It's been bumped off the political radar for much of the last three months, with summer vacations, the province's summer long battle with wildfires and now municipal election season all working to keep the Election reform discussion to a minimum.
Introduced to the province in May, the vote set for November will once again ask residents of the province if they wish to change the current electoral system from First Past The Post, to a range of options to be available on the ballots that will be mailed to registered voters across BC.North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice returns to the discussion with her most recent newsletter to the constituency, taking the position of the NDP government that the shift to proportional representation is the option that she prefers voters to consider come the time fill out those ballots.
In her newsletter review, Ms. Rice makes use of the Quebec election results, which she calls unfair, to highlight how she believes proportional representation is the best option for residents of the North Coast to consider.
Ms. Rice also delivered an address in the Legislature a little less than a year ago, calling for change when it comes to how we cast our ballot in provincial elections.
Next door in the Skeena riding, Liberal MLA Ellis Young has been on the theme of the upcoming referendum for a fair bit of time as well, addressing the topic in the Legislature and in the riding for the most part expressing concerns
In comments from December of 2017, Mr. Ross expressed the belief that the shift to Proportional representation could leave rural British Columbia with less representation, as the proportional system could deliver more weight to urban areas and increase the rural urban divide in the province.
Clearly the two regional MLA's have a very different look at the issue, and with Ms. Rice now seemingly the designated NDP representative in Skeena ( having made quite a few stops in the riding since the NDP formed the government) perhaps the time is right for a debate on the issue.
One way to deliver more background on the Referendum issue would be to have the North Coast MLA and Skeena MLA take part in two community gatherings.
One in either Terrace, or Kitimat, the other in Prince Rupert, allowing residents and would be referendum voters an opportunity to hear of the issues first hand and to hear the policies of each party presented for our review.
The timeline is tight however for such a prospect, the ballots destined for the mailboxes of eligible voters in late October, with the final day to deliver your ballot November 30th.
With the Legislature now back in session and the Municipal vote almost into the history books for another four years, the pace of the discussion on the Electoral Reform proposals will no doubt pick up as we move quickly towards the mail in vote deadline.
Hearing more on how the two regional MLA's view the issue could be of some assistance to voters looking to make their decision on the issue.
You can learn more here about what the question will look like and the background to the options, as well as further background to the process.
Elections BC also has a wide variety of material available about the fall referendum vote here.
We have been tracking some of the talking points on the issue from across the province through our political blog D'Arcy McGee, you can check out the archive page here.
For more items of interest related to both Mr. Ross and Ms. Rice, see our archive pages below:
North Coast Archive
Skeena Archive
As well, you can follow some of the work of both MLA's from the Legislature as part of our MLA"s Week Report feature.
To return to the most recent blog posting of the day, click here.
The problem with MLA Rice's line - as an illustration of the supposed unfairness of first past the post - that the result of the election in Quebec was "unfair" is that there is no common position on what is fair or unfair. Trump said during the NAFTA negotiations that Canada was unfair (and for good measure that we weren't "nice"), but we obviously disagreed and largely prevailed. Would it have been "fair" or a good result if the opposition parties in Quebec that lacked a common position on important issues formed the government? Has the tacit coalition between NDP and Green that was supposed to demonstrate the compromise Andrew Weaver said would prevail under PR really delivered what he promised? In return for a bizarre referendum process, Green has traded away it's opposition to Site C and LNG with no policy gains to show for it. Was that "fair" to those who voted Green?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Ms Rice would do well in a debate with Ellis Ross.