One-Party State for BC

Say "NO" to STV!

We need to keep the one-party state like other successful democracies have in the world.

Let's think about China, Russia, Belarus, Zimbabwe, and other great democracies in the world that uses voting systems and other tools of democracy such as a free press to ensure that one party dominates their parliaments.

Frank

I think anything that blurs the connection between a group of constituents and the one specific representative confuses the accountability. There is no confusion about who is held accountable under FPTP.

Say in a rural riding you elect three people. They would all have to set up an office and all would by necessity focus on the area with the greatest population. Now you concentrate the representation for that part of the riding with the greatest population. Granted that still happens today but the ridings are smaller. In the last referendum the ridings in rural BC were huge.

Skywalker

Well, here in the Fraser Valley there is absolutely no reason for Liberal MLAs to pay any attention to NDP voters or anyone else for that matter. They know that their boss is Mr Campbell, as long as he backs their nomination every voter in his riding can go hang themselves if they like. What are they gonna do? Vote NDP? No chance.

There is no accountability except in ridings that have a history of changing hands (and the Fraser Valley ridings never do). If the Fraser Valley were to become a big riding with 5 MLAs that would totally change the dynamic as now that MLA would have a number of other Liberals he'd have to compete against. I think it would turn their focus from pleasing Mr Campbell to pleasing the voters.

and

And I think smart MLAs would start splitting their time between population centres.

Frank

Like Mr Chretien et al he'll become a convert to electoral reform when he leaves office.

Er, excuse me Frank, wasn't it Gordon Campbell that bought forward the completely impartial group to recommend a new voting system? And wasn't it Gordon Campbell that revived and continued to support any change that is democratically decided?

Be fair, for god's sake!

Realisticman

Yes, with the caveat that some would say Gordon Gibson should not have been involved in a "completely impartial" process.

I'm sincerely not sure what you mean by this. Perhaps its your wording that's throwing me off?

Somehow I'm willing to bet I'm fairer to Mr Campbell and the Liberal Party than you have ever been to any NDP leader but allow me to explain anyway.

Mr Campbell allowed this to happen because there was a groundswell of support for it due to the NDP victory under Glen Clark when the NDP lost the popular vote but won the election. It was a popular topic on radio call-in shows as I recall. I therefore buy into the idea that Mr Campbell supported electoral reform rather than coming uop with the idea.

I'm sure you know that a couple of other provinces also looked at changing their electoral process? I don't believe those provinces studied and voted on other systems because of their fondness for the premier of BC. Simply put, the politicians looked at where the public was going in several provinces, including this one, and got out in front of it.

Have you heard Mr Campbell personally champion STV? I haven't, but its possible I missed it. In my opinion he has no political capital invested in electoral reform so I find the idea that he's the champion of it to be a little bit propaganda-ish.

ME2

As long as we keep in mind that its not because rural voters work twice as hard, its because there's not much resource-based wealth under Burnaby.

I am all in favour of rural communities having more control of the purse strings as it affects their communities, but at the same time it has to be recognized that that resource wealth is the property of all Canadians and we should all benefit from it. Otherwise we would simply build our cities on top of the oil.

For a real urban/rural split, look at Saskatchewan where you often see Saskatoon and Regina vote NDP and the rest of the province vote Conservative. How they draw the boundaries thus determines who the next government will be. No matter who wins the other side is upset at the thought some other guy's voice counts more than theirs just because he lives on a farm or whatever.

A strict representation by population is a lot easier to defend than making a number of special rules for rural voters. Which doesn't mean I'm insensitive to their concerns.

Realisticman

.

But I assume you agree with the origins of the process? That both the idea and the push did not sprout from Mr Campbell's head?

I can't say with any certainty what Mr Campbell's thoughts on the subject were. its possible he hopes it succeeds. My own belief is that he hopes that people will get bored of it, will forget Mr Clark's victory, and that it fails which is why the bar was set at 60% (10% higher than a vote to separate would require).

And of course the reaon I believe that is because our present system is the best system for his party.

Realisticman - you're doing it again!

Selectively quoting from what I wrote to the point of losing its central theme.

