Dear editor,
I have no idea how Dave Barrett, The Bennetts, Garde Gardom or Richard McBride felt about proportional representation when they were alive or how they might feel about it today in a new political climate.
And neither does Terrence Purden (Proportional representation is a way for a politician to lose an election and win a seat, Nov. 13 Letter). So is it not unfair to dead politicians to invoke their ghosts to support our arguments? Let’s leave them out of this.
Mr. Purden is concerned that we will have MLAs who we “don’t know” and “don’t want” “foisted upon us.” But with all three proposed models our first MLA would be elected by first-past-the-post, the same process we are using now. Larger ridings but no other change. Our second MLA would be a member from the same party or another party based on the voting in our riding and in the province overall. In one system, Dual Member, the names of both elected candidates would appear on our ballot. With the Mixed Member system, the second (regional) MLA would be from a list prepared by the parties. Both MLAs would represent the riding and have offices in the riding as they do now.
As for his concern that PR favours the party over the constituent, keep in mind that with our current system it is the parties, not the constituents, that select the candidates.
And can we please stop worrying about small radical parties controlling the province. A party would have to receive five per cent of the vote to have any representation in the legislature. That is a huge wall to get over. Even the Conservative party did not reach that threshold in the last election. The Rhinoceros, Vancouver Separatist and Nazi parties won’t come anywhere near five per cent of the vote. And if they do we have a bigger problem than our electoral system. If you are concerned about political extremism and polarization just look at our FPTP neighbours to the south. They, along with Canada and Britain, are the last of the world’s major democracies to resist changing to a proportional system.
All three of the proposed systems give us local MLAs, proportional results (30 per cent of the votes = 30 per cent the seats) and no significant increase in the number of MLAs. If you are still nervous about trying something new, keep in mind that under the legislation a second referendum will be triggered after two elections with a choice to keep PR or revert back to FPTP. Interestingly, with increased voter turnout and improved political and economic stability, none of the countries that have tried pro rep have chosen to give it up.
Erik Taynen,
Courtenay