BC Attorney
General David Eby’s electoral-reform referendum tends toward a particular
outcome; in other words, it is biased.
Instead of
an independent Citizens’Assembly which administered the provincial referenda
of 2005 and 2009, today’s referendum is under the auspices of the NDP Attorney
General’s office itself.
Instead of
one question, there are two, which is a way of circumventing the provincial law
which declares that a majority vote is necessary to bring about particular electoral reform. Do I
foresee a possible Supreme Court of Canada challenge in the future?
The first
ballot question asks for a simple choice between our current of first-past-the-post
system (FPTP) or “A proportional representation voting system” (PR).
The second
ballot question asks to list your preferences from a selection of three PR
choices – dual member proportional (DMP), mixed member proportional (MMP), and
rural-urban proportional (RUP). But strangely there is no mention of FPTP.
Surely, if
you voted for FPTP in the first ballot question, then you have no need to vote
in the second ballot question. But there
is no category for FPTP in the second question, which suggests that electoral
reform is already leading towards a predetermined outcome, so the FPTP voter is
“forced to be free” as Rousseau might have it.
Instead of
treating all electoral options equally and clearly, RUP, for example, suffers from particular
obfuscation, because it combines two different PR systems, one of which was jettisoned
by the last two referenda, making it unfair - and challenging for Joe Public to
understand.
Instead of supplying
the public with tried and tested PR choices for British Columbians, two such
options on offer, DMP and RUP, have never before been implemented anywhere in
the world.
The only
plausible PR alternative is MMP, where the balance of proportional candidates are
selected from a party “list”. Could it
be that the NDP government is actually angling for this particular outcome by
means of subterfuge?
Surely provincial
electoral reform could be brought to public consideration in a more transparent
and fair manner. What we have now is
disproportionate representation by David Eby.
