News release - Assembly heads for decision

Citizens' Assembly heads for decision

[NOTE TO EDITORS: At the bottom of this news release are paragraphs of expanded info on the nine September 11 speakers. These may help you add or insert local flavour.]

Citizens' Assembly heads for decision

Members of B.C.'s Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform begin on the weekend of September 11-12 to work towards a decision on whether B.C. should have a new electoral system, or stay with its current one.

In the first of six weekends of meetings in Vancouver this fall, the full 161-member Assembly will hear on Saturday September 11 from nine special B.C. speakers. They were invited, by a committee of members, from among the 387 people who made oral presentations at public hearings of the Assembly in May and June.

The nine speakers are Arpal Dosanhj of Vancouver, Katherine Gordon of Gabriola Island, Bruce Hallsor of Victoria, Tom Hoenisch of Naramata, Nick Loenen of Richmond, Ian McKinnon of Victoria, Mayor Chris Morey of Fort Nelson, Jim Nielsen of Peachland (a former B.C. cabinet minister) and Julian West of Ladysmith.

Their presentations will include calls for B.C. to adopt a new way of translating votes in provincial elections into seats in the legislature as well as a defence of the current "First Past the Post" system. Their presentations at the public hearings were deemed by members to be of outstanding quality.

Assembly members are also considering more than 1,500 written submissions from the public, as well as other formal presentations and comments made at the 50 public hearings that were held all over B.C. in May and June, in communities large and small. More than 2,700 members of the public attended meetings, and many spoke informally.

Further Assembly meetings will be held September 25-26, October 16-17, October 23-24, November 13-14 and November 27-28. All meetings will be held at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in downtown Vancouver. Plenary sessions (including the nine presentations on September 11) are open to the public.

Members will be wrestling with such questions as: What core values should underpin our electoral system? Does the Assembly wish to consider changes to B.C.'s current system? If so, key questions could include: What about some measure of proportionality? How important is local representation? What about regional differences? Do we want different kinds of choices on our ballots? Considering carefully the strengths and weaknesses of new and current systems, should our current system be retained? Or would B.C. be better served by a new electoral system?

It's possible that the members will reach their final decision on the weekend of October 23-24. If they do recommend a change, it will be the subject of a referendum for all voters in the May 2005 provincial election. If they opt not to change, then there would be no referendum.

The Citizens' Assembly is an independent, representative, non-partisan group of 160 randomly selected British Columbians, plus chair Jack Blaney. They have a deadline of December 15 to report to British Columbians on their decision, its implications, and their reasons. Then the Assembly will disband.

Details of the Assembly's schedule and work are at www.citizensassembly.bc.ca. Also online there are the public submissions, and reports from the public hearings. The full presentations from the nine speakers on September 11 will be posted on the Assembly website that evening.

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HERE IS EXPANDED INFO on the nine speakers

Arpal Dosanhj, at a public hearing of the Assembly in Vancouver on June 12, called for an Alternative Vote (AV) system. AV systems use preferential ballots on which voters rank candidates in numerical order of preference. If no candidate gains a majority on the first count, the second preferences listed on the ballots of the least successful candidate are distributed among the remaining candidates. This process continues until one candidate has a majority. British Columbia used AV in 1952 and 1953.

Dosanjh and his wife Kamal live in Vancouver. He has studied at McMaster University in Hamilton, Simon Fraser University in Burnaby and the University of Victoria, obtaining degrees in physics and law. He is pursuing a career in the legal profession and will start articling with a Vancouver law firm in November.

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Katherine Gordon spoke at a public hearing of the Assembly in Nanaimo on May 27. She proposes a mixed member proportional (MMP) electoral system, similar to what she experienced in New Zealand. Voters would vote for both their choice of local MLA and for a preferred party. In the end, each party's share of seats in the House would reflect (as closely as possible) its share of the popular vote.

Gordon voted in eight New Zealand elections before moving to Canada. The last three of those NZ votes were under MMP after the electoral reform process of the early 1990s. She says the results of the change are clear to her: Instead of non-representative government, she believes, New Zealanders finally have a government they have actually asked for.

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Bruce Hallsor addressed a public hearing of the Assembly in Victoria on June 10. He says a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system or the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system would best suit B.C. and he compares them. Under MMP, voters would vote for both their choice of local MLA and for a preferred party. In the end, each party's share of seats in the House would reflect (as closely as possible) its share of the popular vote. In STV, voters rank candidates in order of preference; ballots are then counted so that the candidates with the highest preferences are elected.

