Size does matter on PR
Rummaging through the chest of drawers, I lifted my head: “Have you seen my black fishnet stockings?” She paused. “On the left, under your Guy Lafleur pyjamas.” “What about my slide rule?” This time she looked shocked. “You have a slide rule?”
“Need it for my Halloween costume,” I continued. “What’s your costume?” “Sexy Proportional Representation Referendum.”
Yes, I know what you’re saying: It can’t be done. Not even a smouldering hunk of Hemsworth hotness like Jack can inject enough raw animal magnetism into the electoral reform debate to prevent eyes from glazing over.
We’re supposed to be paying attention to the referendum, now that marijuana legalization and the civic elections are out of the way, but it turns out the choices being offered are tougher to decipher than Vito Corleone with a head cold. A province full of people who barely made it through Grade 5 math (Q: If you give Jason 75 per cent of 16 bacon cheeseburgers, what will he have? A: Heart disease) is being asked to hack its way through an algebraic jungle denser than a man wearing a made-in-China MAGA hat. Maybe they should have saved legalizing pot for last.
This is not the first time we have faced this conundrum. In 2009, when B.C. held a referendum on something called the single transferable vote, the concept proved so difficult to explain that its proponents gave up trying. Instead, they resorted to celebrity endorsements, trotting out Vancouver Islanders Pamela Anderson, Steve Nash, Nelly Furtado and Diana Krall to lend their names to the cause. Nickelback, too. (Maybe they should have stopped with the Islanders.)
Even Nirvana bass player/political activist Krist Novoselic wrote an impassioned opinion piece for the Times Colonist, which might have temporarily hiked the TC’s hip factor by a solid 17 points but ultimately failed to turn the tide for electoral reform. For all that star power couldn’t pull British Columbians down the black hole. Unwilling to Captain Kirk their way into the unknown, voters rejected the single transferable vote by a three-to-two* margin (*approx. 10 cheeseburgers).
Similarly, while some felt betrayed when Justin Trudeau broke his campaign promise to change the way Canada casts its ballots (“We are committed to ensuring that the 2015 election will be the last federal election using first-past-thepost”) others were relieved, as though Dad had decided not to drive the family car off the cliff after all.
And now, landing in our mailboxes this week, are packages from Elections B.C. asking us to reply, by Nov. 30, to two questions: 1) should we swap the existing system for some form of proportional representation, and 2) should we chuck our mail-in ballots straight into the recycling?
No, no, no, don’t throw them away, because that just means somebody else will get to choose your form of government, and that’s not what your dad/granddad had in mind when he spent the Second World War defending democracy (assuming your dad/granddad wasn’t in the Wehrmacht, in which case never mind).
So let’s look at the choices here. First, there’s the current system, first-pastthe-post (which I believe has something to do with mailing your ballot before the letter carriers strike). Then there are the three alternatives, including dual member proportional, in which voters cast ballots for the candidate (or candidates) of their choice in their district, though the party sort of gets to choose who actually wins, though it can only pick up the second seat if the party gets five per cent of the vote provincewide, which isn’t the case for second-place independent candidates, except in cases where there’s a recapture penalty when a player with a front-loaded contract retires early (wait, no, that’s the NHL salary cap).
The second alternative is mixed-member proportional, which sounds like one of those creepy Duelling Banjos backwaters where everybody has 11 fingers and four teeth, and a single 23AndMe DNA test covers the whole town. Finally, there’s rural-urban proportional, which is like dual-member but comes with four-wheel drive and a trailer hitch.
Or maybe I don’t have that quite right, but jeez, this whole referendum is like Les Leyne after three beer: hard to understand, and not sexy enough to bother trying.
The spooky thing, as we head into Halloween, is that if you don’t try, someone else will make your choice for you.
So, read everything and make up your own mind, remembering that both the Yes and No sides make the same basic argument: The system they support is the one most likely to give them power.
Jack Knox is a columnist now in his 30th year with the Victoria Times Colonist.