Electoral reform changes that might help reform the
current system: how to make the concepts of governance
and democracy work again.
People feel alienated from the power to have meaningful choice
in terms of elections. We don’t for the
most part vote for the best individuals, we vote for a party
platform or more often against a party by voting for their
opposition. Our society and politicians have lost their
way and that creates hard feelings and cynicism and distrust on
both sides.
We squander our resources, our people and their
idea’s and thus people’s sense of inclusion
is damaged. For this reason I support proportional
representation and a two vote system, one for party and one for the
candidate. I think that this is a necessary step to
revitalizing or societies political/social interests.
If it were up to me I would even take the proportional
representation issue one step further and grant standing and a
partial vote, and backbench status in the Parliament to any
candidate for election that achieved 40% of the vote in their
riding as they clearly represent a substantial portion of their
ridings interests.
Other changes I would suggest, is that parties have to present a
clearer vision of what their party platform stands for.
One way to achieve this could be the creation of a public agenda
program to help guide government policy.
Each party with more than 2 seats can puts forward 15-25
specific social reforms and a plan to achieve those reforms within
10 years maximum implementation
date. The social reforms need
to be identified and submitted at least a year before an election,
unless a snap election is called or forced because of a
non-confidence motion in the legislature that forces an
election.
For instance, The Green Party might put forward the need for
social reform regarding disposable diapers: Their
position on this social problem: Because disposable diapers are not
truly disposable as they do not biodegrade in landfills,
we are creating an enormous problem in terms of the
incredible quantity (400,000) tons a year of un-biodegradable waste
they represents. We suggest that a new public policy be
implemented to deal directly with this problem.
The Green Party’s solution is the mandated phasing out
of the product sale in British Columbia of the non-biodegradable
diapers within six years and funding research to allow companies
located in British Columbia to create truly disposable
biodegradable diapers possibly from recycled wood and paper
products.
Proposed potential budget of 26 million for research and 10
million for diaper manufacturing plant construction or to assist
existing diaper plants to modernized and retrofit for the new
product.
Each of the other parties would have 1 year to respond with a
solution to this identified problem too.
So the Liberals might put forward their plan to create a
separate trash system using yellow bags so that disposable diapers
could be collected separately from regular garbage and incinerated
to reduce the number of disposable diapers in landfills. Proposed
potential budget of 50 million to establish a collection system for
disposable diapers, using existing incineration sites with an
annual cost of 10 million a year in wages and costs to operate this
new garbage system. Time to implement new system is 2 years
Finally the NDP puts forward their policy solution to this
problem, which involves separating diapers from the regular waste
stream using yellow bags like the Liberals but that the disposable
diapers would not be incinerated but recycled at a single site in
the province using technology that California has pioneered
allowing the diapers components to be recycled into its basic
plastic components. This recycled plastic could then be
exported for sale or incorporated into road construction
materials. They claim that the salvaged material could
be sold to reduce the annual costs to operate the new system to 8
million and the set up costs would be 40 million to establish a new
system of separate collection for the whole
province. Time to implement the new system
is estimated at three years.
So, as part of the mail out to people on the voters list would
include the 75 potential issues and each party's proposed
solutions, this could also be done partially on line at home from
the citizen’s computer if they had one.
This written ballot could be completed by the electorate at home
and simply turned in at the voting station on Election
Day. On voting day, people who hadn’t
completed their 75-issue ballot could simply request one and turn
it in later in the day after producing
identification.
The task for each of the electorate would be to rank order the
proposed issues in terms of priority that they wanted the
government to place on the issues. For instance some
people might want to place the disposable diaper issue high on
their agenda for instance, in the top 10 issues while others would
place it much lower. In tallying the votes the average
placement of an issue is created so of 75 items the disposable
diapers might receive an average ranking of 57/75. The
individual electorate would also rank order the solutions proposed
by each party and this rank ordering could also be averaged across
all ballots. Therefore in our example of the disposable
diaper issue if 70,000 voters chose the Green party option as best
while only 40,000 thought the NDP solution was best and 35000 liked
the Liberals solution then the Green party’s solution
would win top ranking on this solution. The newly
elected government would then have to examine how they wanted to
respond to the issue. If it were a newly elected
Liberal Government they would have to examine how they wanted to
respond to the electorates rejection of their proposed policy in
this area. Do they want to endorse the Green
Party’s solution, which was heavily favoured by voters
although it was a low priority item in the public mandate? Or do
they proceed with their own agenda?
This type of public mandate program would give the government
more clarity regarding the will of the electorate and their own
mandate. Governments make the assumption that their
victory in an election creates their mandate, but that is not true,
most people vote for a party or party member based on a few
important issues. A public mandate program would also
create a more educated electorate who want more information to make
their own decisions about each issue. It would also
draw issues of governance out into the public arena and force
newspapers and journalists to investigate and examine public policy
for the benefit of their readers and watchers. It would
force government to examine their actions regarding the will of the
electorate because they will be more clearly accountable for what
is done during their term in office. For instance in
the next election, the ruling party’s actions can be
examined in light of what on the public agenda was accomplished as
well as what issues or solutions were ignored.
For opposition parties it also creates greater ability to
introduce private members bills based on the public agenda and to
fight for them in the house. Thus this idea will have a
tendency to reduce polarization of policy in politics from party
centred to issue and electorate centred while not binding the
government to a course of action. Finally it will be a
source of information for business allowing them to change and
adapt to the public will. For instance, the company
producing Pampers disposable diapers might take the Green
Party’s solution’s victory as a sign that
the next generation of Pampers diaper should be more biodegradable
as given the election results that is also a clear desire of
potentials consumers in B.C. Thus companies
could use this kind of information to make social change and as a
way of identifying important trends that they have the opportunity
to respond to.
One Final Idea.
The universities of our land have a wealth of students in need
of meaningful assignments. These students represent our
future leaders and our wealth. One way to
tap that wealth would be for the government to avail themselves of
those minds and their ability to research issues at relatively low
cost. When there are important issues that need
technical solutions, issues like fish farming benefits and
solutions. Rather than start an expensive commission to
try to solve the issue by producing a massive document.
Why not start with an essay contest in specific departments of the
BC universities, a completion that looks for original thinking and
solutions that are feasible. Several awards could be
given for the ten best essays. The cost would be low
and the assignment could be incorporated into some classes as a
real world exercise. There are benefits for the
university, the students and potentially the
government. This would allow the best ideals of
democracy to get a foothold in universities while creating
meaningful exercises for the leaders in our society of
tomorrow.
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