Majority didn’t back Liberals’ policies

Re: “B.C. voters should reject proportional representation,” editorial, Nov. 16. Many were upset at the editorial. In a radio interview, publisher and editorin-chief Dave Obee commented that the editorial was designed to make people think and few were discussing its substance.

My concern was with this statement: Under FPTP, “by and large we get what we vote for,” followed by: “and if we don’t, we elect someone else next time around.”

First, “we,” the majority, did not vote for the B.C. Liberals’ legacy of doctor shortages; the real-estate crisis with its links to money-laundering, drugs and foreign ownership; breaking of B.C. laws on teachers’ contracts; Site C exemption from commission review; and a blind eye to campaign contributions.

It’s true “we get what we vote for” when “we” refers to the minority of voters casting winning ballots, and “what we vote for” refers to the winning party’s underlying ideology. The B.C. Liberals’ ideology is economics first, social and environmental issues last. Through FPTP, this minority-supported ideology is delivered through a dictatorship.

Second, while we can “elect someone else next time around,” doing so does not reverse previous negative policy impacts. This causes new governance energy to be directed to correct previous errors. Some errors take decades to fix (doctor shortage) and some are uncorrectable (Site C).

Proportional representation raises the percentage of voters casting winning ballots, and promises party ideology tempering through coalition-government consensus policy-making, resulting in proactive policy not needing later correction, and consequently, timely, representative and efficient governance. Ron Kot Victoria