Dear editor,
In response to the question asked in the full-page advertisement on the back of the June 19 issue of The Record, Is David Eby trying to manipulate you? My answer is, No, I don’t feel I’m being manipulated by David Eby. (Although the ad doesn’t say so, David Eby is the attorney general of British Columbia.)
However, I do feel I’m being manipulated by Fair Referendum, the group that ran this advertisement. It says, British Columbians deserve a referendum process that is transparent, free of bias, and that doesn’t favour a particular outcome. Yes, that is what we deserve, but their insinuation is that the referendum we’ll be getting isn’t going to be transparent, won’t be free of bias, and that it will favour a particular outcome.
They ask: Why hasn’t David Eby recommended a ballot with one simple question?
There actually is a very simple question on the ballot – Do you want to keep the current first past the post voting system, or do you want to switch to a proportional representation voting system?
This group apparently doesn’t like the fact that voters will also be given the opportunity to choose which of three possible proportional representation systems they would prefer. Their website claims that this somehow slants the ballot towards the choice of proportional representation. However, it appears that nobody will have to fill in that part of the ballot if they don’t want to.
In my opinion, this expensive advertisement paid for by the Fair Referendum group was run to discredit the referendum process, and to get people to either vote to keep the current First Past the Post system, or not vote in the referendum at all because there might be something unfair about it. So who is it that is really trying to manipulate us?
Ellen Rainwalker
Cumberland