Campaign, not court

Apolitically inclined business lobby group doesn’t want you to exercise your democratic right to vote this fall. The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association is going to court to try to stop the proportional representation mail-in referendum, slated for Oct. 22 to Nov. 30. It’s the latest attempt to drum up opposition not just to proportional representation, but the whole referendum process itself.

The first round of anti-referendum campaigning consisted of complaints the referendum questions were too complicated and should be scrubbed because, well, apparently voters just aren’t bright enough — or are too gullible — to figure out the answers for themselves.

The ICBA’s legal argument cites a number of reasons the referendum violates the Charter of Rights. Of course, what’s really happening here is these pro rep opponents don’t trust you and I to make the decision they want.

Some of them have been burned by B.C. voters before. Some of the same people who tried to convince us to vote for the Harmonized Sales Tax in a mail-in vote in 2011 are behind the latest campaigns.

Having lost once, they don’t trust referendums to work for them.

But trying to prevent people from voting is anti-democratic and bad optics for a campaign that appears to be financed by B.C.’s big-money tycoons.

The ICBA makes various complaints about the questions not being clear, the results not being clear, the intentions not being clear, freedom of speech being impinged upon — and any other dirty deeds they can make up.

Others have complained the questions are confusing.

One question will ask voters to choose one of of two options. The second asks us to rank three options. That’s not difficult. It’s not complicated.

There will be official yes and no campaigns to get information out to voters.

Fifty per cent plus one will win the first question (keep the existing system or choose a new one). It’s fair to debate whether that’s enough, but it’s clearly a majority.

Of course, what the referendum opponents really don’t want is a yes vote. They’re trying to stop the referendum to make sure that doesn’t happen.

But instead of insulting the intelligence of B.C. voters and trying to shut down democracy, they should get in the game and campaign for a no vote.

In a Business In Vancouver article about the ICBA’s legal moves that the lobby group has shared widely in social media, its president, Chris Gardner, said: “We think that a strong stable government, a majority government — whether it’s from the left or the right — is fundamentally important to our economic prosperity, our long-term economic growth . . . . When you go to proportional representation, you’re going to have fringe parties from the left and right, you’re going to have ballot with 25, 30 parties on it, it will be confusing, there will be a lot of backroom dealing, there will be more instability. And instability is not good for our economy.”

Those are reasons to vote no in the referendum, but they’re not reasons to stop the referendum.

If people start to think well-financed business groups are out to take away their right to vote, they just may vote the other way simply out of spite.

Some of the anti-HST vote was a vote against business interests trying exert too much control over the political system.

Let the voters decide — not the courts and certainly not people with the most money.

— Pat Bulmer, Kelowna Daily Courier