Panel data provided by Madison's Canadian Lumber Reporter.

STV: The Stars Are Favouring Electoral Reform

By Peter Ewart

-by Peter Ewart

The ancients had a belief that, if the stars in the sky came together in a particular pattern, the times would be favourable for people to seize the initiative. Well, the stars have, once again, come into a position that is auspicious for voters both in the North and in the province of British Columbia as a whole in the area of electoral reform.

In the Throne Speech on September 12, the Liberal government announced that another referendum will be held in 2008 on whether or not to adopt the Single Transferable Vote electoral system (STV). In the last referendum in May of this year, voters came within a whisker of adopting the system proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly despite the high bar that had been rather arbitrarily set, requiring 60% of the votes for approval. In that referendum, 58% of the electorate voted for STV, along with 77 of the 79 ridings.

The Citizens’ Assembly, which was made up of 160 randomly selected voters from every riding in the province, had proposed the adoption of STV after deliberating on various electoral models for over a year.

The results of the May vote clearly showed that a strong majority of the voters were willing to try STV and that there was a deep undercurrent of discontent with the current First Past The Post system (FPTP). Yet an impasse had been reached. Despite the strong majority for STV, it could not be adopted because of the high margin required for approval.

In this situation, the government had a number of choices, most of them unpalatable. It could have let the issue die, but this would mean that voters would be going to the polls in 2009 using an electoral system that most had rejected. It could have instructed the Citizens’ Assembly to go back to the drawing board and come up with another model. But this would have invalidated the entire Citizens’ Assembly process itself, which was independent of political or party interference. Likewise, organizing a referendum on the Mixed Member Proportional system, which some suggested, would also invalidate the Citizens’ Assembly process because the Citizens’ Assembly had rejected MMP in its deliberations by a wide margin. And, finally, it could have simply bulldozed through the adoption of STV through a vote in the Legislature. But this would not have sat well with many in Premier Campbell’s own caucus and would have violated the government’s own rules of process regarding the referendum.

So what has been laid out in the September 12 Throne Speech to get beyond this impasse? First of all, the government has proposed that, given the circumstances, voters should have another chance to vote on the issue; but this time funding will be provided for both the “Yes” and “No” sides to educate voters. In the May referendum, virtually no money was set aside for voter education. It is interesting to note that, despite this lack of funding, the Yes to STV forces mounted a strong campaign that gathered broad support and caught the party insiders and pundits (who vehemently opposed STV) off guard. In any case, for the upcoming referendum, more funding and more time will be available for the electorate to consider the two electoral systems.

Second of all, the government has proposed that an Electoral Boundaries Commission be appointed that will lay out what the provincial electoral map will look like under the existing First Past the Post system as well as the proposed STV system. The government acknowledged that there was “a design flaw” in its original terms of reference to the Citizens’ Assembly, which was that the Assembly was not assigned the task of showing precisely “how [the] proposed STV model might apply on an electoral map.” This resulted in some confusion among voters about the size of ridings under STV, as well as the number of MLAs in each particular riding, and “may have impacted how people voted in the referendum.”

Another problem with the original terms of reference was that the Citizens’ Assembly was not allowed to deliberate on how many MLAs there should be in the Legislature, i.e., the number was fixed at 79. In the Throne Speech, an amendment has been made that will allow the Electoral Boundaries Commission to increase the number of MLAs up to 85 members, if necessary “to protect northern residents”. In the May referendum, this was a big issue for Northerners, who though they favoured STV, were concerned that their representation could be diluted in the Legislature with the expanded riding boundaries.

In the Throne speech, there was an interesting section that received little press attention, but is quite significant. In the speech, the government says that “it does not accept that the 79 members of [the Legislature] are any better qualified than the 161 members of the Citizens’ Assembly were to choose the best electoral model.” In essence, this means that the Citizens’ Assembly process - ordinary voters making the rules for the politicians rather than politicians making the rules for themselves - continues to be validated by the Legislature. With the formation of the Citizens’ Assembly, a precedent has been established on how to conduct electoral reform in a way that gives voters more control over the process. In the future, governments and political parties will ignore this precedent at their own peril.

The 2008 referendum on STV allows voters throughout the province to put aside partisan differences and become fully informed and engaged about the pros and cons of both STV and the existing electoral system. We should take advantage of this opportunity. The stars may not be so favourably configured for a long time to come.

Peter Ewart is an instructor, community activist and writer who lives in Prince George, British Columbia. His email address is: peter.ewart@shaw.ca

Previous Story - Next Story



Return to Home