Don’t give more power to Greens
Dear editor: B.C. politics is clearly broken, Herald, Letters, July 4
We can agree with Mr. Stupka that B.C. politics sometimes appear to be broken, but it’s tough to see proportional representation as the solution.
Many countries have proportional representation, but I can’t think of any that I’d care to live in, except maybe Australia which has it to some degree. I like their requirement for compulsory voting, and the fact that they were smart enough to dump their carbon tax.
It’s been said that B.C. is run by a bunch of 70-year-old hippies, and that often seems to be the reality. The last provincial election was run under the current system, and we see the havoc that’s being created by a flimsy, arrogant NDP-Green coalition which chooses to operate as though they have a solid majority mandate.
Look no further than their actions on pipelines and their speculation tax. It’s hard to refute the reality that oil exports will benefit both B.C. and Canada, or that their speculation tax is just a thinly disguised tax grab.
The speculation tax is socialist self-delusion at its worst. Imagine an absentee property owner turning their house into a bargain rental for a portion of the year, especially considering that B.C. rental laws are hopelessly skewed in favor of the tenant? This helps nothing except tax flow to the government.
Proportional representation can give too large a megaphone to groups that operate in the margins, and to people who choose to vote for a living instead of working for a living. The end result is often coalition governments which are afflicted by paralysis and gridlock.
Just look at Germany where the election held nine months ago has yet to congeal into a viable government. They had 41 political parties pulling at the edges of the blanket including the Pirate Party (sounds like the Deutsch NDP), which didn’t get any seats. We fought two wars to avoid being like the Germans. Why volunteer for it now?
Would proportional representation have produced a more democratic outcome in our last election? We do know that it would have endowed the Greens with more seats than their current three, which would have given them an even firmer hand in dictating their minority agenda to the NDP.
That boils down to a party with just 16.8 per cent of the popular vote running the show. That would have satisfied the Greens, but not necessarily the rest of us. John Thompson Kaleden