RE: Questioning the motives of Wilkinson’s message
Proportional Representation is being pitched to British Columbians as a utopian electoral process.
It is said to better represent the needs and interests of the voters; 40 per cent of the votes get 40 per cent of the seats. Sounds simple and fair enough. But what really happens under PR is that power is given to coalition and special interests groups.
This a system made by politicians for politicians.
As we find ourselves in the throes of yet another referendum, residents are being asked to decide if they are satisfied with our current first-past-the-post system or if they would prefer PR. If in favour of PR, voters are required to rank three different systems in order of preference.
The proposed systems are Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), Dual Member Proportional (DMP), and Rural-Urban Proportional (RUP). This would be fine if voters were provided with adequate information on what each system was.
The NDP, once again, has failed to deliver on its promises. Premier Horgan promised British Columbians a ballot with a simple yes or no question. Not a loaded, two-part question that asks for preferences on largely untested voting systems. Only MMP has been used in any other type of government. The other two have never seen a real-world application.
This brings the second failure on the NDP’s part to light. There has been no clear information about what any of these systems would like if they were chosen. How many MLAs would be voted for? How many ridings would those MLAs have? And what would those ridings look like?
The 2004 referendum supposedly failed because of an “unnaturally” high voter threshold; so the NDP have conveniently removed the voter threshold, allowing whatever number of participants vote for the entire province.
With the outcome of this referendum hid behind smoke and mirrors I’m sure we can expect low participation in this referendum.
You can call the first-past-the-post an archaic failure all you like, but at least we know how our government is being elected.
Eric Foster, MLA