Naturally you omit the rest of what I said - as well as the clear codicil that groups of such a small size which pretend to be representative - like small sample polls - are neither representative nor accurate of the wishes of a broader population.

Did you even bother to do any further reading or check out the Citizens' Assembly's current website?

The only way, in my view, to attempt these kinds of changes is with a complete and thoroughgoing constituent assembly and not a group of people chosen by lot and administered by friends of the government.

Please go back and read the whole post and try to understand something that comes from outside your own head.

AS for the current government, I’d simply point out to you what Gordon Gibson himself said, writing for the Fraser Institute of which he is/was a member or fellow,

“If the Liberals win a majority of seats, they cannot be forced to honour the referendum result.”

The whole business was created by an Order in Council of the Campbell Government and it was also the Campbell government (interfering I’d say) with the process later who set the bar at such a high level:

• It passes with a simple majority (fifty percent plus one) in at least sixty percent of the ridings
• It passes with an overall majority of sixty percent

Perhaps you forgot that when you stated that Campbell wasn’t meddling.

GWest

You wrote it. You also wrote:

As I said, the Assembly was unanimously endorsed by the parties in the legislature, and parties and community leaders outside it.

Furthermore, during the 2001 provincial election, the Liberal Party promised to create a citizens' assembly to consider changes to the provincial electoral system. One condition which precluded an individuals selection in the assembly was former membership in any political party.

Non-partisan and as non-political as they could make it following up a campaign promise. They weren't hand picked and they weren't elitists, they came from all walks of life and all regions of the province and all parties supported it.

Oh come on

You didn’t address this part of what I wrote:

"...a self-perpetuating group of selfish and self-regarding elitists"

Not to mention ignoring the rest of it.

As for Campbell promises...perhaps you'd like to explain the Premier's oath that he wouldn't sell BC Rail.

They werehand picked and many of them now rent themselves out as experts in the field and they 'haven't' gone away - as witness their current website. I’m actually surprised that none of them have chimed in here with their usual intemperance, self-regard and arrogance.

Why not have a look at it and come back with your impressions.

Furthermore you've totally ignored the clear evidence that a group of that size - no matter how chosen - will never come close to reflecting the real interests, diversity and nature of the electorate...furthermore, the very fact that members or former members of any political party were excluded from the process makes mincemeat of your contention.

Don't such people count too?

How can any commission claim to represent the people when it doesn't include any individuals who are or were once members of a political party - sounds like a sort of reverse McCarthyism to me?

In fact, I hadn’t known that fact – or had forgotten it. I’ll add it to my armamentarium when next I have to deal with one of ‘them’.

It was a flawed process, conceived in the mind of an arrogant and self-centered man and designed by a neo-con.

Even so, as I said, the flawed and un-representative result would be better than the current system despite the way it treats any voter who doesn't happen to live in a metropolitan area.

Again, I apologize to my friends in rural BC – I’ll understand completely if you turn it down again…

GWest

I guess we'll put you down as one that doesn't like citizen's assemblies no matter how diverse if it doesn't include politically active people. Screw the little people, L'état c'est nous.

Not at all

Once again you ignore what I've actually written - I neither said nor implied such a thing.

I just pointed out how ridiculous it is to suggest that a group of 162 people plus a hand-picked 'expert' is in no way representative of the people of the province. Pretty basic stuff I’d say.

What if I suggested that no one who had ever belonged to a religion should have been included; no one who had ever had a speeding ticket; no one with diabetes; no recent immigrants from other provinces?

Taken to its logical conclusion it isn't hard to realize how and why the Citizens' Assembly was, and is, a bust.

Perhaps anyone over the age of 55 should be ruled out - any other ideas for your concept of true democracy?

I'm surprised you can't get that simple point: I'm all in favour of a properly chosen and sufficiently large constituent assembly - as should have been obvious from what I wrote.

The point, I'm afraid, is that you're more inclined to issue snertisms than to engage in actual discussion and debate.

Too bad really!

GWest

Ready, aye ready.

OK discuss and debate. Define your ideal assembly.

Easy

The ideal constituent assembly should be chosen to represent the demographic reality of the province - 2 persons per riding is a joke and the only balancing factor of 50% men/vs 50% women + one female First Nations Member and one male one is equally absurd. IN some individual northern ridings it might be necessary to have three or four First Nations people and only one white person – Atlin (or whatever name it goes by these days) and the Charlottes are good examples.

But, more than that it is a question of sample size - honest polling firms will tell you that anything less than a thousand individuals out of a population of 3 or 4 million is a minimum.

On top of that, the terms of reference and the objective of such a small body is ridiculous - the electorate should have been presented with a range of options and not an all or nothing proposition.

There's no reason several referendums couldn't have been held - Geoff Plant and Campbell thought nothing of running a racially motivated plebiscite on Native Treaty rights, remember?

Spend some time, spend some money on something besides pet projects, and if 50% of the people vote yes - bind the government (and future governments) for a period of at least 16 years or four electoral cycles.

At that point, revisit the thing if necessary with a new constituent assembly.

Everyone talks about how wonderful democracy is - why be so afraid to practice it now and again?

Realisticman

Totally off-topic, apologies to all

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080208.wjobs0208/BNStory/Business/home

I was wrong on this one. I thought the trend would be downward after last month's losses. I remain pleasantly surprised.

Frank

The Okanagan, the GVRD, the Peace River etc would all get control of more (but not all) of their own resources and tax base with only the government of Canada being above them.

I think it would be more efficient and better for national unity too but again, I'm sure provinces will be with us for a long time.

Well said! Best idea yet. Devolve things requiring national standards such as education, health care and coast-to-coast transport to national responsibilities. Make roads and daycares local. Taxation authority commensurate with services provided - get rid of this silly "federal transfers" that is such a huge pork-barrel that only those with the correct federal card get to play.

Re rural representation.

Sorry to harp on this issue, folks, but i cannot allow Frank to get away with his statement below unhallenged.

"As long as we keep in mind that its not because rural voters work twice as hard, its because there's not much resource-based wealth under Burnaby."

Some years ago, David Baxter of the Urban Futures Institute wrote that while the GDP productivity of of the rural resident was double that of the urban resident, gov't was busy cutting back services to rural people.

No doubt part of this gov'ts discounting of the rural voter derives of the fact that opposition to resource-rape almost always arises first in the rural community.

Just for argument's sake, I would guess that on average, the investment and entrepeneurship of the small-scale rural farmer, logger, fisherman, prospector, etc, is higher - on a per-capita basis - than that of similar urban entrepreneurs.

But even setting aside such an arguable contention, the fact remains that the rural citizen and entrepreneur face a daunting range of problems linked purely to isolation. These include long wait times for parts, high costs of shipping in and out, increased costs of community amenities as a result of smaller aggregations of populations, all just for starters

Distance also compounds the problems in dealing with gov't, since even if the phoned-up bureaucrat understands the isolation-related nature of the problem - usually created by the one-size-fits-all nature of the rules and regulations created by the urban-oriented politician - he/she can then resort to a series of delaying tactics, and often does. OTOH, the urbanite is only a short distance from presenting her/his problem face-to-face, and subsequently bird-dogging it to resolution.

I recognise the difficulty found in trying to correct this disparity with a rep-by-pop democratic process. Perhaps the problem might be solved by giving the rural rep more administrative staff.

Unless the majority, the urban voter, recognises the legitimacy of this complaint, noting will be done about it and so a barrier to urban acceptance of STV will not be removed.

Barack Obama

A report (from an internet post) on a rally for Mr Obama in Omaha...

He talked about:

Jobs
Keeping jobs in the US by taking away all tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, and giving tax breaks to companies who keep jobs here.

Taxes
Reducing the tax burden on everyone making under $75,000.00 and letting the Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy expire.
Education
Making college affordable by giving a $4,000 USD tax credit to anyone going to college. In return the college student gives one year of service back to the nation by joining the Peace Corps, military etc. Doing away with NCLB. Give rural and poor school districts the resources to educate their students.

Environment
Increase emissions controls on autos. Increase renewable energy resource use.
Lobbyists and Congress
Reduce the influence of lobbyists and money in politics.

