The trick or treat of PR
It’s Halloween but the fun and frights will continue throughout November, thanks to the referendum on proportional representation. That unopened envelope pushed to the corner of the kitchen counter that contains your ballot will haunt you until you either fire it into the recycling bin (the least preferred option) or take a couple minutes to fill it out and drop it into your neighbourhood mailbox (the most preferred option).
The devil is, as always, in the details, something that is frighteningly short on the PR side. Voters are being asked to choose from three PR options with sketchy details on how it will all work here in B.C. To make this devil less scary, PR proponents are simply pointing to other jurisdictions where PR is in place to argue that any kind of PR is better than the evil first past the post system.
The pro-PR folks have been conjuring up all sorts of phantoms to spook up support for electoral reform. Only the votes cast for the winners under first past the post actually count is their favourite little demon, glossing over the fact that Canada’s highest courts have already ruled that this line of reasoning is legally flawed. An elected political official represents everyone in their constituency, not just the people who voted for them. Furthermore, every vote is counted without discrimination. So while this demon might look like Chucky at first, it’s just a weird baby doll under closer examination.
PR is a benevolent spirit, we’re told, the bright morning sun that can make democracy all better. It not nearly that strong because an election is merely the act of voting. Governing is the real work and that’s where the real horror lies, having the power to choose. Even under PR, democracy will still be an endless corn maze at dusk and government will still be a bureaucratic jungle of shadows, knives and blood. PR seems to be that safe haven everybody dies trying to get to in the zombie movies.
Meanwhile, the anti-PR crowd have certainly conjured up their own monsters and boogeymen in hopes of convincing B.C. voters to stick with the devil they know, rather than take a chance with the one they don’t. Neo-Nazis elected in the Legislature! Political parties firing duly elected MLAs! An NDP-Green coalition until the cows come home!
In other words, lots of shouting, exclamation points and menacing voiceovers proclaiming death, destruction, darkness and decay. Well, yes, bad things can happen from the moment we step outside the front door but that doesn’t mean it’s always safe to say inside. The zombies, vampires and that thing under the stairs can still come for us.
All of this apocalyptic nonsense from both sides is being used to frighten, not to inform. When Premier John Horgan and B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson go on TV next Thursday to debate the pros and cons of PR, they will each take their turn at a Vincent Price impersonation, telling ghoulish tales about the past, present and future under the electoral system they don’t like, before proclaiming themselves as the golden knight out to stop dragons, trolls and smooth, double-talking politicians out to subvert democracy and oppress the people.
Strip away the cheesy Halloween narrative, however, and the PR vote comes into focus.
This referendum is about the leader of the day, as all referendums are.
Last October’s city referendum on borrowing money to build a new fire hall and downtown pool was really about Mayor Lyn Hall and city council. The results pointed to this October, where Hall and the six city council incumbents seeking re-election easily won their seats.
Now imagine if former mayor Shari Green had brought the exact same question before Prince George voters after three years in office. No Four Seasons Pool replacement. No replacement for Fire Hall No. 1.
If the LNG Canada deal had fallen through, if Horgan had decided to stop the construction of the Site C dam, if the Trans Mountain pipeline debacle had been his fault, instead of Justin Trudeau’s, if the NDP caucus were out to undercut Horgan at each turn and if people were genuinely mad about how Horgan ended up premier after the last election, then this vote would be much different. It wouldn’t matter if PR came with a dollar a beer and sundae Sundays for the kids, people would go to vote to show their displeasure with Horgan.
Instead, Horgan has governed controversy-free for more than a year and made decisions that even the Liberals had to agree with (finish Site C, get the deal done for LNG Canada). Meanwhile, sore loser Christy Clark slunk off into immediate retirement because she couldn’t be premier. The B.C. Liberals are still recovering from that and a brutal leadership campaign to replace her that Wilkinson narrowly won over Dianne Watts.
It’s not that everyone is happy with Horgan. It’s just that there’s not nearly enough unhappiness to send him a blunt message about where he could stick proportional representation.
PR will pass, not because it’s better than first past the post but because of Horgan.
At this point, it seems most people are still willing to knock on his door and hold out their pillowcases in hopes he’ll put a full chocolate bar and a juice box inside.
— Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout