Expert warns B.C. embarking on democracy experiment
VICTORIA — One of the experts consulted by the NDP on proportional representation says he can’t understand why the government picked two obscure voting systems for the referendum, and warned that voters deserve to see clear maps showing how the proposals will work in the real world.
Peter Loewen, the director of the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance, said B.C. runs the risk of experimenting with its core democratic system because two of the three options for change in the November referendum will be electoral systems that have never been used before.
“What’s curious about the choice of system is two of the three have not been put in place, according to the report, in any other jurisdictions,” Loewen said Thursday. “So they are asking citizens to make British Columbia a site of huge experimentation in an electoral system.”
Loewen was one of four experts in democratic reform the government asked to review a draft questionnaire on voting systems in late 2017. He did not endorse the final questionnaire nor was he consulted on the selection of voting systems. The resulting public feedback from the questionnaire went to Attorney General David Eby.
That feedback didn’t show a consensus on the type of voting systems, so Eby selected the three proposals released Wednesday along with the rules for the mail-in ballot.
Those three choices include: dual member proportional, which would involve large two-MLA districts where one is elected based on the most votes and the other by their party’s provincewide performance; mixed member proportional (MMP), where 60 per cent of the province’s MLAs would be elected by most votes and 40 per cent by lists set by political parties; and rural-urban proportional representation, a mash-up between MMP for rural ridings and the single transferable vote system twice rejected in previous B.C. referendums for urban ridings.
The dual member and rural-urban systems are untested. “I haven’t heard of them,” said Loewen, a leading authority on electoral reform who has co-written a book on the topic.
“What they’ve tried to do is rightfully come up with systems that are trying to strike the line between proportionality and local representation but in doing that and trying to come up with choice, they’ve somehow decided to take a flyer with two systems nobody has ever heard of before,” he added.
Loewen said he also thinks the government should have put the single transferable vote on the ballot, because it was recommended by an independent citizen’s assembly in 2004 and even though it was twice rejected by B.C. voters in referendums in 2005 and 2009.
The NDP government’s handling of the proportional representation referendum formed part of an emergency debate at the legislature on Thursday.
Opposition Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson attacked Premier John Horgan for government’s continued refusal to provide maps that would show how the various options in the referendum could change B.C.’s 87 electoral ridings. The proposals could result in significantly larger ridings.
“What’s really going on is an attempt to blow it past the people of B.C. by sucking them in to picking one of three options that nobody really understands,” said Wilkinson. “This is a way to keep the NDP and Greens in power indefinitely.”
The Attorney General’s ministry said it believes it would take an independent boundary commission 18 to 24 months to map out the three new proposals. Elections B.C., which is charged with providing non-partisan information during the referendum, said it doesn’t have the mandate under law to create maps nor is there enough information about the proposals to do so.
Horgan said he thinks the public votes mainly by candidate and is less concerned about knowing their riding.
“This notion every British Columbian wants to have a map before they make a decision is distorting the reality of people’s lives,” he said Thursday.
Loewen disagreed. “It’s a problem, voters have a right to know what the details of things are going to be,” he said, citing court rulings that allow a plus or minus 25 per cent population variance on ridings. “The way you draw the maps matters.”