News release

Youngest member for Citizens' Assembly

The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform added four new members Wednesday night -- including the youngest to date.

Selected by random draw at a meeting in Salmon Arm were:

At 20, Munro is the youngest Assembly member selected so far. She's a third-year B.A. student at Okanagan University College in Kelowna, and is eyeing a career as a social science teacher. Armstrong is 69, a retired design educator, married, with eight children and 12 grandchildren.

Boucher is 61, and owner-operator of the Echo Lake Fishing Resort. He has two children and five grandchildren. Davis is a retired provincial government employee who has done volunteer work abroad. She has three children, two grandchildren, and a third on the way.

The next selection meeting is in Victoria Thursday night, where eight more members will be selected.

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 Assembly members 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 they recommend a change, it will be the subject of a referendum for all voters in the provincial election in May 2005. Any change approved by voters would take effect with the 2009 B.C. election.