This has been the hardest column I’ve written so far. This is version four and my deadline is here. I decided to run an earlier draft by a couple of savvy friends and OMG, did I get an earful! One of them compared the topic to Gordian’s Knot (which I had to Google). Where’s Alexander the Great when we need him? This is the final draft, simply because I’m out of time.
I’m still of the belief our method of voting needs a serious makeover. It’s about our current first-past-the-post system (FPTP) versus a proportional representation (PR) system that uses the single transferable vote (STV).
Our freedom to vote is the underlying principle in a true democracy. Unfortunately, in the FPTP system, around two-thirds of our votes won’t count unless we voted for the winning party. Case in point: in 1979 Pierre Trudeau got 40 per cent of the votes while Joe Clark got only 36 per cent, yet Clark still won the electorate. In in a PR system, every vote would count.
Scandinavian countries have PR systems and look how successful they are. In Finland, they have free education right through university, universal health care, and are deemed to be the happiest, most highly educated people in the world. There are six parties, with decisions made through consensus. Finns over the age of 18 can vote, which is not compulsory, and in the 1980s, participation averaged around 80 per cent. Compared to our 30 to 50 per cent turnouts, that in itself says something.
I thought when no party has a majority, they can’t overrule or bully the other parties. They have to work together for the betterment of the country or region, not just their own party. My friend begged to differ, stating that for all the successful PR countries, there are just as many that aren’t working, giving Italy, Greece and Israel as examples.
The problem with majority governments is they have too much power and don’t “need” to work with the opposition. FPTP also creates an adversarial system that inundates voters with distasteful campaigns by trying to make the competition look bad. This often backfires turning people off politics and voting altogether.
Of the many variations of PR systems, one I am partial to is in New Zealand. They use mixed member proportional representation or MMP. Everyone gets two votes, one for their chosen party and one for their preferred local candidate. MMP resembles our current system somewhat in that we can still vote for our party, but we also get to vote for a representative, who may be an independent or in a different party. No more need to vote strategically, you simply vote for the candidate you want to win.
A provincial referendum is scheduled to coincide with our municipal elections in the fall, giving us a third opportunity in 13 years to vote on this, even though we already voted 58 per cent in favour in 2005 but didn’t satisfy the 60 per cent threshold the government had stipulated.
(Editor’s note: the second referendum on electoral reform, which took place in 2009, was defeated with only 39 per cent of voters in favour of the change.)
The question was too confusing and seemed to have been devised by a bunch of academics. The principal of STV is fairly simple, but BC-STV’s wording was not. With simple STV, if your candidate does not get enough votes to qualify, that vote goes to your next choice.
It’s more important than ever that the referendum question is transparently clear. In the meantime, over the next six months, we need a major education initiative to help us make an informed decision. Our democracy depends on it.
ML Burke retired from the health sector to work on issues such as affordable housing. She sits on the Delta Seniors Planning Team and the BC Seniors Advocate’s Council of Advisors.
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