to give a presentation in support of STV,
the Assembly's press release failed to indicate that the vast
majority of the other presentations supported MMP.
The finally tally of presentations at the public hearings shows
that there were 188 presenters backing MMP to 20 for STV or a
variant of STV.
However members and staff began to discount this show of support by
saying that MMP submissions were not as detailed as STV submissions
and by implication saying that the STV submission carried more
weight. On my viewing of all the submission both the summaries of
the public hearing and the written ones I did not find that this
was true. There were only two very detailed STV variant systems
presented.
There was also a false rumor spread around among CA members that
40% of the submissions came from Green Party members and that the
Green Party had packed the public hearing implying that the MMP
submissions could therefore also be discounted for that reason and
therefore did not need to be given much weight. This false
information was published both in the Cranbrook Townsman and in the
Vancouver Sun without a letter from the CA staff setting the record
straight published in these papers.
Nowhere is the bias towards STV most evident that in the selection
of those who get a chance to present to the plenary on September
11, 2004. Three of the nine presenters are STV supporters-one third
of the presenters, despite support for STV in the public hearing
and public on-line input phase being less than 5%.
As of the end of the public input phase with 1060 written
submissions posted on the Citizens' Assembly website there were 515
different persons providing written support for MMP and only 40 for
STV. Of the 40 submission, ten came from outside Canada and one had
to be a satire for it extolled STV because it seemed to keep women
out of politics and keep them in their place. Approximately 167 of
the 1060 submissions are either outside the mandate of the
Citizens' Assembly or do not recommend a voting system. Of all the
submissions that do recommend a particular type of voting system,
80% support a proportional representation system in which a party's
share of seats is determined by its share of vote (515 submissions
specifically supporting MMP plus 188 asking generally for
proportional representation). Several significant BC unions (BCGEU
and the Nurses Union) also sent in submissions in support of an MMP
voting system for BC.
In my opinion, the breadth of public support for MMP, should make
it easy for Citizens' Assembly members to choose change, choose
MMP, and get on with the work of developing the details of the best
possible 'made in BC' MMP system to be put to voters in a
referendum next May.
If for some reason an STV system is put forward by the Citizens';
Assembly, I believe it will surely fail in a referendum vote, just
as that choice fails to faithfully reflect the vast majority of
public input to the Assembly. Sadly, if this happens, something
just as important as BC getting a fair voting system will fail,
too, and that is the grand democratic experiment of the Citizens';
Assembly itself: that randomly chosen citizens can make wise
democratic decisions regarding matters of critical public
policy.
For your information: I was one of the 17 founders of the Green
Party of BC in 1983 and at that time became a keen advocate of
proportional representation. In early 2002, I traveled to New
Zealand, spending three weeks there investigating how MMP works. I
worked full time as a volunteer on the 2002 Initiative to Establish
a Proportional Representation Electoral System in BC, conducting
research, writing educational materials, coordinating volunteers,
printing and mailing out information and petitions and answering
questions from the public on how the proposed MMP voting system,
the subject of the Initiative would work in BC.
I am one of the founding directors of the Free Your Vote Pro Rep
Society established after the 2002 Initiative was over, with the
aim of continuing to promote an MMP system in BC. In late April
2004, prior to the beginning of the public hearing phase, I brought
in a submission in separate envelopes addressed to every Assembly
member which contained our educational paper that promoted
participation in the CA's public hearings. This submission however
was not sent out until this month. I hope every Assembly member
reads the 8-page newspaper titled Help make BC's voting system
fair 'Participate now in the Citizens'
Assembly on Electoral Reform Hope for Democracy in BC
This educational newspaper, which I helped write, can be accessed
through the Free Your Vote Website:
http://www.freeyourvote.bc.ca/
http://www.freeyourvote.bc.ca/pdfFreeYourVote/ProRepNewspaper.pdf
.
Although our Free Your Vote Pro Rep Society is not yet two years
old, compared to the six years that Fair Voting BC has been
advocating electoral change, we have been able to generate much
greater public support from across the political, social and
geographic spectrums in BC for a fair MMP system than Fair Voting
BC has been able to garner for STV.
Good luck with your deliberations this fall. The future of BC
depends on you putting aside political prejudices and exercising
practical collective wisdom.
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