Vaughn Palmer, The Vancouver Sun

Lineup of assembly speakers favours electoral change 8-1

The Vancouver Sun, Thursday, August 12, 2004

By Vaughn Palmer

[Note: The column below was followed by a letter to the editor in The Vancouver Sun on Saturday August 14 from Assembly member Linda Dorey.]

VICTORIA - The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform commences the final round of deliberations next month with a lineup of speakers who mostly favour abandoning the current electoral system.

The assembly chose nine speakers from among those who spoke to selected assembly members at public hearings in the spring. They'll deliver a repeat performance to the entire 160-member assembly at the Sept. 11 opening of the decision-making round.

Eight of the nine argued for change the first time they addressed the assembly. Most favoured some form of proportional representation where the distribution of seats in the legislature would be more closely tied to a party's showing in the popular vote. Others wanted a system that would allow voters to rank candidates by first, second, third etc. choices. Some advocated a combination of the two.

A few speakers praised some aspects of the current system in their initial presentations. But only one of the chosen nine -- former Social Credit cabinet minister Jim Nielsen -- spoke strongly in defence of it and strongly against proportional representation, the option preferred by the majority.

"Why would we wish to empower small segments of society with influence inconsistent with their power base?" Nielsen challenged.

"A former premier of the province said proportional representation is for losers. That is perhaps the only time I have agreed with Glen Clark."

Many British Columbians would disagree with Nielsen and Clark, and on broader grounds than the records of their respective provincial administrations. But the assembly was delegated to even-handedly weigh "whether the current model for electing members of the legislature should be retained or another model should be adopted."

The first option would appear to be getting far less consideration than the second, judging from the starting line-up of speakers for September. Which is not the first time the assembly has hinted at its preference for change.

"The Citizens' Assembly wants to hear from British Columbians if they agree with it that a more proportional system would better reflect the basic values of our province's population," said a preliminary statement, released in the spring.

In what must have been a gratifying response for those who drafted the invitation, those leanings were given strong support at the subsequent public hearings.

"The most commonly heard call for change was for some form of proportional representation," reported the assembly in a summary of the public submissions. "The biggest single call for a form of PR was for some variety of Mixed-Member Proportional Representation."

That particular skew in the proceedings is not surprising in light of a telling disclosure by assembly member Allan McKinnon. He says that 40 per cent of the submissions -- 400 out of 1,000 -- came from representatives of the Green party.

The Greens are on record as favouring Mixed-Member Proportional Representation. And it would appear they simply bombarded the assembly with as many identical submissions as they could muster.

The assembly is wise to what happened, according to McKinnon, who blew the whistle on the practice in an interview with reporter Gerry Warner of the Cranbrook Daily Townsman.

"We've factored in that this was a concerted effort by one political party," McKinnon told Warner. "I don't seen any evidence that it is having any effect."

The assembly, in its own review of the process, insists that it expected the public hearing process would be biased in favour of change. "Assembly members anticipated that, by the very nature of the exercise, advocates of change who came forward would outnumber those who proposed that B.C. retain the current electoral process and those who simply remained silent."

You could make the same estimation about those who agreed to serve on the assembly: They weren't likely to dedicate themselves to this exercise unless they believed the current system needed fixing.

That, in my view, goes a long way toward explaining why they'll kick off their final round of deliberations by listening mostly to advocates of change.

But which change? The speakers in the fall lineup support a variety of options, some merely incompatible, others downright hostile to each other.

The assembly, if it decides to overturn the status quo, has to decide on a replacement system. And it can recommend only one, which would then be put to the voters in a referendum at the provincial election next May.

PR looks like the early favourite, based on the public submissions and the assembly's own preliminary statement. But there are other options and one one of them could prevail once the assembly gets down to serious deliberations.

In a subsequent column, I'll discuss the possibilities further.

vpalmer@direct.ca

(c) The Vancouver Sun, 2004. This article appears on our website by permission of The Vancouver Sun.

[Note: The above column was followed by a letter to the editor in The Vancouver Sun on Saturday August 14 from Assembly member Linda Dorey.]