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Mark Milke, in National Post4th November, 2004 :
Vancouver (Internal)
A victory for B.C.'s voters
By Mark Milke
National Post, 04-Nov-2004
Similarly to the province itself, the second premier of British
Columbia was famously eccentric.
Amor De Cosmos -- an adopted name which means "love of the
universe" -- was afraid of electricity and thus refused to ride in
electric streetcars or allow electricity in his home. A frequent
drinker, he was involved in street fights and, after he ceased to
be premier, was declared insane two years before he died in
1897.
Colourful as he was, De Cosmos also fought for substantial
reforms that positively affected British Columbia, including the
union of Vancouver Island and the mainland (until then two separate
colonies) and for responsible government to replace the colonial
administration.
De Cosmos serves as a useful symbol of British Columbia writ
large.
Legendarily goofy though Lotusland is, its Citizens Assembly on
Electoral Reform voted recently to dump the current
first-past-the-post system (where the candidate with the most votes
wins, even if it's a small fraction of all votes cast) and replace
it with one that some hope will lead to more responsible
government.
The Assembly's recommendation -- for a single transferable vote
(STV) that allows voters to prioritize their voting intentions in
multi-member ridings -- will now go directly to the voters in a
referendum on May 17, 2005, the date of B.C.'s provincial election.
If passed (simple majorities in a least 60% of B.C.'s ridings are
needed), it will take effect in 2009 and could set the stage for
similar reforms across Canada.
The recommended STV system for British Columbia would mean that
between two and seven Members of the Legislative Assembly would be
chosen per riding (more in highly populated urban ridings, fewer in
rural constituencies) and voters could number their preferred
candidates: 1 for their first choice, 2 for the second and so on
down the list. I will not plunge into arcane details, but the
preferential ballot will allow voters' wishes -- not just their
first preference -- to be reflected in the eventual make-up of the
legislature.
Thus, election results will more closely resemble the percentage
of votes cast for each party. In B.C.'s last election, the NDP
received 21% of the vote but only two seats in the legislature (out
of 79). New Democrats deserved the shellacking given their 10-year
reign of error and incompetence. Even so, NDP supporters should
have their political preference better expressed in B.C.'s
Legislative Assembly.
Another bonus of a preferential-style ballot is that party
discipline may well be weakened as coalition governments become
more likely, given that a party's seat share will more closely
resemble its percentage of the popular vote. If that occurs, MLAs
-- especially independent ones -- will then have more influence
than is allowed in the current system. Now, almost every vote
against a government by a government member is considered an act of
betrayal at worst or a ticket to obscurity at best. The new STV
system is also preferable to a highly proportional system where
voters are forced to choose MLAs based on lists drawn up by distant
party elites, which would preserve excessive party power and was
properly rejected by the Citizen's Assembly.
I've been skeptical of electoral reform, because voters don't
need to hand parties more power and reduce direct constituency
representation, the inevitable result if B.C.'s reforms produced a
system where parties present voters with competing lists. But
because the STV system is so unfriendly to backroom party bosses
producing such lists, that's exactly why I'm in favour of the
experiment.
And it is possible that if STV is approved, B.C. will only
reinforce the wacky side of its De Cosmos-like reputation. Sure,
it's possible drastic electoral reform may lead to multiple
tree-huggers and "tree-sitters," chronic dope-smokers and economic
illiterates populating the B.C. legislature, and with dire
results.
Thus, the B.C. government may wish to provide that the system
will automatically revert to first-past-the-post after several
elections, unless voters later endorse a permanent change to the
voting system having had a chance to give the new system an honest
chance and some sober second thought. That would ensure a solution
if a dysfunctional system emerges out of this experiment -- one
that cannot correct itself. But giving voters a chance to see if
the STV experiment will work -- by giving them more power and
parties less -- is worth the risk.
Mark Milke, author and columnist, was a director with the
Canadian Taxpayers Federation in both Alberta and BC. He is the
author of two books, Tax Me I'm Canadian - Your Money and How
Politicians Spend It and the BC bestseller Barbarians in
the Garden City. Milke writes regularly for the Victoria Times
Colonist, The Province, The Calgary Herald, and National
Post.
[© Copyright 2004, Mark Milke. Reproduced here by
permission of Mr. Milke.]
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