Show us the maps

This fall, residents of B.C. will vote in a mail-in referendum on our province's electoral system. Through two questions, residents will be initially asked if they'd prefer a switch to proportional representation over the present first-past-the-post system used for electing local MLAs to determine which party will form government.

The second question asks which of three prop rep systems voters would favour. Two of those systems are brand new, untried and untested, apparently invented by the NDP-Greens.

Proportional representation could very well be a good thing. If introduced, it might live up to what supporters are promising — a fair vote for everyone, parties compromising their ideologies, working together for a common good, and the chance to vote for who you want and not who you don’t want.

But, residents are being asked to vote on something they're totally unfamiliar with.

B.C. residents would clearly have a better understanding if the “yes” side would provide a comprehensive series of maps, using the 2017 (and perhaps 2013, as well) elections as hypothetical examples, in their literature.

What will the new ridings look like? As for rural ridings, they're already pretty big. How many additional MLAs will be needed? On the latter question, Canadians prefer smaller government, not larger.

Hypothetically, if the Greens have three MLAs elected, but receive enough votes province-wide to qualify for eight MLAs, how does their party decide who those five additional MLAs will be? It could decided by party cronyism and not the electorate.

Residents are not only entitled — it should be mandatory — to know exactly how our representatives will be chosen and where the new riding boundaries will be.

If there are three proposed systems, create three different maps. It shouldn't be that difficult. What the NDP/Green government is essentially saying is, "don't worry about it, trust us and we'll look after it following the referendum."

The excuse given is there's not enough time to create these maps. Why the rush to shove this down our throats? The present government is only one year into its four-year mandate (assuming the Greens don't trigger an election on us.) There's still plenty of time.

Pardon those of us in the media who are pessimistic, but many people don't trust government, nor do they trust this B.C. referendum process, which has been criticized in editorials across Canada.

Further, it was the office of Solicitor General David Eby which determined what the questions were, not an independent panel of citizens.

Without seeing maps, we're leaving everything up to guess work.

Under proportional representation, using 2017 as an example, would Tarik Sayeed (Penticton) or Colleen Ross (Boundary Similkameen) have become additional MLAs in their revised ridings thanks to votes accrued in all B.C. ridings by the NDP, even though Liberals won in both ridings? We’d like to know.

Given that this referendum won’t be won or lost riding by riding, but by total votes, and with no stated threshold for voter turnout, our voting system could be decided by few citizens, and/or the sheer volume of Lower Mainland votes. Will party votes in the Lower Mainland then decide the outcome of every election thereafter?

Again, maybe PR is a good thing, but we won’t be convinced until we’re shown exactly what it is we're voting on.