New Zealander favours PR

Dear Editor: I am tired of boxing ring politics, where our politicians verbally hit each until one is knocked out and there is a winner. This British system — left over from the days when there were only two parties — is especially broken now because in B.C. we have three or four parties and it has become impossible under TPIT to fairly establish a winner.

You may hear “if it is not broken, don’t fix it.” Well it is broken and now we have a chance to get rid of first past the post and make election results more fair.

I want my vote to count and I want all of the politicians to have to work to get my vote rather than a party pushing their favourite into a sure-thing district. And I want more cooperation in politics.

Pro rep solves many of these problems, and so many countries use it. Politicians of all kinds often say they like it, but they often avoid putting pro rep into practice when they have a chance. Justin Trudeau made a big fuss about how he wanted electoral reform, but lurking in the back of his mind must have been the problem that pro rep might just affect his chances of getting 100 per cent of the power with only 40 per cent of the votes. So much for politicians working for the electorate.

In fact one advantage of pro rep is that it lessens the chance of someone like Donald Trump gaining 100 per cent of the power from less that 50 per cent of the vote.

Do you have concerns about which kind of pro rep to vote for? Well, each of the recommended systems guarantees a local representative, as well as perhaps an additional representative from the party for whom you voted. I have lived in New Zealand and can tell you that they liked their MMP system and would not go back to the old British way of conducting elections. From what I read, any of the three would be fine.

Facebook has a video of Andrew Coyne discussing Pro Rep when he was in Vancouver a few days ago titled “Why Prorep Won’t Turn BC Into A Dystopian Hellhole.” It is worth a look. William Stocks

Peachland