Neutrality not needed on electoral reform

Re: “Electoral reform process skewed,” column, May 31, and “Improve reform process,” editorial, June 1.

Les Leyne and the editorial complain that the current B.C. government is not neutral with respect to the voting systems to be decided in the referendum this coming fall.

Since when was any government ever neutral on this topic? The B.C. Liberals successfully caused the 2005 referendum to “fail” by setting an artificially high bar for success. Although political parties in the second referendum in 2009 said publicly they were neutral, at least one of them urged its members to vote against reform. (I was a member of that party at the time, and resigned from it as a result of its duplicity).

A P.E.I. government in 2016 “failed” a referendum vote of 52 per cent in favour of proportional representation because, post referendum, it decided the turnout of voters was “too low.” The current federal government promised to get rid of our first-past-the-post system, then reneged when that system gave them an unexpected majority government.

So what’s wrong if, for once, a government is in favour of PR? Many people who have followed these referendums have realized the yes vote will never win unless a government is in favour of yes. And finally we have one. Too bad Les Leyne and the Times Colonist editors don’t remember history and the lessons from it.

Philip Symons Victoria