I am not satisfied with the kind of governments that we have
been getting in Canada for many of the 40-50 years of my adult
life, and I attribute a lot of the problems to our
“first past the post” electoral system. I
remember during the 1950s through the 1970s we had a number of
minority governments at the federal level, and in many of the major
provinces, and I remember the government and politics of those
years as being more involved, and more progressive than we have
seen lately. The governing party had to consult more, and more
seriously, with the opposition and various interests, and negotiate
policies that served broad cross-sections of our society and
economy. Having seen the merits of more competitive states of
government, I would like to see British Columbia adopt a mixed
member proportional [MMP] representation system, as I am
convinced that it would produce more diversity in our legislature,
remove some of the power of the executive branch, dampen the wild
swings in government, and encourage more voters to come out and
participate in our democracy.
Unfortunately, our “first past the post”
electoral system has facilitated a different electoral result, the
big majority, which has come to be predominant in recent years. I
suppose it was satisfactory to have the occasional big majority
during the formative years of this country and province, when a
very powerful government could force some important nation-building
policies. That time has past. Now we need to manage our country in
a way that reflects its many interests, many economic and social
forces. We can’t afford to allow ham-handed idealogues
of any political stripe to squander our public resources on their
pet projects, at the expense of the broader public good. A PR
system would better reflect the variety of wishes of our publics. I
do not fear that Canadians would behave like Italians, and vote in
ways that create great instability and result in very short-lived
governments. I am confident that we, as a collective, are too sober
and conservative to allow such flippancy.
Please consider this to be my appeal to you, to recommend to the
government that British Columbia improve its electoral system, and
its approach to democracy, by adopting a mixed member proportional
representation system.
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