Military
Restore the military to its position as the strongest military in the world. Treat the wounded and disabled Iraq Vets and all vets with the respect they are due with benefits and treatment for the physical and mental injuries.

Health Care,
Make health care affordable for all Americans with the same benefits he gets from his health care plan.

Iraq:
End the war and bring the troops home

Foreign Policy
Restore America's place in standing as a leader in the world. "Never negotiate from fear but never fear to negotiate" (His quote from JFK)

Terrorism
Go to where the terrorists are IE Pakistan.

Taxes
Reducing the tax burden on everyone making under $75,000.00 and letting the Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy expire.

Stupid stupid stupid

Sorry all, I posted this to the wrong topic

GWest

Who chooses them?

The problem with politicians

“Gee, I wonder why that was? Could it be that it would mean no majority gov't for Mr Campbell's third term?”

“Mr Campbell allowed this to happen because there was a groundswell of support for it due to the NDP victory under Glen Clark when the NDP lost the popular vote but won the election.”

- I think the problem with this whole issue is, that it doesn’t get addressed from a basis of a quest for more balance and long-term stability. It always has something to do with the immediate situation and its parameters, and how this would or wouldn’t serve everyone’s or someone’s shortsighted self-interest.

To that end, a referendum cum provincial election would be very bad. Imagine how we the people of BC would perceive the legitimacy of a government that would not have been in power under the actual legislation, which had been adopted, but got in under the wire by putting the two together… I for one would seriously question the mandate of such a government and I predict I won’t be the only one…

Constitutional reformers

Communities - from among their number and chosen to represent the community view which would have been established at a series of local meetings; certainly none of that fascist drawing of lots - we have more than enough nonsense lotteries now.

Such things are false panaceas and militate against reality - which is hard, requires work, and involves compromise - something the wiseacres chosen by the Blaney, Gibson and Campbell exercise apparently know dick all about.

STV + EBC = Rural STD

STV or Electoral boundaries commission, either way, the rural areas get the shaft, which is what the big picture is all about.

Rural voters

But does anyone have an idea of how to make the system better for rural voters without making it worse for urban voters?

Editor : Why can't I flag my own posts as "offensive"?

Rural voters

Don't like my idea of giving politicians who represent rural areas more staff, Frank?

Rural Ridings

Just to add a bit to Frank's reply to Skywalker -

1. STV doesn't change the number of MLAs, so on average there's no change in the average caseload. What changes is the motivation to be responsive. With STV, a candidate needs (on average) 20,000 votes to be elected (compared with under half that on average with FPTP). That means they have to get 20,000 people to vote for them, and they have to appeal to all the little hamlets everywhere to find those voters. If they start getting a reputation for blowing voters off and they start voting for the other candidate from their preferred party instead, that MLA is out of a job. With FPTP, if a candidate has a comfortable lead (ie, is in one of the 60 or so pretty safe seats around the province), they probably don't feel the same sense of urgency about responding.

2. The distance to the constituents won't change all that much under STV. Right now, all three Prince George area MLAs live in Prince George - each drives out to the rural areas in a different direction. Under STV, even if they all ended up in PG as they are now, they'd each still have the same distance to drive to any given rural town.

3. Skywalker had asked which MLA is responsible to which constituent. With STV, each constituent knows which MLA is responsible to them because they voted for them! You approach the MLA you voted for. The MLA assumes that they're dependent on your vote if you come to them, so they're motivated to offer you good service. If you don't get it, you won't vote for them again, and the consequences for the MLA for mistreating your constituents are much greater under STV. That's how the current gulf you referred to gets closed with STV.

I see someone from Fairvote BC has arrived - Hi Tony!

With multi-member ridings in urban areas - added to the potential for special interest single issue candidates I just don't see how rural 'issues' and problems won't be more ignored than they are now...

No question STV is better than FPTP - that hardly makes it the only alternative and BC's people (not just a ginger group of lottery winners) ought to have an opportunity to choose among those alternatives.

Why STV Will Improve Rural Representation

G West and others are right that there's a fundamental problem with the way jurisdictional responsibilities are allocated in Canada. Any time control is vested in a remote government, people are likely to feel somewhat alienated, and that's the root cause of the disconnect rural people in BC experience (and BC people more generally vis a vis Ottawa). The ultimate solution is to adopt changes in governmental responsibility so that control over local issues and priorities remains in local hands, not administered from afar. I am certainly happy to discuss and advocate for such changes.

It's also true that STV won't fundamentally change this situation - until our constitution is changed, provincial responsibilities will be the same under either STV or FPTP. Furthermore, the ratio of rural to urban seats will be the same under both STV and FPTP, so rural representation won't be increased (or decreased) through any change in this ratio.

Nonetheless, despite the fact that these two important factors will remain the same under both voting systems, there are two main reasons why I think STV will enhance rural representation relative to our current FPTP system:

1. It will increase the independence and responsiveness of MLAs. Since MLAs will be more dependent on votes from individual voters under STV, they won't be able to assume that they have safe seats and they will have to actively seek the votes available in smaller towns, so they will have a stronger incentive to spend more time outside the larger population centres. This will enhance the connection voters feel to their MLAs. In general, MLAs will tend to represent their riding to Victoria rather than the other way around.

2. STV ensures that swing ridings will exist everywhere in the province. Right now, there are many safe seats in rural areas, particularly in the north. As a consequence, the parties tend to ignore the issues those areas face. The candidates for premier tend to spend most of their time in the swing ridings, so all the media attention is focussed on those areas, which tend to be in the urban centres. By bringing seats in every region of the province into play (eg, in a three seat district, the NDP and the Liberals may each feel relatively confident about winning one seat, but the third one will be up for grabs), STV will ensure increased media attention to the rural ridings. In fact, because the average STV district size will be smaller in the rural areas, there will be an increased ratio of swing seats to population in rural areas, which will further raise the visibility of rural concerns.

So overall I see significant benefits for rural voters to support STV - a stronger connection to their MLA through increased incentives for them to spend time outside the larger population centres and increased attention to the rural regions by making more seats in these areas into swing seats where the outcome strongly affects the parties' overall electoral fortunes.

ME2

Actually, I think that's an excellent idea. I would be all for that.

But I think of that as "administrative". I was wondering if there was also any "electoral" ideas.

Improving Things for Rural Voters

I agree with ME2 and Frank that increased administrative staff in rural areas is an excellent idea.

To improve 'things' for rural people requires a closer look at what needs improving. I see three main components:

1. Jurisdiction over local affairs
2. Improving representation on policy issues
3. Improving contact and communication with MLAs

As I mentioned earlier, I see the jurisdiction question as being relatively unaffected by the choice of electoral system - the various federal and provincial statutes lay out the responsibilities of the federal, provincial, regional and municipal layers of government. I'm all for a discussion and renegotiation of these responsibilities. However, I do think that STV will likely improve the odds of making meaningful progress on this front because it will produce a bunch of rural MLAs who will be more beholden to their local voters than to the party bosses (at least relative to where they are now), so they would stand a better chance of being able to negotiate for a redistribution of powers.

Re: representation on policy issues. This requires that rural MLAs have opinions that match those of their constituents and that they feel sufficiently empowered to express these opinions. STV is far more proportional than FPTP, so MLAs' opinions will be more representative of their constituents than they are now. In addition, for the reasons I've discussed in earlier posts, they'll be more empowered to express these opinions. Finally, a more balanced legislative house will produce more balanced legislative committees, which is where MLAs have the greatest input into policies, so legislation will likely become much more balanced and nuanced than at present (there have been some interesting academic papers studying the change in the nature of legislation in New Zealand since PR was adopted there - legislation now typically enjoys markedly broader support than before).

Finally, improved contact and communication with MLAs can be enhanced through the increased administrative support that everyone seems to agree is reasonable, as well as by the added incentive MLAs will have under STV to go out and make contact with voters outside the major population centres in a riding.

Tony

Don't you think it's likely that an STV House would contain more than a few members from several special interest groups using the relative ease with which 20G or so motivated voters can get a representative of their own narcissistic interests elected?

