BC-STV and the Charlottetown Accord of 1992
By Peter Ewart
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 03:45 AM
Recently, I read about an Angus Reid poll on the upcoming BC-STV referendum showing that the appetite of people in BC for electoral reform remains keen. In the poll, 64% indicated that they would vote yes for BC-STV. Young people were especially in favour, with a staggering 74% going for the proposed new electoral system.In the last referendum in 2005, almost 58% of the votes and 97% of the ridings – a clear majority – voted in favour of BC-STV. The only reason why the new electoral system was not adopted then and there was that the bar was set high for the vote (requiring 60% of the votes in 60% of the ridings for approval).
So why do the numbers consistently show that BC voters want to change the electoral system?
One reason most certainly has been the process that was followed, i.e., the formation of a Citizens’ Assembly. People liked the fact that ordinary citizens were being charged with the task of recommending what kind of electoral system the province should have. Instead of politicians and political parties deciding, it was ordinary voters. This innovative approach struck a chord with voters of all political persuasions.
A second reason has been that the electoral system the Citizens’ Assembly chose – BC-STV – has clear advantages over the existing “First Past the Post” system, including providing more proportionality and fairness, but especially giving more power and choice to voters. To truly empower voters, more electoral reform will be needed in the future. Nonetheless, BC-STV is a definite step toward that goal.
But there is a third reason and it runs deep. For a very long time, many Canadians and British Columbians have been dissatisfied with the political process at both the federal and provincial levels.
Time and again, voters have complained that parties and candidates say one thing when running in elections, but do another once elected to office. Furthermore, that the electoral process is too party-dominated at the expense of voters, that it is not proportional enough, and so on. In a nutshell, that the process is elitist, that voters are dis-empowered rather than empowered.
This dissatisfaction was expressed in a most stunning and spectacular way back in 1992 with the federal referendum on the Charlottetown Accord. The Charlottetown Accord was supposed to have formed the basis of a new Canadian Constitution.
This Accord was cooked up behind closed doors by the Prime Minister of the day, Brian Mulroney, and the provincial premiers, with the support of the opposition parties. It was all supposed to be a “slam dunk,” with voters meekly falling into line and rubberstamping the Accord that, as the political leaders claimed, would “save Canada.”.
But what a miscalculation it was. From the beginning, people felt that the process was anti-democratic and elitist. In its arrogance and haste, the federal government hadn’t even bothered to make sure that copies of the Accord were in the hands of voters in a timely fashion so that they could read it and make an informed decision to cast their ballot..
Indeed, in some parts of the country it got so bad that a strange phenomenon developed whereby opponents of the Accord – who were all volunteers - paid out of their own pockets to print copies because voters couldn’t get any from the government.
And there were a lot of opponents. I was in Ontario at the time and involved with the “No” side. It was made up of people who came together from across the political spectrum and from all walks of life. What united this ragtag army of volunteers was the desire for a democratic and empowering process and a democratic and empowering constitution, not one that was elitist and thrown together behind closed doors by politicians and government leaders.
It was a David and Goliath battle. On one side, were the federal and provincial governments with their huge advertising budgets and colossal resources, supported by the political parties in Parliament and the big newspaper and television monopolies.
On the other side, was a large collection of mainly ordinary people (along with a few prominent ones) from across the country who had come together with little or no funding, few resources, and no government apparatus at their disposal . But they had a belief. And it was a powerful one – that the people of Canada should determine what the Constitution of the country should be, not the political and economic elites.
Meetings and debates were organized in hundreds of cities. On the “no” side, enthusiastic volunteers wrote up literature, and just as quickly photocopied and widely distributed it. They hit the streets and organized countless public debates, kitchen meetings and other events. Above all, they engaged people in discussion, educating them about the positions of both the “yes” and “no” sides, and providing analysis, so that people could make an informed decision.
The “yes” side, which had all kinds of access to the deep pockets of government and the main political parties, had few volunteers. Instead, it mainly relied on a blizzard of glossy and expensive ads in newspapers, radio and television, and a bunch of sleek politicians warning of “chaos” and “the break up of Canada” unless the Accord was adopted.
At one point, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney referred to opponents of the Accord as “enemies of Canada.” In addition, in Ontario, dirty tricks were used such as getting speakers from the “no” side excluded from public debates.
