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Vaughn Palmer, The Vancouver Sun14th September, 2004 :
Vancouver (Internal)
Assembly opinions devastating for B.C.'s electoral
system
The Vancouver
Sun, 14 September 2004
VICTORIA - After months of listening publicly to the urgings of
experts and non-experts alike, the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral
Reform began crafting its own recommendations on the weekend.
On Saturday, assembly members listened to a final round of
public presentations, mostly from advocates of change. Then, on
Sunday morning, assembly members dispersed into 10 smaller groups
and retired to decide their priorities in private.
What did assembly members themselves think were the "desirable"
features of an electoral system?
Which features were "simply not important" in deciding between
the status quo or any potential alternative?
They'd had months to reflect, formally and informally. Their
leanings were apparent to many observers as far back as the spring.
But now they were going to start locking themselves in,
decision-wise.
After 90 minutes, they came back together in the main hall and
10 recording secretaries began reporting the results of their
deliberations.
The results were decisive -- and brutally devastating -- for the
first-past-the-post system currently in place in B.C.
For all its flaws, the existing system can be relied on to
deliver majority governments. Rival electoral systems often produce
minority or coalition governments. B.C. hasn't had one in more than
50 years.
But assembly members don't regard the production of majorities
as an especially desirable feature of an electoral system.
They concluded Sunday that it was "simply not important" for
B.C. to have a system that would produce "single-party majority
governments."
As group after group reported its findings, I was sitting next
to former MLA Nick Loenen.
"Wow," said Loenen, who has been crusading for a better
electoral system since he went down to defeat with the last Social
Credit administration in 1991.
He was one of the fathers of the assembly. But he never expected
to see it come out so decisively, so quickly, against
first-past-the-post system.
By the time all the working groups had reported each had
attached the lowest priority to the one thing the existing system
does best, namely deliver single-party majority governments.
The status quo got its butt kicked -- 10 times out of 10.
Assembly members said it was because the existing system
sacrifices many of the other features -- proportionality, choice,
broader representation -- they would like to see in an electoral
system.
But I have to think that Sunday's outcome was also a visceral
reaction against the kind of governments the electoral system has
delivered over the years.
It is all very well to defend majority governments in
theoretical terms. They can, as the textbooks say, mean stability,
continuity, decisive leadership.
It can also mean a premier wielding his legislative majority to
backstop or his own personal morality on an issue like
abortion.
Or a premier using his majority to put through one crackpot
scheme after another, never mind that his opponent garnered more
votes than he did.
Or a premier, at the head of one of the biggest (and most
artificial) majorities in provincial history, who contemptuously
withholds official recognition for the two members of the
opposition.
That wasn't a textbook response you saw from the assembly on
Sunday. The members also spoke from their hearts and for many
British Columbians who are fed up with the abuses of power under
the current system.
But what should replace it?
Assembly members adopted three leading principles that will
guide their choice of a new system.
"Seats won should mirror votes won," they decided, meaning a
strong degree of proportionality.
Then, too, they want for "MLAs to be chosen to represent a
specific 'local' constituency."
Third, there should be enhanced "voter choice," either among
parties or candidates.
Those goals leave lots of room for debate and are somewhat
incompatible, depending on the choice of systems.
On the weekend it looked to me as if it will come down to two
main options -- mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) or
the single-transferrable vote (STV).
The former looked like the front-runner in the spring. Lately
the latter has been gaining favour, for reasons I will discuss in a
subsequent column.
Assembly members are scheduled to narrow the choice at a series
of weekend sessions between now and late October.
If they do decide to recommend a new system, the final call will
still be up to the electorate in a referendum next spring.
But at this stage, I have no doubt that British Columbians will
be asked to approve a new electoral system.
If the citizens' assembly has anything to say about it -- and on
Sunday it said plenty -- the status quo is dead.
(c) The Vancouver
Sun, 2004. This article appears on our website by permission of
The Vancouver Sun.
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