News release - Victoria public hearing

Clash of opinions on electoral system

A clash of opinions over B.C.'s current First Past the Post electoral system highlighted a public hearing in Victoria Saturday of the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.

Presenter Patrick Thompson of Victoria argued that the winner-take-all system of allocating constituency seats in the Legislature has served B.C. "reasonably well" over time, and has given the province MLAs with a "broad spectrum of knowledge, experience and viewpoints."

In contrast, he said, "Proportional Representation will appeal to special interests and single-issue groups. . . . We do not want our legislature stalemated by members elected for their narrow views."

Taking an equally firm stand against First Past the Post, Joan Russow of Victoria contended that FPTP is in "clear violation of Canada's Charter of Rights" because it has resulted in consistent under-representation of women in Parliament and legislatures.

"By comparison, depending on the time frame that is used, anywhere from two to four times more women have been elected to assemblies that use the principle of Proportional Representation."

Questioned by Assembly members (there were 12 on the hearing panel, and another five in the audience) Ms. Russow said that while increased representation of women and minorities has occurred under PR, it is not necessarily built into such a system.

Representation of women, youth and minorities was addressed by several speakers, including Walter Meyer zu Erpen of Victoria.

"Monday Magazine (in Victoria) reports that 500,000 of the 900,000 unregistered voters in our province are between the ages of 18 and 34," he noted. "How is it that our political system has turned off a whole generation of voters?"

He and a majority of the 14 presenters at the meeting called for a Mixed Member Proportional system, in which voters could cast ballots for candidates and/or parties, and each party's share of seats in the Legislature would reflect its share of the popular vote.

Several speakers specifically endorsed New Zealand's system of MMP. But Prof. Bryan Schwarz of the University of Manitoba suggested that moving all the way to such a system in one step might be unpalatable for British Columbians.

"The solution could be what we call PR Light. Keep your current system but add a few PR seats. If you increase by only 15-20% you get a radical increase in proportionality, a bigger bang for your buck. If you do the New Zealand system right away, with 50% of politicians who owe their jobs to it, you'll never be able to get back.

"PR Light has all the flexibility or ratchetting down (from 15-20%) if you need to, or ratchetting up. . . . If you have to stay with your current 79 seats, do so, but replace some of those candidates with PR seats."

Some speakers threw in technical twists on proportional systems. Among them, Saul Arbess of Victoria suggested that to win party-list seats, a party must run candidates in at least half of the constituencies. Several speakers argued that to win a party-list seat, the party should win at least 5% of the popular vote, but Victor Shorsky of Victoria proposed 1.27%, to ensure that more parties and independents would get into the House.

The meeting wound up with David Buchanan of Victoria proposing two technical twists for the current system.

First: "We should ensure the election of a 'Loyal Opposition' by combining two constituencies into one, and appoint the first and second highest vote counts to serve the joint constituency." Second: "Instead of one vote (in the legislature) per member, the member would be allowed to vote the exact number of votes drawn in the last election."

Public hearings were also held Saturday in Ucluelet and Powell River.

Next week, hearings are scheduled in Chilliwack (Tuesday), Maple Ridge (Wednesday), and Langley (Thursday). A full schedule of hearings – as well as information on how to sign up to make a presentation – is on the Assembly’s website at www.citizensassembly.bc.ca.

The Assembly is an independent, representative, non-partisan group of 160 randomly selected British Columbians. They must decide by December 15 whether to propose a change to BC’s electoral system. If they recommend a change, it will be the subject of a referendum for all voters in the May 2005 provincial election.