Nonetheless, the opposition to the Accord spread like a prairie fire across the country. A number of unlikely alliances sprung up and the “no” side picked up momentum. Despite the practically unlimited resources of government, parties and big media, the “yes” side quickly got into trouble. It was downhill for it from Day One.
In the course of the referendum campaign, I remember staffing an information table for the “no” side with a couple of others in an open area of a large shopping mall in Southern Ontario. Our table was directly across from the “yes” side table. And the scene was a study in contrasts.
All of our campaign finances had come from volunteers, and there wasn’t a lot. Thus our information table had been thrown together with a couple of borrowed card tables and an old tablecloth. Our signs and banners were hand drawn with magic markers. Although our campaign literature had been photocopied on the cheapest plain white paper, it was packed with information, history and analysis. We wanted to educate voters to make an informed voice. And the people ate it up like there was no tomorrow.
The “yes” side, on the other hand, had beautiful campaign material. Big bright signs. Glossy brochures. Professionally crafted banners. Balloons. Streamers. Boxes and boxes of buttons. And, of all things, they had hired a string quartet to play classical music beside their display table. Behind the table were a local MP and several young paid staff from his office.
However, there was another thing that glaringly distinguished our table from theirs. We had a long line up of people wanting to get literature and have discussion with us. Their side had almost no one, and that was the way it went the whole day. The string quartet played and played beautiful music, the tunes wafting down the corridors of the shopping mall. But to no avail. People flocked to our rickety little table.
It got so bad that a couple of us took pity and wandered over to the “yes” side table to try to cheer them up. The MP scowled and barely grunted out a hello. But the staffers were nice and took our literature. Later after he had gone, we urged them to make an informed choice in their vote. Judging from their faces and body language, I would bet my bottom dollar they voted for our side.
In any case, it was on that day that I realized that we were going to win. And that is exactly what happened.
The rejection of the Charlottetown Accord was a cataclysmic event in Canadian politics. Among other things, it was the beginning of the end for the Progressive Conservative government. Even foreign newspapers and governments raised their eyebrows. Such an event is rare in politics, where the people of a country defy their national government, the establishment parties and the political class as a whole.
But such is the dissatisfaction of the people with the existing political process. People want more control over politicians and more control over government, and they want their will to be more effectively expressed. And that is the third reason, in my opinion, why so many people in BC are saying yes to BC-STV.
All of this being said, polls can go up and down, and referendum campaigns can be volatile.
Just as in the 1992 Charlottetown Accord referendum, the political elites are having trouble getting committed volunteers for the anti – BC-STV side. However, as in 1992, they will most likely dust off some old politicians and party insiders, who, like scarecrows all stuffed with straw and fluttering in the wind, will be planted around the province warning of dire and terrible consequences if BC-STV is passed.
They will also probably mount an expensive and glossy ad campaign in the media. The method is simple. If your message is empty, if your arguments are discredited , try to scare and confuse people, as well as bombard them with glitzy ads.
Will all of this be enough to stop the voters of British Columbia from adopting BC-STV? I have my doubts. Why? An old saying coined by Victor Hugo says it all. “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
Peter Ewart is a college instructor, writer, and community activist. He is also a member of Fair Voting BC, which is supporting BC-STV in the upcoming referendum. Peter can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca
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Posted by: Jim13135 on April 22 2009 8:58 AM
So far as the "Charlottetown Accord", (which I, like most of us, also opposed), being dreamed up "behind closed doors", you might want to do a little research into how Confederation itself came about.
And what the actual "intent" of the BNA Act really was, when it was passed by the British Parliament back in 1867.
A great deal has already been done on this by the late J. Walter Kuhl, a former Alberta MP. Whose probing into the whole Constitutional area of Federal-Provincial rights, many years ago, way back when MacKenzie King was PM, revealed there is a very good chance that the "Statute of Westminster" of 1931, the Act which granted Canada and five other British Empire countries complete independence, also legally nullified the original intent of the British North America Act of 1867. And the so-called "confederation" of Canada itself.
And that complete independence was not granted to the "Dominion of Canada" in 1931, but to the nine Provinces that then made up Canada, as separate, individual soveignties instead.
To my knowledge, Kuhl's findings were never refuted, but, in spite of his much later urging to Quebec to make them the basis of a Supreme Court challenge for Provincial sovereignty when its government was pushing for separation, the issue has never been taken to Court.