In response to Lonnie Campell’s letter criticizing Green Party voters for, in essence, voting — you should shift your anger and blame for the NDP’s loss onto the shoulders of those that deserve it: the NDP. The NDP did not give a strong enough platform, nor an economic plan that seemed based in reality.
They didn’t give people anything to vote for. The NDP is supposed to be pro-worker but their $10/day childcare plan was just another form of corporate welfare — have the working taxpayer subsidize childcare so that companies can continue to pay their workers less and less rather than fight for a living wage.
The Green Party was the only party that banned corporate and union donations. This is not to say corporations or unions are evil, but if a politician takes large sums of money from certain entities they are then beholden to those entities. If they only take small-scale donations from individual voters then they are beholden to the voters.
The Green Party was also the only party with a plan to at least look into a living wage. A person working full time on minimum wage does not earn enough to support themselves and so requires government assistance, again funded by the taxpayer. Our current minimum wage is corporate welfare — it allows corporations to make billions in profit while the taxpayer and foodbanks support the corporation’s very own employees.
Our elections have become not about who a person is voting FOR, but rather who they are voting AGAINST. A substantial portion of NDP voters voted NDP solely as a protest vote against the Liberals. Same can be said for a large portion of Liberal voters voting against the NDP. Nearly 100 per cent of Green voters voted FOR the Green Party, not against the other two. It’s time people start voting FOR something and to stop blaming others for doing just that.
From David Reid, Duncan
Don’t impose electoral reform on the province
We elect Members of Parliament and Members of the Legislative Assembly to the Parliament of Canada and to its provincial Legislature in B.C. in riding elections where each constituent has the right to vote to elect a representative of their riding, their community — not party or movements seeking their own interest and advantage at the expense of the people and of their voice in the community as democracy.
Space and population define Canada’s and B.C.’s realities and our constitution. Any proposal for fundamental change to our democracy demands a constitutional reference from the Supreme Court of Canada as to its constitutionality and a referendum in the jurisdiction, national or provincial, where such change would be proposed.
A constitutional right of a legislature to change our electoral system exists, but not to impose change which is not itself constitutional as any form of proportional representation would surely be found to be.
I voted for the elected the BC Green candidate in Cowichan Valley, Sonia Furstenau; I did not vote for or support PR as electoral reform.
The 2009 referendum on electoral reform showed us that its proponents, either as “BC-STV” (PR-STV) or other proposals, are driven by partisan interest and partisan advantage, not the interest of the people. The B.C. provincial election result in 2017 is not another “historic opportunity” for the proponents of PR to impose their preferred form of partisanship.
From Brian Marlatt, Honeymoon Bay
