Put the power back in your vote
I voted for a system of proportional representation in the referendum and I urge others to do the same. Having grown up in Ireland, I voted for rural-urban PR because this is the choice that gives voters the most power.
I don’t know mixed-member proportional (which is the rural component) but single transferable vote in urban locations (where most people live anyway) will give voters unrivalled power to shape their representation. In Victoria, we might have five or six MLAs in big, citywide ridings. Perhaps two to three New Democrats and one to two Conservatives or Liberals and a Green. Over 90 per cent of our viewpoints would be represented and each one of us would have an MLA of our stripe within walking distance representing us.
This is not the case in FPTP and it never will be. You can spend your entire life voting Liberal or Conservative or NDP nationally and never contribute to electing anyone, even if you are part of a 30 per cent minority in your riding.
Ireland, with the same population (but much younger) as B.C., has many more people voting at elections. Ireland is almost always governed from centre left or centre right, and the far left and far right are frozen out. This is because of the transferable vote.
So, please vote for rural-urban, drop the ballot off at one of the facilities, get represented by one of your choices and put the power back in your vote.
Brian White
Victoria
PR will create just, effective system
Re: “B.C. voters should reject proportional representation,” editorial, Nov. 16.
I take exception to the editorial’s claim that reform propositions do not consider the needs and realities of lightly populated areas. Having lived in southern and northern B.C. and a current resident in the central Interior, I have studied the rural/urban model, which I am satisfied will respond to our varied geography well.
The editorial is correct to note that our present system has its faults. The problem is that such faults are often identified before any electoral-process conversation or amid elections themselves. Afterward, sadly, enthusiasm for reform disappears. If a house is burning, it’s rather late to hunt for the fire extinguisher. We need a new way of electing representatives, so they can represent us in a new and effective way.
B.C. is rightly touted as one of the best places to live, work and recreate. However, the benefits of our physical, social, economic and environmental bounty have not been well distributed. Some have benefited tremendously, and when surplus resources or wealth are available, these are shared with those less fortunate, though inconsistently and unevenly. Proportional representation will provide a different electoral process that will create conditions for a more just and effective ordering of our political life.
Those who oppose PR either cannot imagine a different way of ordering our public policy-making or are simply unwilling to release their present grasp on power and wealth. I encourage everyone to vote Yes on question one and choose any of the three systems that will add proportionality to our electoral process.
Ken Gray
Kamloops
Governments often ignore promises
Re: “B.C. voters should reject proportional representation,” editorial, Nov. 16.
In the editorial in which the Times Colonist supports first-past-the-post, the paper conveniently points out that a system in which parties lay out their platform prior to election is better than policy being determined post-election by the “hodge podge” of parties that form the government under a PR system.
The fatal flaw in this argument is the oft-repeated scenario in which a majority government ignores many or most of its campaign promises once it is in a position to bring these promises into force. Government after government across Canada (provincial and federal) has used this tactic.
This is a key reason that the electorate is dissatisfied with first-past-the-post and few trust what politicians say. International experience clearly shows that the policies implemented by governments elected under PR electoral systems tend to be much more balanced, in the broad public interest and longer lasting — attributes sorely lacking under our current system.
Michael Coon
Victoria
Don’t cast a vote for either option
After months of reading and listening to all the arguments for and against the alternative voting systems, I have finally reached the only option I can comfortably live with for my vote.
While I understand the reasoning of those promoting what’s called proportional representation, I see flaws in all of the variants, and I do not see how it addresses the underlying problem: party control over members of the legislative assembly.
So do I vote no? As was pointed out to me, the question asked is not yes/no. The only way to vote no to PR is to vote yes to first-past-the-post, and I can’t abide that.
To all who, like me, have held off voting because they can’t say yes to either, do what I did. Remember, spoiled ballots are counted, too.
John Carver
Nanaimo
FPTP doesn’t result in a true democracy
When I was a kid and asked an adult what “democracy” meant, I remember a two-word answer: “Majority rules.” The majority elects a government to make the rules for everyone.
This democratic principle comes with a downside: the risk that a majority will exploit or oppress others by sheer force of numbers — a tyranny of the majority. But here in B.C., (and Canada-wide), we don’t even have it that good. Instead, our voting system strangely accepts the risk of a “tyranny of the few.” A minority of voters can, and often does, elect a majority government. In effect, the relatively few can impose their rule(s), however degrading to people and planet, on the greater mass of inhabitants.
First-past-the-post is a backward system that often leaves a majority of voters feeling left out of majority governments, and generally leaves anyone who would vote for an underdog feeling left out entirely.
How can we comfortably call that a democracy?
Mike Large
Victoria
Referendum’s legitimacy doomed
Extending the deadline for a week is not going to make the current B.C. referendum any more credible. Its legitimacy was doomed from the start by its ill-conceived design.
Three complicated proportional-representation options are on offer, all of them inadequately explained, partly because, as the government freely admits, it hasn’t yet worked out all the details. And because the referendum designers have crammed two referendums into one, it is possible the final choice might be backed by only a small minority of eligible voters.
A 60 per cent referendum response rate (which was the turnout percentage of last year’s B.C. election), with a 51 per cent win for PR, and then a 51 per cent preference for one of the PR options, could mean that B.C.’s new electoral system would have been chosen by a mere 15 per cent of eligible voters.
These numbers are not at all far-fetched.
So it’s difficult to see how anyone can seriously believe this is a legitimate way to conduct electoral reform.
George Galt
Victoria
Vote for FPTP and start again
Those favouring proportional representation seem to consider their hopes and wishes as fact. Their positions run the gamut from: members in the legislature will behave better to the suggestion that members with more varied party affiliations will lead to better decision-making.
The literature on group dynamics and decision-making suggests otherwise.
One benefit of first-past-the-post is that anyone wishing to hold office must stand for election and gain sufficient recognition and trust, including being scrutinized by the public and the press. This is our best method to assure the best candidates run. This will not happen if additional party members are appointed after the vote.
The government literature on mixed-member proportional offers New Zealand as a current model, but that system has flaws. A report in The Economist describes where a questionable individual could have been added to a list of MPs to be appointed by the party under their PR system.
Our government is asking us to vote on options that are not well thought out, have not been worked out in detail or have not been tried elsewhere. And the government will make these electoral system choices on their own.
We need to start again. The only way is to vote in favour of FPTP (i.e. the status quo), and start again with an independent approach to electoral reform.
Chris Fraser
North Saanich
Non-voters a danger to our democracy
“Vote as if your life depends on it. If not your life, consider the lives of our children and grandchildren, the future of democracy around the world, and the well-being of the community of life on earth —on and within which we all depend.”
Thus began a letter, variations of which I sent out over the past few months to Canadian and American friends living in Canada and the U.S. While at that time I was primarily focused on the critical U.S. midterm elections, my voting concerns continued on through the rather dismal turnout for our own recent local Capital Regional District and Islands Trust elections, and now to our important referendum on proportional representation.
Anyone who lives in and enjoys the benefits and privileges of a democratic society has an ethical and moral obligation to make a sincere effort to be an active, informed participant in the democratic process. Surely, this is our minimal civic responsibility.
Too often, notably in the U.S. in the very recent past, elections have been determined, not just by well-documented insidious robo-calls, science suppression, nasty undemocratic gerrymandering, illegal last-minute voter disenfranchisement, malicious misinformation and absurd sociopathic lying, fascist fear-mongering and facilitated foreign intrusion, but ultimately by the non-voters — the folks who just didn’t bother to show up.
Really? Is this the best we can do? Let’s vote, eh?
Ralph Miller
Salt Spring Island
PR self-destruct will be built in
The first elections will work well, but as more fringe parties scrape over the five per cent entry level, the system will show its weakness.
A look at Europe will tell us that any country will have at least 10 major and at least 10 minor parties. Your vote will be so diluted that the winners will typically only have 15 per cent to 25 per cent of the majority.
To get the required 50 per cent plus one, the winner will often have to make major political compromises, making alliances with parties that, although elected by a small group, will hold a disproportional amount of power.
I cannot see this system as any better than first-past-the-post.
Kjell Garteig
Nanaimo
