News release

Citizens' Assembly adds 12

The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform brought its membership up to 62 with the selection of 12 new members Wednesday night.

Selected at a meeting in Nanaimo were:

Selected at a meeting in Castlegar were:

Wood, 47, is a house cleaner with two adult children, who has also worked as a greensperson at a golf course and in sales in an antique store. Zens, 65, is a 40-year dentist and part-time farmer with three children and three grand-children.

Ensminger is 50, French-born, a substitute teacher (social studies) and organic farmer (blueberries and chickens) who has a daughter of 14. Melvin is 32, married, and a home-maker with two boys.

Dagert is 38 and is executive director of the Nanaimo Foodshare initiative. She worked in Indonesia with CUSO from 1996-98. Mackinnon is 77, and retired. Married for 54 years, he has nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Chapman is 77, a retired teacher, grandfather (of three) who speaks English, Italian, German, Spanish and Hungarian. Nicolaisen is 58, a "full-time homemaker, Mom and Gramma" who was married at 17 and has five children and eight grandchildren.

Gowing is 31, a bartender and entrepreneur, born and raised in Ymir and a mother of two. She has an interest in theatre. Gosling is 58 and retired, but moonlights as a computer technician. He has two daughters and two grandchildren.

Miller is a 65-year-old potato farmer, married with two children and five grandchildren. Brown is 66, and a semi-retired orchardist. She has been a volunteer worker for many years with seniors' and children's groups.

Next selection meeting is set for Campbell River (to pick four new members) Thursday night.

By Nov. 25, the Assembly will have 158 members from all over B.C. -- one man and one woman from each of the 79 provincial electoral districts.

The 158 will spend much of 2004 examining electoral systems in use 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 the Assembly members recommend a change, it will be the subject of a referendum for all voters in the 2005 provincial election. Any change approved by the voters would take effect with the 2009 B.C. election.