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Newsletter #3

27th January, 2004 : Vancouver (Internal)
 

ASSEMBLY COMPLETES ITS SECOND SESSION

On Saturday, January 24, and Sunday, January 25, Assembly members met for their second session at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver.

Their discussions centred on elections, representation, parliaments, political parties and the Canadian experience – discussions which helped lay the groundwork for the upcoming exploration of various families of electoral systems.

Saturday morning, the Assembly considered the role of elections, representation and parliaments in the process of democratic government. Topics included:

  • Keeping governments responsive
  • Representative assemblies
  • Parliamentary government
  • Parties and majority government
  • Coalition and minority government
Later that afternoon, the Assembly moved to a more in-depth exploration of political parties and competition between parties. They wrestled with such questions as:

  • Why do political parties exist everywhere?
  • Can we have electoral politics with no parties?
  • How does the electoral system shape the number and kind of parties?
  • What happens to the parties when we change the electoral system?
  • What kind of parties do we have in Canada under our current system? How do they work?
Sunday morning, the Assembly examined the history of electoral systems in BC and elsewhere in Canada, including:

  • BC’s history of multi-member districts from 1871 to 1991
  • BC’s experimentation with alternative voting (AV) formulas in the elections of 1952 and 1953
  • Alberta’s experience with AV systems and with preferential voting (PR) systems from 1926-1955
They wrapped up the weekend by wrestling with such contentious questions as:

  • Should every citizen’s vote be equal? If so, what does this mean for constituencies?
  • What are the pros and cons of having majority governments which do not win the majority of votes? (ie. "artificial majorities")
  • How frequently have parties won the right to form government while actually losing the popular vote – as happened in BC in 1996? (ie. "wrong winners")
  • Should we be concerned about "oversized governments"? (ie. The disproportionate number of seats governments frequently receive compared to their share of votes.)
  • How could different electoral systems affect the under-representation of women, ethnic communities or social groups in the Legislature? And is this an important consideration?
UNDER DISCUSSION

The Assembly is currently considering and debating:

  • a public hearing schedule for May and June
  • a proposal to allow presentations to the entire Assembly the first meeting weekend in the fall
WEB RESOURCES

All learning materials provided to the Assembly are available online. Our website traffic counter tells us we’re getting an average of 168 visitors each day – from as far away as Japan, Pakistan, Estonia, Qatar and Belize.

NEXT MEETINGS – FEBRUARY 7-8

On February 7-8, the Assembly reconvenes for its third session of meetings during which they will begin a detailed study of electoral systems.

First, they will review the five families of electoral systems, their components and the major differences between them. Then they will study two systems in-depth: plurality systems and majority systems.

The following session (February 21-22), they will focus on the remaining three major families of electoral systems: proportional representation, mixed and single transferable vote.

These meetings are open to the public, however, because of space restrictions, we ask that you pre-register by calling the Assembly office at 1-866-667-1232 or e-mailing info@citizensassembly.bc.ca. Meeting times and details are on our homepage.

MEDIA COVERAGE

Maclean’s magazine featured the Citizens’ Assembly in its January 26th edition. The story is also online here.

CBC TV plans to run a segment on its evening newscast in the near future.

Shaw TV is also scheduled to run a segment on the Assembly this week.

Media coverage of the Citizens’ Assembly has been gratifying. While broadcast coverage is not as easy to track as press coverage, we know of well over 300 stories in the past five months – and the real number is likely over 400.

NEW BRUNSWICK CONFERENCE

A conference on Legislative Democracy is being held, February 5-6, at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Topics of discussion will include:

  • Types of electoral systems
  • Issues relating to group representation (such as women and minorities) and electoral boundaries in various electoral systems
  • Outcomes of electoral reform
  • The New Brunswick and Canadian experiences with direct democracy
  • Citizen engagement and participation in Canadian and NB democracy
More information at: www.gnb.ca/0100/conf-e.asp

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