Vaughn Palmer, The Vancouver Sun

Overenthusiastic electoral reform would shut out much of B.C.

By Vaughn Palmer

The Vancouver Sun , 16 September 2004

VICTORIA - The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform has set itself a major challenge over the next few weeks.

The assembly on Sunday pretty much rejected the merits of the first-past-the-post system, which has been used here since B.C. joined Canada.

But in deciding on the "most desirable features" of a replacement system, the assembly made choices that are to some degree incompatible.

Proportionality was the No. 1 priority. "Seats won should mirror votes won," was the unanimous verdict Sunday of the assembly's 10 working groups.

The first-past-the-post system does a wretched job of matching seats to votes, one of the main reasons why it is toast as far as the assembly is concerned.

But in embracing proportionality, most of the working groups also attached a high priority to ensuring that MLAs would continue "to be chosen to represent a specific local constituency."

Proportional representation, in its purest form, provides no local representation whatsoever.

If B.C. were to go the way of Israel, which has pure PR, the province would be transformed into one big constituency with all 79 MLAs elected at large.

No one is seriously suggesting the assembly go that far. Instead, it is being urged to adopt mixed-member proportional or MMP.

Mixed because half of the seats in the legislature would be elected at large on the basis of the popular vote for each party. The other half would continue to be filled by local constituency elections.

MMP was probably the front-running option for electoral reform when the assembly wrapped up its public hearings in the spring.

But it is meeting with a strong and growing opposition because of what it would do to local representation in the hinterlands.

Under MMP, the 79 existing constituencies would be combined to create 39 or 40 local constituencies. (Increasing the size of the house is not an option for the assembly.)

A comparative glance at the federal electoral map -- which has 36 constituencies -- reveals the problem.

Vancouver, Victoria and the other major centres would continue to have adequate local representation.

Not so northern, eastern and rural B.C. At most there would be half a dozen seats north of Kamloops and east of the Okanagan.

The concern was underscored by Fort Nelson Mayor Chris Morey in a Saturday presentation to the assembly.

"If electoral boundaries are made even larger, Fort Nelson will find itself very under-represented along with the other communities in the northeast in particular and the entire north in general," she warned.

The mayor did not oppose abandonment of first past the post.

But she urged the assembly to be mindful of the need to be fair to regions that don't have the electoral clout to look after themselves.

Any recommendation from the assembly will be submitted to the electorate in a referendum next spring. The rules say it would need approval from 60 per cent of the voters and 60 per cent of the constituencies.

But that requirement, though significant, is not sufficient to allow the north to block the change by itself, the mayor noted.

How would assembly members feel, she asked, "if people in the south voted in favour and people in the north did not?"

It was an effective argument. Toward the end of Saturday's proceedings, a member of the assembly got to his feet to echo it.

Wilf Chelle is 71. He's a rancher from Buick. "You all know where that is," he said, and many assembly members nodded assent.

I had to look it up.

Buick is "18 miles north of Mile 73 on the Alaska Highway," which locates him more effectively in time and space than saying he hails from "29 kilometres north of Kilometre 117.5."

Chelle staked his ranch in 1967 and has been there ever since.

He's a perfect example of the extraordinary people who emerged when Premier Gordon Campbell decided that the assembly should be stocked with 161 "ordinary" British Columbians chosen at random.

"I am a citizen of my community first," he said, as he pleaded with his fellow assembly members to keep the need for local representation at the forefront of their minds.

If that were to be sacrificed to other considerations, Chelle continued, "some of you are aware of the difficulty I am going to have."

Heads were nodding all around the room at that comment as well.

There are ways to strengthen local representation within the mixed-member proportional system. You could require that the at-large spots be distributed on a regional basis.

But the concern highlighted by Mayor Morey and by rancher Chelle is one of the main reasons why the assembly is considering alternatives to MMP, including a made-in-B.C. option.

I'll have more to say about those possibilities in a subsequent column.

vpalmer@direct.ca

©Copyright 2004 The Vancouver Sun. Reproduced here with permission of The Vancouver Sun.