Dear Editor:
British Columbia has been successful in part because our electoral system, known as first past the post, is stable, simple and successful.
Elected MLAs are held accountable to their local voters.
Our stability is the result of British Columbians in every region/area of B.C. voting to elect their MLA and holding their MLA to account.
Now the NDP/Green coalition want to change our proven voting process to a system where at least 40 per cent of our MLAs will be put forward on a list of candidates by party bosses, not you the voter.
This is called proportional representation.
The NDP/Greens will also be changing the B.C. electoral map but only after the referendum, without showing the voters of B.C. what the ridings will look like before the referendum.
So much for openness and transparency.
The NDP/Greens say “trust us.” They will make those decision details after the referendum. Really?
What the NDP/Greens are really doing is stacking the deck in order for the large left-leaning votes of Vancouver to control the vote and redistribute these NDP/Green votes to the Interior and rural B.C. to ensure the NDP/Green coalition stays in power.
This is really all about holding power.
What the NDP/Greens are not telling us the voters of B.C. is of results will no doubt lead to coalition governments in British Columbia for a very long time.
The result being the formation of fringe parties (the minority) which has been in case where ever proportional representation is being used.
The results of these fringe parties (the minority) on both the left and right will over time become part of a coalition government and hold the balance to power.
This will no doubt result in many special interest shady back room deals to form a government. Thus the minority will control the majority.
NDP Premier John Horgan recently said at the UBCM meetings in Whistler, “Join me and take a leap of faith on a change that works around the world.”
Really!
Look at recent elections in Germany where it took six months and back room deals to form the government and a government holding on by a thread.
Belgium went 589 days without a government. Spain went 10 months without an elected government. Iceland had three elections in five years.
Is this stability?
So why would we change our proven way of electing our government? Please vote to keep our time tested way of electing our MLAs and our government.
Vote for first past the post.
You only have to answer Question 1 on the ballot in our upcoming referendum. Vote one vote and be done. You do not need to answer the second question on the referendum nallot.
Yasmin John-Thorpe and Rick Thorpe
Penticton
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