Vaughn Palmer column

Engaged citizen's letter ruffles Liberal's feathers

By VAUGHN PALMER

The Vancouver Sun

VICTORIA - The recent controversy over secret suspensions within the B.C. Liberal caucus generated a lively response from the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.

"I was stunned," wrote assembly member Nancy McAskill after it was reported that the Liberals had sometimes suspended their members from attending caucus meetings, without telling the public.

"I believe that voters are entitled to know how our MLAs are behaving," she continued, "especially if it involves their ability to represent their constituents."

This, she argued, was precisely the sort of thing that concerned the Citizens' Assembly, with its mandate for reforming the electoral system.

"As we learn about various electoral systems, party discipline is one of the ingredients we have considered," she explained. "This incident seems to indicate that our current system is not serving us well."

Alternatively, asked McAskill, "is it just that we do not have an effective opposition?"

By which she did not intend to disparage the efforts to the two Opposition MLAs in the legislature. For she also offered a word of praise to the New Democratic Party's Joy MacPhail for her effort to expose the secret suspensions.

McAskill is one of two representatives on the assembly from the provincial constituency of Burquitlam. Like the other members, she was chosen at random and given free rein to assess the need for electoral reform and express herself accordingly.

She put her comments on the record in a letter to the editor of The Vancouver Sun, published March 15. "Liberals' secrecy spurs need for electoral reform," said the headline.

The thrust of her letter brought an angry response from one of the Liberals -- Rob Nijjar, who sits on the legislative committee monitoring the assembly's activities.

"The letter was highly politically charged, in my view," Nijjar said. "I don't think it serves the communities if that type of material is presented to them."

Nijjar took his complaint directly to assembly chair Jack Blaney at a recent meeting of the legislative committee. What were the guidelines for assembly members in making public comments? Were they vetted by Blaney and his staff?

Blaney replied that members were advised to be sensitive to political concerns.

"In the communication toolkit which we've given members, it urges them that they ought to be non-partisan in all their comments," the chair said.

"We ought not to be giving either high praise or high criticism for any government, any previous government or any political party."

Having said that, Blaney was not about to censor communications between assembly members and the public they were supposed to represent.

"There is a very high sense of trust amongst the assembly," he advised Nijjar. "To create vetting kinds of mechanisms, my hunch is that trust would be diminished.

"Given 160 persons who have very diverse views -- many who hold fairly strong views all over the political map -- they have done remarkably well," Blaney said.

The assembly, being representative of the whole province, was bound to contain a broader range of views than would be evident from, say, the public pronouncements of Nijjar and his colleagues.

Nor is it operating in isolation from the events of the day. The members are actively engaged in questions about elections, political parties and representation.

They are bound to notice where the current system does not appear to be working.

When an assembly member raises an eyebrow over party discipline or wonders out loud if the province has an "effective opposition," when the assembly declares (as it did last month) that proportional representation could end "the dominance of one-party majority governments" and encourage a "move away from highly charged adversarial politics" -- those comments are not delivered in the abstract.

They are up-to-the-minute responses to a situation where the Liberals dominate the legislature and all other interests are marginalized.

Recognizing that, it is not hard to guess where the assembly is headed. Almost certainly, it will recommend replacing the electoral system with some form of proportional representation.

Some of the Liberals, preferring the system as it is, saw this coming long ago. Others are just waking up to the prospect.

Either way, they are too late, for the decision is now in the hands of the assembly and its members.

"They know they have some power," as Blaney said the other day. And there's every indication they are preparing to exercise it.

vpalmer@direct.ca

© The Vancouver Sun 2004. Reproduced here by permission of The Vancouver Sun.