And, if so, how do you see that ingredient leading to anything but wasted time and 'bending' of the rules of debate?

I see no balance coming from that.

Assembly was nobody's 'ginger group"

anybody who suggests the Assembly was anybody's 'ginger group' is just plain stupid. It was chosen randomly from people across the province, at all socio-economic levels. After attending several meetings it was clear that they were anything but somebody's 'political tool'. There were far too many cats in that Assembly to herd.

Assembly chose STV above more visible options

Let's not forget that the Citizen's Assembly ended up choosing STV, even though almost noone in that group had ever heard of it beforehand. Recall that ALL the talk was about mixed-member proportional (MMP) and at the beginning many viewed the CA as a rubber-stamp for a new MMP system. MMP was most definitely the 'new' system established in everyone's mind.

But after hearing all the arguments, they were finally convinced that overall, STV was a better system than MMP.
it would have been easy for them to roll with their pre-established worldview (MMP), but they worked hard and most (not all) saw STV as being better.

Changing one's opinion from one option that everyone has heard about to another that noone had heard about is very hard for most people, so the arguments for STV had to be very compelling to get a majority of the CA to see it as the best alternative.

it wasn't unanimous of course - that would be impossible in a group of 300 or so. Still, a significant majority of the CA, people just like you and me, saw STV as the best alternative, and that is enough statistics for me to suggest that if all British Columbians spent as much time studying the problem as the CA, they too would arrive at the same conclusion. And most did, even without it.

it really is disheartening to hear all these people denigrating the CA just because they don't agree with its conclusions. It wasn't my preferred solution either, but it's still a good one, and majority of a large group of my peers liked it best, so what the hell is wrong with that ? Some people talk a good democracy, but can't really live it ...

bun

There were 160 people in the citizens' assembly - not 300. Including 2 First Nations citizens + Jack Blaney = 161.

They were balanced for gender and age and chosen at random from the 79 constituencies in BC at the time.

Why do you think they represented the province so poorly?

I'd be surprised if they didn't. You might as well have picked lottery winners.

And it has nothing to do with real democracy.

You can read more about it here:
http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/public/inaction

Sorry bun

Voting

I'm not from B.C. but I am a Canadian. My opinion may not count as particularly relevant in this instance but for what it's worth, I believe we can't eliminate the good points of FPTP in efforts to get a more representative election process.

Looking around the world at various kinds of electoral procedures, there are apparent flaws in every system. Perhaps the best way for us to elect representatives is to follow the method used by the parties themselves to select leaders. Which is by run-off votes, with the losing candidates "voted off the island" so to speak, until the leader is named by a majority "first past the post."

Losing candidates could direct the voters who supported them in the first vote to any of the others running, or not, on the subsequent choice. But voters would have additional time to re-evaluate the other candidates themselves, observing what new alliances are being formed within the slate. This advantage is not found within STV or PropRep, etc., which can give garbled results, rewarding either incompetent candidates or insider party members unduly, and leave government bound in perpetual gridlock. (A very well established civil service can easily take over such governments to its advantage, something to be guarded against.)

We have three levels of government in Canada now, municipal, provincial, and federal. Removing the provincial layer would leave us with federal standards and municipal operations, placing government of the people with the people. Our nation would be stronger and the people more involved locally.

Resistance to Special Interest Groups

G West, I don't think it's anywhere near as easy for single interest groups to get elected under STV as you seem to think. Even in the largest 7-seat districts (if we get any of them), you'll still need to attract in the range of 10-12% of the voters to get elected. This seems like a relatively large threshold to me, so I suspect that only serious candidates will be able to cross it. It's one of the things I like most about STV - it seems to me to strike a fine balance between making my vote count (giving me further meaningful choices if my top preference doesn't have enough support to be elected) and being mindlessly 'proportional', the way Israel and Italy are always (in my mind rightly) being criticized for.

And if someone convinces 20k voters to elect them, then that MLA has a very strong claim to be their representative and has every right to make their voices heard. Realistically, I expect that in BC, we'll elect half a dozen or so Greens, and maybe one or two other independents or representatives of smaller parties in areas where they have particular strength. I think the Greens' voice will be widely welcomed (at least amongst the voters, if not amongst the other politicians) and may well provoke the major parties to shift their policies greenward. That doesn't seem like a waste of time to me.

