No side shouldn’t tell lies

Are you against proportional representation? Do you plan to vote no to electoral reform in B.C.’s upcoming mail-in referendum? Would you like to convince others to share your point of view?

You have lots of points to help make your case: Start with why should a simple, easy-to-understand straightforward electoral system that has served us well for years and given us long-lasting, stable governments be dumped for a complicated, convoluted system that will give us Italian-style governments?

Do we really want more fringe parties? Endless coalition negotiations? MLAs determined by party lists? Where are the maps showing the new ridings?

See, there are lots of valid questions you can raise to make your case against PR.

So you don’t need to resort to lies to bolster your argument.

But that’s what the official anti-PR campaign, the No BC Proportional Representation Society, is doing on social media.

And as happens on social media, some of its supporters are acting like Russian trolls and spreading the lies without giving them a second thought.

Two big whoppers need to be corrected.

“Time to say farewell to your local MLA,” says a post with the picture of a closed sign beside the slogan.

Fact is there will still be local MLAs under all three PR systems being proposed.

Now, anti-PR folks could say, as Kelowna West MLA Ben Stewart did at a local seniors centre on Friday, that because ridings will be larger under PR, you may never be able to see your MLA. That’s a fair comment worthy of debating, but to say there will be no MLA is simply untrue.

A quick look at the three systems, as explained by Elections BC is in order:

Mixed Member Proportional: “There are two types of MLAs. District MLAs represent electoral districts and are elected using First Past the Post. Regional MLAs represent groups of electoral districts … They are elected from a party list so that each party’s share of seats in the legislature roughly matches its share of the province-wide popular vote.”

Dual Member Proportional: In Dual Member Proportional most electoral districts are combined with a neighbouring district and represented by two Members of the Legislative Assembly. The first seat in a district is won by the candidate with the most votes. Second seats go to parties so that each party’s share of seats in the legislature roughly matches its share of the provincewide popular vote.”

Rural-Urban: Voters in urban and semi-urban districts use STV (single transferable vote) to elect multiple MLAs for their larger electoral district. In rural districts, voters use MMP to elect district and regional MLAs.”

All three systems still use firstpast-the-post to elect local MLAs.

The No side is also attempting to pit rural B.C. against Vancouver.

“Proportional representation ... will move the entire base of government to where the population is. This will create a Vancouver First government,” the group says.

Look around people, it’s already that way. Greater Vancouver, based on its population, already holds a great deal of power. In fact, we have an NDP government because of its strong support in Vancouver.

Democracy is based on the principle of one-person, one vote. Everyone’s vote should be weighted the same. We make exceptions for rural B.C. and its thinner population. A vote in northern B.C. counts more than a vote in Vancouver because the ridings have fewer people.

But we have limits on the differential so all votes are similar.

Vancouver gets a bigger say in provincial politics because that’s where the majority of people live. That’s how democracy works.

The No side should stop using lies and divide-and-conquer strategies.