After attending the recent hearing in Fort St. John I gave the
topic some thought and am forwarding this brief submission.
I believe we do need to go to a type of proportional
representation system in BC as well as on the federal level.
My vision of this system is that approximately 60 MLAs would be
elected indirectly. By this I mean that the various provincial
parties establish prioritized lists of candidates. I.e. should a
party receive 50% of the vote province wide, the first 30 persons
on the list would represent this party.
I would also be in favour of the concept that a party needs to
achieve a minimum of 5 % of the popular vote in order to be
represented in the legislature.
The remaining members of the legislature would be
representatives of the regions and of minority and interest
groups.
Eight geographic regions would each directly elect one MLA (I.e.
Vancouver, Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, Kooteneys, Okanagan,
North-East, North-West, Cariboo) to represent the unique
perspective of the respective regions.
The remainder of the seats (10) would be assigned to various
minority and interest groups (i.e. First Nations, people with
disabilities, visible minorities, agriculture etc.) The various
groups would be responsible to democratically elect their
representatives within established provincial organizations.
Thank you for taking the time to consider this proposal. I look
forward to your final report and recommendations.
[Entered online from a scanned document]
|