Again, I suggest you read Boston, Church and Bale's 2003 paper on "The Impact of Proportional Representation on
Government Effectiveness: The New Zealand
Experience" for a nicely nuanced view of the impact of smaller parties on debate. They conclude that, overall, it tends to produce more well thought out proposals than tend to occur with single party majorities and the resulting policies tend to be supported by a larger fraction of the electorate (my own current pet peeve in BC is the huge sum of $14 billion that is proposed to be spent on a Skytrain system; this proposal came out of the blue without any public consultation or broad consensus, and I personally think that there are much more cost-effective alternatives based on light rail technologies - Denver is building 200 km of light rail for less than half what we propose to spend).

Bun - great points about the CA. I've been very impressed with the members I've met. If people who disagree with you look at the research describing their shift in preferences, they'll see evidence of people sincerely struggling with the issues and coming to conclusions that they didn't originally anticipate. To me, that suggests deep engagement, not manipulation. I agree with your comment about too many cats to herd.

sorry for what ?

G. West

OK, so it was 160 instead of 300.
and, so ?
How does that in any way negate anything that I said ? that is still a large number, way more than seats in the Legistlature.

Why do you think they represented the province so poorly?

have you any idea how silly that statement is ? Besides, WHO SAYS they represented the province so poorly ? Almost 60% of the province agreed with them in the referendum !

dude, give your head a shake.

I've read the NZ stuff

And the Israeli references too.

And for every compliment (most of them from PoliSci depts) I can find at least one critic who'll balance that with a detriment.

I am not willing to accede to a group of chosen by lot who slowly morphed into self-styled saviors the ability to decide for the broader population how we should govern ourselves.

Frankly, I'm as upset by the behavior you call deep engagement as anything else. These guys and gals should have done their job and faded away. The fact they haven't tells me more about their egos than it does about anything else.

I stated my preference up thread for a much broader and more democratically chosen constitutional assembly - and it shouldn't just look at elections.

Fixing elections is far from the only problem in this province and there is no reason that the citizens shouldn't be doing this work and engaging in these exercises in citizenship themselves.

I don't appreciate Gibson and Blaney's little exercise one bit - it's just more of the kind of elitist nonsense that leads to sell-outs like the current premier.

I don't know what the people would decide - but I'd far sooner turn it over to them than a "'citizens' assembly" that doesn't know when they've outstayed their welcome.

If Campbell deigns to allow the people to vote I don't think there's even a slim chance STV will get the required 60% - the blatant animosity of the press in Ontario to their attempt at reform will just be played out here all over again. The powers that be like to have politicians in their pockets – especially here in BC – it’s how they manage to always come up smelling like roses.

Until the people speak with one voice nothing will ever change and that will only happen when we have a premier who is more concerned with keeping promises than breaking them - come hell or high water.

And, in the off chance that STV passes I’ll make you a little wager that the Christian fundies and probably the Chinese will have themselves ginger group members of the legislature after the very first election run under the new rules… in fact, there may be more than one of each.

I think STV will be very easily gamed by a committed group of about 10,000 – organized by email and over the internet. Just wait and see.

bun

See above.

Promise From Premier Campbell

Re: the question of whether or not the referendum will be held, I decided to write directly to the premier (as he is also my MLA) to enquire about whether the referendum was at risk. His response to me is quoted below:

"Thank you for your email dated February 8, 2008, regarding electoral reform. As your MLA for Vancouver - Point Grey, I am pleased to confirm for you that this government will be holding another referendum on electoral reform in 2009, along with funding for both a 'yes' and 'no' campaign."

I take this as an unequivocal promise, especially since my question to him explicitly raised the issue that the EBC report might not be accepted:

"As a director of Fair Voting BC and one of your Point Grey constituents, I would like to ask you to confirm your government's intention to introduce legislation enabling the referendum on electoral reform which you promised for 2009, along with funding for public outreach for both the yes and no sides, regardless of the legislature's action with regard to the forthcoming EBC report".