Vaughn Palmer, The Vancouver Sun

Liberals decide to be hands-off on electoral reform referendum

By Vaughn Palmer

The Vancouver Sun , Page A3, 19-Oct-2004

VICTORIA - The B.C. Liberal government has decided to remain neutral in any provincial referendum on electoral reform.

The cabinet made the decision in anticipation that the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform will recommend abandoning the existing system in favour of a new one.

Such a recommendation would go to the voters in a referendum at the next provincial election. If the referendum passes, it will be binding on the government.

In the belief that the tide is running for electoral change, some Liberals have been arguing that their government should take a more active role in defending the status quo.

They worry that the assembly -- which is scheduled to reach a final recommendation this weekend -- has turned against the first-past-the-post system.

The system has been in place for every provincial election in the past 50 years. Each time it has delivered a single-party majority government.

But the assembly last month resolved that it was "simply not important" to have a system that would deliver "single-party majority governments."

Alarmed, some Liberals argued that if the assembly weren't going to defend first-past-the-post, the government should do so.

I gather the pitch failed.

Government intervention would probably backfire, the Liberals realized. Plus Premier Gordon Campbell is strongly opposed to political interference in what he regards as a balanced and fair process.

So the cabinet resolved that the government, as government, will neither endorse nor oppose any recommendation from the assembly.

That would still leave room for individual MLAs who are not members of cabinet to take a position on purely local grounds.

For example, if the assembly were to recommend a reduction in the number of hinterland constituencies, an MLA would be free to argue it would be "a bad deal" for his or her region.

The cabinet also decided not to provide public funding for either a "Yes" or a "No" campaign during the referendum. Groups seeking to advocate one way or the other will be on their own.

The cabinet does expect that the assembly, in its final report, will lay out the implications of both options -- status quo and change.

In exchange, the government will provide funding for a basic campaign to inform the public. The assembly is scheduled to wrap up at the end of the year. The Liberals might ask the chair, Jack Blaney, to stay on until the referendum is completed.

Advocates of electoral reform will have to ask themselves if a basic information campaign will be enough to carry the day, especially after defeat of the wards referendum in Vancouver.

People voted "No" -- or simply stayed home -- in part because the "Yes" side did not make a persuasive enough case for change.

Stay-at-homes won't be as great a concern in a provincial referendum. It will be held at the same time as the election, ensuring a higher turnout.

The assembly, composed as it is of ordinary citizens, may carry more weight with the public than the process that produced the ward recommendation in Vancouver.

But any recommendation from the assembly has to clear a bigger hurdle: 60 per-cent-approval over all and majority approval in 60 per cent of the constituencies.

Some assembly members have expressed concerns that the recommendation may be too complex and off-putting for the public.

On the weekend, for example, the assembly crafted a proposal for mixed-member proportional representation with a 60/40 split between constituency and list candidates, using the alternative vote for constituency candidates and regionally-based voting for list candidates, and with a three-per-cent threshold, open ranking of candidates and list seats to be allocated on a provincewide basis to ensure proportionality.

Got that?

The other main option is preferential balloting on the single transferrable vote model, with large regionally-based constituencies, variable numbers of members (three to seven), candidates' names to be placed randomly on the ballot, and votes to be tallied on an algorithmic quota method that only a mathematician could love or understand.

Simple? But of course.

The assembly can only recommend one option.

It will probably get around having to explain its choice on the referendum ballot by posing the question as follows: "Do you favour adoption of the new electoral system in the final report of the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform?"

But there would be no ducking the need to explain and justify the choice in the public arena.

And with the government taking a hands-off attitude, it would be up to those who want change to make the case for it.

vpalmer@direct.ca

[Copyright 2004 The Vancouver Sun. Reproduced here by permission of The Vancouver Sun.]