News release

Citizens' Assembly gets last members

The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform selected two Aboriginal members today, completing the membership roster of 160 people.

The new members are both members of the Nisga’a nation: Jacki Tait of Gitwinksihlkw (100 km northwest of Terrace) and Ron Walberg of Abbotsford.

Tait is a 39-year-old payroll and benefits clerk who works for the Nisga’a Valley Health Board. She’s married, with two children, and was born in Terrace. She’s busy with the local Lions Club Yuletide Committee, purchasing gifts for children in the community.

Walberg, 49, was born in Prince Rupert. His family moved to the Lower Mainland when he was little. Married for 25 years, with four sons aged 17 – 22, he’s a lead hand and charge hand at Kal Tire’s retread shop in Coquitlam.

The Assembly now has 160 members from all over B.C. – one man and one woman from each of the 79 provincial electoral districts, plus the two Aboriginal members selected today.

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 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.