Vote demonstrates democracy at work

Re: “House is looking shaky over Speaker’s role,” column, Nov. 27 Almost lost in last week’s news cycle dominated by the removal of the sergeant-at-arms and clerk from the B.C. legislature (which, to be sure, is a mess) was a shining example of the beauty of minority governments — the kind that would become the norm rather than the exception under a proportional-representation electoral system.

The B.C. Liberal Party introduced a bill on ride-hailing that the governing NDP opposed. The three Green MLAs are free to vote according to the interests of their constituents rather than mindlessly toe a party line. Two of the three supported the bill, so it passed despite the NDP’s opposition.

Here is democracy at work. Our elected representatives assemble and when a majority of them support something, it happens.

But somehow, Les Leyne managed to convolute this into further evidence that the current government is “shaky,” “precarious” and “destabilized.” Why? Just because the governing party lost a vote?

A “stable” government is not necessarily one in which a party that receives 40 per cent of the vote gets a mandate to pass or reject whatever legislation it wants (as in first-pastthe-post). A stable government can also be one in which the views of the people are accurately represented (as in PR) and the wishes of the majority are determined on a case-by-case basis. Tim Barss Sooke