Editor,
As the saying goes: communism, prohibition and proportional representation all sound good in theory but just don’t work as claimed in practice. Ignore the hype, just look closely at the countries where it has been tried.
First past the post sounds undemocratic when multiple parties exist but it works in the long run.
Typically a party leaning one way gets its preferred legislation in place and then a term or two later an opposing party gets in an adjusts the legislation in another direction. Over time an averaging effect gives a generally acceptable trend. All governments do not want the public messing in their preferences so neither side swings democratic. The best cure for those who want majority elections is the transferable vote… a system already voter approved by 58 per cent in 2004, but not adopted.
Proportional representation in practice is a dictatorship of petulant, uncompromising minorities resulting in unstable, short-lived coalitions. None include a voter referendum mechanism for the public to review and cancel some of the extremist legislation that minority parties demand as the price of participation.
Read the proponents documentation, especially the “trust us with the details to follow” concept. Sorry, I don’t trust. I will stay with the current system although I would like a transferable vote addition.
Julian Fell
Errington, B.C.
