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Citizens ponder future of government
B.C.’s groundbreaking Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform meets for the first timeNeal Hall
Vancouver Sun
Monday, January 12, 2004
The Citizen’s Assembly, a 160-member group composed of people from all over B.C., met for the first time over the weekend at the Wosk Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver. Delegates will spend the next 11 months deciding whether to change the way we elect our politicians to the legislature.
Assembly chairman Jack Blaney addresses delegates in a meeting described by one observer as ‘extraordinarily exciting.’
CREDIT: Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
Members of Citizens’ Assembly react as they meet for the first time Saturday in the Wosk Centre for Dialogue.
CREDIT: Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
Should we scrap the concept of B.C. politicians representing geographical constituencies? Or should we divide the province into four squares and assign MLAs to those quadrants?
Political scientist Ken Carty posed those questions Sunday during the first weekend “learning” session in Vancouver of the 160-member Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, which will spend the next 11 months deciding whether to revamp the way we elect our politicians to the legislature.
Carty, who teaches political science at the University of B.C., told the assembly it needs to decide what are the most important criteria for assessing various voting systems used in democracies around the world.
He suggested the assembly needs to decide whether it wants a system that provides electoral accountability and identifiable members of the legislature. Or perhaps a system that provides fairer, more proportional representation to political parties.
One of the biggest criticisms of our current system is that it is not proportional enough and excludes some parties, he said.
Carty said the premier of New Brunswick recently announced that he would like to see his province’s election system become more proportional — meaning if a party got 40 per cent of the votes, that would translate into 40 per cent of seats in the legislature.
Proportional systems boost the number of seats for smaller parties and the number of women politicians, but often create less stable, coalition governments, he said.
Carty cited the experience of Italy, which has had an endless revolving door of governments since the Second World War — more governments than the number of years.
“In unstable governments, politicians shy away from making hard decisions,” he said.
The assembly will meet every second weekend until March 21 at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, a heritage building located at the corner of Hastings and Seymour. All sessions are open to the public.
The assembly expects to narrow its choices to two or three election systems before starting public hearings in May.
The assembly members — a man and woman from each of B.C.’s 79 electoral districts — were chosen at random from the voters’ list. Jack Blaney, chair of the citizens’ assembly, convinced the government to increase the assembly size to 160 to include two First Nations members after no names of native Indians were drawn during the random selection process.
“We are here to invent a new way to engage citizens in the practice of democracy,” Blaney said during his opening speech to the assembly Saturday morning.
“This truly is historic,” he said, noting it is the first time a democratic government has given the power to non-elected citizens to potentially decide such an important public policy question.
Blaney urged assembly members to listen carefully to all opinions, try to be inclusive, fair and reach a decision by consensus.
He stressed that the assembly’s decision — whether to recommend by Dec. 15 to change B.C.’s current voting system — is less important than the process of assembly members learning to work together and arrive at a decision.
“Through working well together –learning together — we will invent a new social tool in the practice of democracy,” Blaney said.
The governments of New Brunswick and the Yukon, which are both considering electoral reform, had representatives observing the first assembly meeting.
“I think B.C. is setting a template on how to do electoral reform,” said Ken McKinnon, who was appointed last week by the Yukon government as a special adviser on electoral reform.
“I’ve never seen such enthusiasm from people — they want to participate in this experiment,” said McKinnon, who is also chancellor of Yukon College. “This is pretty exciting and I thought the Yukon could learn from this.”
He must submit a report on electoral reform to the Yukon government by January 2005.
Last month, Norman Carruthers, the retired chief justice of Prince Edward Island who was appointed electoral reform commissioner, tabled his report, which recommended P.E.I adopt a mixed-member proportional system (MMP) or single transferable vote (STV) system.
Carruthers concluded that an MMP system, currently in use in Germany, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales, would involve less change to the current voting system and would preserve the relationship between constituents and local representatives.
Ontario, Quebec and the federal government are also reviewing the issue of electoral reform.
Among those observing the assembly in action over the weekend was Adriane Carr, leader of the B.C. Green Party, who has campaigned for years for a proportional representation voting system.
“This is a historic day for B.C.,” she said. “It’s extraordinarily exciting.” Carr believes the assembly “will change the face of B.C. politics and the future of democracy in this province.”
“I’m totally elated,” said Nick Loenen, another observer at the assembly sessions. The former Social Credit MLA has been lobbying for years for a fairer voting system. “It warms my heart to see all these people from across B.C. The excitement is phenomenal.”
Lillian Scott and her husband Brent, who were among the two dozen or so members of the public who attended, said they were interested in the assembly’s work.
“I’ve never had a vote that counted,” Lillian explained, “so I’m very interested in what they do.”
More cynical was John Allen West, who handed out pamphlets to assembly members, urging them to add “none of the above” to ballots — a move he has been urging the government and B.C.’s chief electoral officer to adopt for 10 years.
The Hornby Island resident said he doesn’t believe in political parties and thinks the government should be formed by randomly selected citizens. He said the citizens’ assembly is just a “smoke and mirrors” exercise by the B.C. Liberal government.
The government created the citizens’ assembly, which has a $5.5-million budget, to fulfill an election campaign promise made by Premier Gordon Campbell.
If the assembly recommends changing the voting system, it will go to voters in a referendum during the next provincial election in May 2005. If voters endorse change, a new system is expected to be in place in time for the 2009 provincial election.
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