News release

Interior members join Assembly

KAMLOOPS – British Columbia’s Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform added six members Monday from the Kamloops and Yale-Lillooet regions.

Selected by random draw at a public meeting in Kamloops were:

Cavalleto is 23, and recent grad from University College of the Cariboo. She's married, and is working as a waitress. Jones is 54, a labourer and former store manager, married with two children.

Zurowski is retired, and has a longtime interest in electoral systems and their workings. Harris is a 35-year-old construction worker, married and the father of three.

Patry, 61, is a registered clinical counsellor. Married, with five children, she and her husband own a guest ranch. Pietras is a 62-year-old nurse, married, with two children and two grandchildren.

They brought the Assembly membership to 26. 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.