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News release - Weekend wrapup17th October, 2004 :
Vancouver (Internal)
Assembly decision next weekend
Members of B.C.'s Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform expect
to decide next weekend whether to recommend that the people of B.C.
adopt a new electoral system, or to recommend that we stick to the
current way of translating votes into seats in the legislature.
Assembly members spent Saturday and Sunday designing a
Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system model
– one that they think could work in B.C. This followed
on their design of a proportional
Single Transferable Vote (STV) model on the weekend of
September 25-26. (See the September
26 news release for full details.)
Members next weekend will pick one of these as the best
potential model for B.C. Then they will carefully compare its
pluses and minuses with those of the current "
First Past the Post" electoral system.
And they are then expected to cap next weekend by settling on
their recommendation to the B.C. public: Vote on a new system, or
stick with the one we have.
If the Assembly recommends a new system, then voters will have
their say on it in a referendum held with the next provincial
election, on May 17, 2005. The B.C. government has said that if
voters approve a change, the new electoral system would go into
effect for the election of 2009. If Assembly members opt to stay
with the current system, then there would be no referendum.
The Citizens' Assembly is an independent, representative,
non-partisan group of 160 randomly selected British Columbians,
plus chair Jack Blaney. They have a deadline of December 15 to
report to British Columbians on their recommendation, its details
and implications, and their reasons. Then the Assembly will
disband.
Under the MMP model the members crafted, 60% of
B.C.’s 79 MLAs would be elected directly as
constituency representatives. One impact would be that
constituencies would be larger. The other 40% of MLAs would come
from lists of names prepared by the parties, with seats allocated
so that, in the end, each party's share of seats roughly mirrors
its popular vote.
Among other features of the members’ made-in-B.C.
MMP model:
A few details of the MMP model were put off until next weekend,
including the question of how vacancies for party-list seats would
be filled between general elections.
MMP is now used in countries that include New Zealand and
Germany, though no two countries use precisely the same model.
On Saturday, members were told by a visiting expert that no
electoral system will guarantee that more women will be elected as
MLAs -- a question that has been long and often raised in Assembly
discussions.
"There is no magic solution," said Prof.
Lisa Young of the University of Calgary. "There is no electoral
system that will guarantee that the legislature will look like this
body and less like today's legislatures." (The Assembly's
membership of 160 is, by mandate, made up of 80 women and 80 men.
B.C.'s population is almost 52% female, but women hold only 24% of
the seats in the current legislature.)
Some other points made by Young:
Next weekend’s meetings are open to the public, and
take place at the Morris J. Wosk
Centre for Dialogue in downtown Vancouver, starting at 8:30
a.m. each day.
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