News release

North Shore residents join Assembly

North Vancouver – British Columbia’s Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform swelled its ranks with the selection of eight new members Thursday night.

They are:

Their names were drawn at random at a public meeting in North Vancouver.  An additional 46 members will be selected at meetings in the Lower Mainland and the Sunshine Coast during November.  Selection began October 14th in Fort St. John, where the names of the first four Assembly members were drawn. 

Mostrovich, 24, is a business administration student at Capilano College, who works as a restaurant server and enjoys travel. Smith is a 40-year-old co-owner of a pet service business. He and his wife are the proud parents of a dachshund and a border collie.

Garbutt, 47, directs animation for series and video games and has won an Emmy for his work. He is married with a daughter and enjoys scuba diving. Hill is married with two sons and is a post-secondary educator. She previously coordinated computer programming training for persons with disabilities.

Crawford, 36, is a programmer analyst who has worked as a computer programmer for the past ten years. She is married and enjoys the outdoors. Spaxman, 69, is an urban planning consultant and formerly the city planner with the City of Vancouver. He is married with four children.

Quan is a former banker, now active in his municipality and parish. He is 64, married, the father of two and a long-time West Vancouver resident who was born in Victoria. Boehmer is a 54-year-old self-employed international engineering consultant. She is the mother of two recent university graduates and a North Shore resident since 1989.

The Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform is an independent, non-partisan group of British Columbians randomly selected from communities around the province to review the way we elect our provincial political representatives.  This process is unique in Canadian history; never has such a representative group of citizens played such a vital role in shaping the electoral process. 

By November 25th, the Assembly will have 158 members from all over B.C. – one man and one woman from each of the 79 provincial electoral districts.  Beginning in January, the Assembly will spend much of 2004 examining electoral systems used around the world and will decide if they should propose a change to B.C.’s current system of translating votes into seats in the Legislature.

If Assembly members recommend a change, B.C. voters will decide in a referendum on May 17, 2005, the date of the next provincial election.  Any change approved by the voters would take effect with the 2009 B.C. election.