Most Canadians support FPTP

Dear Editor:

It is abundantly clear that Canadians don’t want to change the way they vote.

I know that statement is contrary to frequent letter writer Andy Thomsen’s line of thinking however, B.C. had a referendum on this exact question in 2018 (plus two others previously that failed) and the result was very clear.

That in Canada’s arguably most progressive province, British Columbia, with a minority government in support of electoral reform, being propped-up by the Green Party, which also supports electoral reform, having written the question, set the conditions, lowered the threshold; they still couldn’t even get 30% support for change.

More than 70% of the most progressive Canadians said loud and clear that the current first-past-the-post system was their preferred choice.

I know there are people who will fabricate all sorts of reasons on why the PR referendum failed from it was rigged from the beginning to there was shady advertising practices to the NDP and Greens didn’t actually want to change the way our votes are counted. If this were a sporting match we would call those people sore losers.

The reality is, the moment the NDP agreed to the Conservative demand to a national referendum on this issue, it was dead federally.

There is no way, no hope in hell, of a national referendum succeeding when the same question couldn’t even get 30% support in B.C. Proponents couldn’t even sell this product to their own base.

I know it’s hard to hear, but proportional representation had its day in the sun, had its moment to shine and it just couldn’t. It’s as simple as that. We have now had three referendums on this same question and they have all failed.

They insisted on putting the question to the people. Well, the people have spoken.

Ben Reiner Lake Country