Don’t make PR harder than it is

BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson paints a dark picture of the future if proportional representation becomes the system for electing governments in this province.

“You get these arbitrary, strange coalitions where fringe parties with special interests end up controlling the show. That leads to a lot of instability and the kind of regional, ethnic, and religious parties that we don’t want and don’t need in this province,” he said in Kelowna on earlier this week before a town-hall forum on the speculation tax.

While it’s quite all right to prefer the stability the current first-past-the-post system is said to offer, as Wilkinson does, our province is not going to fall into Balkan-style religious and ethnic divisions under under a PR system, should voters choose one in an upcoming mail-in referendum. That’s the kind of wild-eyed exaggeration the upcoming referendum campaign can do without.

Germany, the Netherlands and other countries with PR systems are doing quite well and have been for many years under PR. They do have a little political turmoil and intrigue from time to time, but so do we.

Germany with a five per cent threshold for parties to win seats that has largely given the country stable coalition governments since the 1950s, now has a far-right party in its parliament. The far right also did well in the recent Dutch election.

It’s true fringe parties do have a better chance to gain traction under PR. Germany’s five per cent largely kept them on the outside until now. But when the fringe gains strength, as it has recently in some countries, the cause isn’t necessarily the political system, it’s other societal and economic factors that have led people to seek extreme answers.

Coalition building can be difficult under some PR systems, but in most countries the parties work it out and life goes on as before.

If you prefer the current first-past-the-post system, please make your case, but don’t pretend it doesn’t have it’s own flaws and political machinations.

In Canada, parties with less than 40 per cent of the vote frequently win majority governments and the total power that brings.

Occasionally, as has happened in B.C. and Quebec in the past, the party with the most votes finishes second. How can we possibly say that’s good democracy?

We have a minority government in B.C. right now that the third party every so often threatens to topple, thus showing first-past-the-post doesn’t always offer stable government either.

The biggest complaint about first-past-thepost from pro-PR supporters is many votes don’t count. If you’re not a BC Liberal supporter in the Kelowna area — or if you are a BC Liberal on parts of Vancouver Island — you don’t even need to bother going to the polls. Your vote doesn’t make a difference. In effect, it doesn’t count.

But you don’t if the PR system is a mixedmember proportional that combines PR and first-past-the-post. Many believe that’s the kind of system the NDP will propose in the upcoming referendum.

In an MMP system, voters elect a local representative and also vote for a party, which will then send additional representatives to Victoria, depending on how many party votes it got.

Once we know exactly what we’re voting on, then we can debate the pros and cons of each system, but let’s keep the exaggerations out of it. It’s wrong to say either system is completely flawed or a perfect form of democracy.

Whichever system we choose, our province will continue to function reasonably well, warts and all.