Paul Willcocks column

The best shot for changing politics is coming to your town

[The following column by Paul Willcocks appeared in a number of newspapers in B.C., starting with the Trail Daily Times on March 29. It is reproduced here by kind permission of Paul Willcocks.]

I'll get to the current sleazy atmosphere in the legislature in a future column, I promise.

But today, good news and an important warning.

The good news comes from the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, which is about to give you the chance to fundamentally change our way of electing politicians. And in doing that, you have a chance to help get rid of the aspects of our current system that are most appalling.

Give Premier Gordon Campbell full marks for the Assembly, a collection of 160 citizens chosen at random that has been given the chance to recommend a better way of running elections. Any proposal will go to a referendum at the time of the next election in May 2005.

It's a huge job, and they've made it through the first stages in style. The Assembly has just released its first full report to British Columbians, summarizing what members have learned about the strengths and weaknesses of different ways of electing leaders.

There are lots of choices, from keeping on with our current winner-take-all system to a system where all seats are awarded based on each party's share of the over-all vote. Most likely is some system incorporating elements of each one.

Some benefits of change are obvious. The Liberals received 58 per cent of the vote in the last election, and won 98 per cent of the seats. One in eight British Columbians voted for the Green Party; they have no representation in the legislature.

A system that awarded some seats on the basis of public support would ensure that fewer citizens feel that their votes are wasted.

But the Citizens' Assembly found that the effects could be much more dramatic, producing profound changes in the way politics work.

The current system results in two parties fighting for support, with one emerging victorious. That party has great power for the next four years. MLAs are subject to tight party control and the premier's office calls the shots.

"With strong party discipline this ensures centralized decision-making with no effective opportunity for the legislature to hold the government accountable," the Assembly found.

"With MLAs required to put party interests above those of their constituencies, local and minority interests are often excluded."

Under a more representative system, governing parties would lose some of their huge power. They would often need to rely on a coalition of like-minded parties to govern. That would give those parties — and the people who vote for them — more influence.

But even more importantly, it would increase the power of backbenchers within the party in power. A premier who genuinely needed MLAs' support to keep a coalition afloat would have to listen much more closely to backbenchers.

There are risks with all change. A different system might be less stable, if minority governments fell more frequently. (Though in fact while governments may fall more often, the general policy direction is more consistent under most systems with some elements of proportional representation. The systems also avoid the wild to and fro pendulum swings we see in B.C.)

The Assembly isn't recommending any particular change — or even any change at all — at this point. It has released its review, and will hit the road in May and June to hear from you.

This could be the most important political opportunity you'll ever have. The current system is deeply flawed. (Only 55 per cent of the people eligible to vote in the last provincial election bothered to cast their ballots. That's the mark of a sick system.)

And it has produced a form of government — confrontational, polarized, often vicious — that appalls many Canadians.

Now there is a chance to come up with a better way of electing governments, and conducting political life in B.C. You can learn more at www.citizensassembly.bc.ca. And you should.

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Footnote: Several Liberal MLAs wrote letters to the editor disputing my suggestion that they were doing themselves and their constituents a disservice by using Question Period to lob softballs at ministers.

Here's ex-Liberal MLA Elayne Brenzinger on the process: "The questions are given to us. We're told who's going to say it, at what time. We practice in caucus what the question is. The minister knows the question and answers it. I just thought: 'This isn't democracy'."

Paul Willcocks is a Victoria-based political columnist. You can read more of his work at his blogspot website and you can e-mail him.