Imaginary opposition

MLA Mike Morris claims he, Shirley Bond, and the B.C. Liberal caucus, are not “beholden to our party line.” The facts speak otherwise. Between 2013 and 2016, there were 109 standing votes in the Legislature on a motion pertain- ing to a bill or other important items.

On only two occasions did any B.C. Liberals vote in opposition to their party’s position. In those house votes, only five B.C. Liberal MLAs had the strength of will to stray from the party line, and neither Morris nor Bond’s name is among them. During this period, over 4,000 times, a B.C. Liberal stood up to support the collective party line on the issues. With only five dissident votes cast, that’s 99.9 per cent rubberstamp voting, precisely as their party dictates and not a record of outstanding local representation. Can any party’s policies be satisfactory to all those ridings all the time, or do some MLAs simply deceive themselves into believing the myth that their party’s policies can?

To be fair, the NDP MLAs voting record was no better during this time. Nevertheless, for Morris to purport that he somehow accurately and fairly represents the interests of all his constituents is ludicrous.

How can this be so when he always votes the way his party tells him to, even when he says he does not have to?

Morris concludes his defense of the current electoral system with fictitious criticisms of proportional representation.

The truth is that 85 per cent of the countries in the powerful OECD group use some form of proportional representation and the two most dysfunctional and divided governments today are the U.K. and U.S., both of which use the same flawed voting system we do. Terry W. Robertson Kelowna