Electoral system a relic from the colonial era

Editor: The Pacific Charter, a 1950s agreement that called for the selfdetermination of people in the Pacific region, spelled the end of a long and ugly period of rape and plunder of resources, and paved the way for people to exercise their right to self-determination, and to live as free people.

Colonizing is now taboo, and the doors are wide open for societies to accept and embrace our basic human rights to elect free and democratic governments.

Colonial-style political systems were established to rule the colonies, and politicians were elected to make decisions.

In democratic societies, the people make the decisions, and we elect politicians to implement them.

That means good-bye to the Stephen Harpers of the world, who embraced what they insisted were their colonial prerogatives to destroy the democratic process in our federal Parliament, and turn the Prime Minister’s Office into a political control centre.

It also means goodbye to the Justin Trudeau’s obsessions with transforming Canada into a Cuban-style socialist society, where they would continue to enjoy a lifestyle of unchallenged powers out of reach of the people.

More than 80 per cent of OECD countries use a proportional voting system and have democratic governments that are controlled by the people, not the politicians. Canada is next. The B.C. government will give the people a proportional ballot, and we can say good-bye to all those fake majority governments that ruled with less than 40 per cent of the popular vote.

We will no longer be an embarrassment to the world as we close the doors on that dog-and-pony show called Question Period, while we open the doors to democratic governance, where the people tell elected members how to vote.

Our politicians hate that, and are fighting it tooth-and-nails, but this is a war they cannot win.

Andy Thomsen, Peachland