In with the new

Lately, the letters to the editor have been the most interesting ever in their dealing with all aspects of proportional representation and first past the post.

Todd Whitcombe’s and Nathan Giede’s columns have added much thought as well.

Whitcombe states that no recent corruption comes to mind. Guess Bingogate of NDP fame slipped his mind, him being a former NDP candidate, as did the Jean Chretien-engineered sponsorship scandal. Or Stephen Harper’s suppression of free speech with regards to climate science. Or the Quebec construction scandal. Or John A. Macdonald’s CPR Scandal. Or Christy Clark using only verbal communication rather than emails.

For 150 years of first past the post, no government has made an effort to reduce abuses like publicly paid advertising by the incumbent governments, increasing numbers of MPs and MLAs and their support teams, and increasing debt loads to facilitate re-election plans. Trudeau and Trudeau Junior are good examples of that last point. That smaller parties via PR could bring about the needed changes was evident when Clark, about to lose the reins of government thanks to the WeaverHorgan alliance, backtracked on all her previous campaign promises and began to spout everything the Greens and NDP had campaigned on.

Let’s try something new to get voting levels back up and some trust in governments resurrected. Merry Christmas! Alan Martin Prince George