Hallsor has been involved in electoral reform as a member of Fair Voting BC since 1997 and as counsel for the Electoral Change Coalition of B.C. (ECCOBC), a short-lived coalition of parties and interest groups that existed from 1996 to 1998. Hallsor practices electoral law, and has been counsel to several candidates and four different political parties. In addition, he has been legal counsel to three recall proponents and a recall opponent.

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Tom Hoenisch spoke at a public hearing of the Assembly in Penticton on June 23. He proposed a mixed member proportional (MMP) electoral system, with the number of seats in the provincial legislature being reduced to 72 from the current 79. In his system, half the members would be elected in constituencies that coincide with the 36 federal ridings in B.C. The other 36 would come from party lists of candidates. Under MMP, voters would vote for both their choice of local MLA and for a preferred party. In the end, each party's share of seats in the House would reflect (as closely as possible) its share of the popular vote.

Hoenisch is a 47-year-old bus driver who has been interested in politics since he was in Grade 10 in Princess Margaret Junior Secondary School in Penticton and Mr. Huebert taught him about Canadian politics in Social Studies. Shortly after that, Hoenisch says he began to realize that the results of elections often didn’t reflect the political wishes of the people.

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Nick Loenen addressed a public hearing of the Assembly in Richmond on May 4. He recommends a "Preferential Plus" system, with preferential voting in multi-seat ridings for urban areas and single-seat ridings for rural areas, thus producing semi-proportional representation. In preferential voting, voters rank candidates on the ballot in numerical order of the voter's preference; ballots are then counted so that the candidates with the highest preferences are elected.

Loenen is a former Richmond councillor (1983-87), and former MLA (1986-91). His book Citizenship and Democracy: a case for proportional representation was published by Dundurn Press, Toronto, in 1997. In 1998, he founded Fair Voting BC, a multi-partisan citizens group. He chaired the Reform Party of Canada’s Task Force on Electoral Reform in 1997 and, more recently, chaired the Ad Hoc Committee on the Provincial Constitution which produced recommendations on making government more accountable.

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Ian McKinnon made a public presentation to a hearing of the Assembly in Ganges, Salt Spring Island, on June 19. He spoke of how changes in electoral systems can cause changes in the power and methods of operation of political parties, including the selection of candidates. He also urged the Assembly to think about the consequences of repeated minority governments.

In Ottawa, McKinnon worked with the Privy Council Office under the Liberals and the Prime Minister's Office under the Progressive Conservatives. In Victoria, he was assistant deputy minister of Finance under a Social Credit government, and deputy minister of Economic Development under the NDP. In the 1980s, McKinnon was President of Decima Research, conducting public opinion research for 16 federal or provincial elections as well as three elections in other countries.

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Chris Morey spoke at a public hearing of the Assembly in Fort Nelson on May 11. She said that representation by a "local" MLA is particularly important in remote and rural regions, and that any electoral system must ensure it continues. Some electoral systems would require larger constituencies, and Mayor Morey argued against larger ridings, saying voters in areas such as hers would be "outnumbered, outvoted and not counted."

Mayor of Fort Nelson since 2002, Morey is also chair for the Northern Rockies Regional District. She was first elected to office in 1999 as a town councillor. She worked as a registered nurse for 15 years, then became a Certified Economic Developer and was employed by the Northern Rockies Regional District as an Economic Development Officer for eight years, prior to starting her own consulting business.

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Jim Nielsen addressed a public hearing of the Assembly in Kelowna on June 24, and strongly defended the current single-member plurality (SMP) system, often known as First Past the Post (FPTP). The former Social Credit cabinet minister said: "A run-off vote to confirm a majority vote for members may be quite acceptable, but the concept of Proportional Representation would be a monumental error of judgment."

Nielsen served 14 years in elected public office, including serving as B.C.'s health minister. He has been a student of the British Parliamentary system for many years and finds the history and evolution of Parliament most interesting. While Deputy Government House Leader of the legislature, he was a member of an all-party committee that revised the rules of the legislature in order to ensure a more orderly manner of conducting business in the House.

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Julian West spoke to a public hearing of the Assembly in Nanaimo on May 27. He advocates a modified form of Single Transferable Vote, with constituencies of as many as 5-7 members in urban areas, and 2-3 in remote areas. His electoral districts would be based strongly on existing Regional Districts and municipalities. He called for a system of "circuits" within electoral districts, so that each community is represented by an individual MLA. Under STV, voters rank candidates in order of preference; ballots are then counted so that the candidates with the highest preferences are elected.

West has been thinking and writing about electoral reform for the past eight years. With Troy Lanigan, he co-founded the Electoral Change Coalition of British Columbia in 1997; this later merged into Fair Voting BC, at which point West became a director of that organization. He is on the governing council of Fair Vote Canada, and has appeared twice before the House of Commons Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, discussing various aspects of electoral legislation.