B.C. should get what it voted for

Dear editor: In refuting Mr. Jones claims, Mr. Thorpe (Herald, Letters, Oct. 10) makes his own questionable claims.

He contends voters have not been given electoral maps for the three options. This is a rather specious argument and one used over and over by detractors of proportional representation. Maps cannot be drawn up until one of the three options has been chosen.

In some instances ridings will be amalgamated, in others such as large rural ridings, they will stay the same. Federal ridings are much larger than provincial ones. Is Mr. Thorpe upset at that?

He expresses the anti-electoral side’s views that candidates will be elected by parties, a fabrication and a twisting of the truth. Candidates under first-past-the-post are selected by parties. This is done in meetings where you have to be a member to participate. Sometimes, the party leadership selects a candidate, not the riding association. Mr. Thorpe’s own party, the BC Liberals, parachuted Christy Clark and Suzanne Anton into ridings they didn’t live in.

Mr. Thorpe tries fear mongering tactics in referring to details being worked out by backroom deals, with power in the hands of those who would benefit the most. The truth is, there will be an all-party committee and experts from outside the parties, to fine tune the details.

His concern about backroom deals, and decisions that would give an advantage to those wanting to stay I power, is laughable, since his party elite is deathly afraid that proportional representation will mean the end of the stacked deck that has favoured them in 30 of the last 34 elections.

Cherry picking! Like all the anti-electoral reform people, Mr. Thorpe uses cherry picked examples of Greece, Germany and Belgium, to attempt to illustrate how dysfunctional proportional representation is.

Greece is not at all comparable to Canada or B.C. Germany and Belgium got along just fine while they were ironing out their