News release - Vernon public hearing

Regional look for ridings?

Two varieties of a new regional facelift for B.C.'s provincial electoral districts were proposed Monday night to a public hearing in Vernon of the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.

Dirk Pereboom of Vernon proposed that B.C.'s 79 seats be divided into 16 regions, each of which would have from three to seven seats. And Bjorn Meyer of Coldstream proposed 7-9 regions. In each case, political parties would nominate as many candidates as there are seats in each region.

Pereboom then proposed a Single Transferable Vote (STV) setup in which voters can numerically indicate their preference for one or more candidates. Meyer proposed, instead, a system in which voters would vote for party rather than candidate.

"The system (I recommend) closely resembles the system in Norway and the other Scandinavian countries," said Meyer. "To the best of my knowledge they still have voter turnouts mugh higher than we have, and a much lower degree of satisfaction with the political process."

A former Social Credit MLA, Len Bawtree, was one of several presenters who called for a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system (as used in New Zealand and some other countries.)

Bawtree, ex-MLA for Shuswap, suggested that 44 MLAs be elected by our current First Past the Post electoral system, and the remaining 35 from "party lists", to ensure that each party's share of seats in the legislature reflected its share of the popular vote.

He conceded that this would mean geographically larger constituencies, and threw in a twist to protect the interests of rural regions.

"Although this might be beyond the Assembly's terms of reference, I believe a recommendation to create an 'Interior' or 'Northern' caucus made up of urban and rural members, with significant resources to consult with the area in question, would help to alleviate this concern. This could also have the beneficial effect of educating the urban members about the rest of B.C."

Among other proponents of MMP, Norman Jaques, speaking for the Vernon chapter of the Council of Canadians, suggested B.C. could live with larger rural ridings without losing effective representation in Victoria.

"Our electoral boundaries today, for the most part, are no larger than they were in the days of snailmail, horse and buggy, or Model T, and limited access to telephones. With our modern transportation, virtual universal access to telephones, and large-scale access to e-mail and fax machines, distances are much less a problem."

David Hart also called for MMP, with a twist of his own: "Implement a split-term system. This would have approximately half the seats put up for election at election date, with the remainder put up for election at mid-term . . . limiting the time a rogue government can cause damage."

David Jackson proposed, instead, that one quarter of the MLAs should be elected each year. "The government would have to stay on its toes. and plans to peak the economy at election times would be thwarted."

Neither explained how split terms would work under MMP or other Proportional Representation systems.

Like Pereboom, Basil Edwards proposed that B.C. use a voting system in which voters can rank their preferences for the candidates. But Edwards proposed that the number of parties in elections be limited to six. (B.C. now has 43 registered parties.)

"In fact, frivolous parties such as the Marijuana Party or the Natural Law Party and similar associations should not be allowed to sully the electoral system," said Edwards.

Another public hearing, with a separate team of Assembly members, was held Monday night in Cranbrook. Hearings follow in Revelstoke and Radium tonight (Tuesday), Penticton and Sparwood on Wednesday and Kelowna (the last of 50 public hearings) on Thursday.

Details on these hearings are on the Assembly's website at www.citizensassembly.bc.ca. So is information on how to make a presentation at a hearing, or to send in a written submission.

The Citizens' 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.