Voting system can’t be challenged in court

Re: “2018 the sequel to an exciting year in B.C., ” column, Jan. 4.

Former Christy Clark speechwriter Maclean Kay suggests there’s no reason to believe that an attempt to reform our electoral system without a “clear majority” won’t be “challenged all the way to the Supreme Court.”

First of all, it’s hard to determine exactly what the B.C. Liberals mean by “clear majority,” since they routinely governed the province with a “clear majority” of seats and only 40 per cent of the vote.

Regardless, Sébastien Grammond, a professor of law at the University of Ottawa, states that electoral reform with respect to proportional representation is not subject to the Constitution, citing a 2003 court decision: “The Constitution of Canada does not require a particular kind of democratic electoral system, whether it is one that emphasizes proportionality and the individual aspects of participation or one that places more emphasis on centrism and aggregation, to be frozen in place.”

I say: “Bring it on,” provided the Liberals use their own money. They have a healthy base of donations from around the country, and the world for that matter.

But I understand why they are so worried about PR, for in PR, as in life, it’s more important to have lots of friends (and their votes) than lots of moolah.

John Claxton Gibsons