News release

Citizens' Assembly grows to 10

PRINCE GEORGE -- The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform brought its membership to 10 with the selection of six new members Wednesday night.

They are:

Their names were drawn at random at a public meeting in Prince George. Another six members will be selected Thursday night (Oct. 16) in Terrace and four in Williams Lake. Selection began Tuesday night in Fort St. John, where the first four Assembly members were drawn.

Jarbek is past vice-chair of the College of New Caledonia and a director of the Prince George Community Foundation. Hodgson, 70, is a retired mechanical contractor, long active in the region's construction industry.

Waller is 44. He's a junior high school teacher (math) and also teaches in the CORE program for hunters. Morrison is semi-retired, a mother of three with one grandchild.

Ouellette is a 35-year-old bookkeeper in a family construction business. She's married with four children, and is working on her real estate licence. Sage is 53, and bills himself as a "house-husband".

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-member Assembly 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.