Letter to Educators from Chair

Dear BC Educators,

British Columbia has led the world’s democracies by turning over the important question of electoral reform to citizens.  Learning about the work of the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform is a terrific opportunity to inspire your students while achieving prescribed learning outcomes.

By bringing the Citizens’ Assembly into your classroom, you can engage your students with a real-life democratic issue.  Your students can use resources on this website to learn about BC’s current voting system and BC-STV, the recommended system.  Once they've had a chance to think about the issues, your students can help the province prepare for this historic referendum by sharing their voices with their communities.

Many young people and teachers participated in the spring 2004 public hearings and in written submissions, which are posted on this website.  Citizens’ Assembly members did their work “for the future citizens of this province” and I hope that young people will be a part of this exciting process.

The Citizens’ Assembly was an independent, non-partisan group of 160 British Columbians who were given the power to make a recommendation to the people of this province.  It reviewed the way our votes are translated into seats in the provincial Legislature.  Now that the Assembly, in its Final Report, recommended a change to BC-STV, this decision goes directly to voters in a May 17, 2005 referendum.

To assist you with bringing BC-STV and the Citizens’ Assembly into your classroom, please use the learning resources available here on our website. The Final Report is also available at libraries and government agencies, if you haven't yet recieved a copy. 

I do hope you will incorporate the question of electoral reform into your lessons, and take advantage of this groundbreaking effort in participatory democracy.

Sincerely,

Jack Blaney, Chair