I truly believe that the BC-STV referendum is the last best chance British Columbian voters will have for electoral reform.
I respect Premier Gordon Campbell for giving electoral reform another chance, but wonder whether his heart is really in it with the threshold for adoption set so high. I doubt we will see electoral reform back on the ballot in four years time if it fails next week.
And we desperately need change....
I have moderated two all-candidates meetings this week: one for North Vancouver-Seymour electoral district, the other for West Vancouver-Capilano. Each meeting drew an intelligent, respectful audience of approximately 150. But I have previously moderated political meetings in both locations that drew twice that number.
Fewer and fewer residents are willing to give two hours of their time to learn more about their candidates. This trend is hugely disconcerting....
Our current first-past-the-post system leaves the majority of British Columbians being governed by a party they did not vote for.
That political alienation has been compounded by an increasingly ugly trend to circumvent the legislature wherever possible and to centralize policy and power in the office of the premier. And when did "political debate" in Victoria become a cheap-shot sound bite in Question Period played for the suppertime newscasts?
I want my government to be creative, to be caring, to be responsive to the will of the majority. If it can't or won't be that, I want a system that will force it to listen.
That system is BC-STV.
There's more. Read the full article.
Word is that other community papers are coming out in support of BC-STV. Might it be they've been flooded with a disproportionate number of letters supporting the reform as opposed to those supporting the status quo?
Early on, local papers were clearly trying to maintain 'balance' by printing one letter in favour of STV, another in favour of FPTP. Yet such practice effectively deceives people into thinking it reflects the reality.
In the past two editions, more pro-STV letters have appeared in the local papers of the Cowichan Valley - on a scale of not less than 3:1. I hope this phenomenon is occurring in other communities, since I KNOW letters sent to community papers in favour of BC-STV have vastly outnumbered others.
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