Just to be absolutely clear, I supported Proportional Representation. I voted for it. I talked to people about it. I published an article about it in Teacher Magazine. I argued for it online. I was in favour of it. And I supported it is because I support democracy and specifically the idea that, excepting a few guaranteed human rights, the will of the majority should prevail. Look at the referendum results below: On the simple question of "Should BC keep the current First Past the Post voting system or move to a system of proportional representation?" Voters overwhelmingly choose the former. It's been almost 20 years since more than 845,000 British Colombians agreed on anything. So if you truly believe in "majority rule", you should concede that most BCers just don't consider Proportional Representation a better system. This result is almost identical to the last referendum on the very same topic. But Pro-PR groups (Yes to PR, Fairvote BC) aren't having any of it. They have all sorts of explanations for why the referendum wasn't a valid test of the people's will. The NDP opposes PR and designed the referendum to fail. While I will admit I swore out loud when I read the questions, I find it extremely hard to believe that the NDP tried to rig the referendum. I believe Hanlon's razor applies in this case: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" The NDP has lost a significant number of elections in British Columbia because they have been unable to reconcile the wishes of environmentalists with the wishes of labour unions. When push inevitably comes to shove, they have always come down on the side of workers (See Site C, LNG, Thermal Coal exports) which guarantees they will never be able to capture the entirety of left leaning voters. Under PR they likely would have lost a percentage of the popular vote to the Greens, but they would be much better situated to form government, albeit in a coalition. Furthermore, if PR had passed it would have been the death knell of the Liberal party which is itself is a loose coalition made up of equal parts fiscal Conservatives, Evangelical Christians, Libertarians and Liberals. Just the possibility of PR brought about the creation the Rural BC Party and The BC Libertarian Party- two groups with eyes on right-leaning, anti-authoritarian voters who currently vote Liberal. Yes- the referendum process was ridiculous, but the idea that the NDP deliberately sabotaged the referendum is absurd. The appetite just wasn't there. "No to PR" Groups Lied to Voters and used dirty tactics. The chief thing that I heard from the No side during the referendum was that the PR process was confusing and flawed and that the government wasn't able to answer very basic questions about details such as the number of MLAs in the legislature or the size of electoral districts or even which form of PR would be adopted. These are all things that are now being used to advance the theory that the NDP really didn't want PR in the first place so I don't believe that the No to PR groups were lying about these short-comings. This explanation is also reveals a pretty patronizing attitude towards voters- most of whom are (sadly) pretty well versed in politicians' bullshit. As for the "dirty tactics"- All's fair in Love and War and "Politics is war by other means" - Carl von Clausewit People Fear Change or People are stupid.
This explanation takes it as a given that PR is empirically superior to First Past the Post. Therefore not supporting it is either an act of cowardice or an act of stupidity. This is a pretty hostile attitude to take. First of all, neither matters. If you believe in democracy, the vote of cowards and fools counts just as much as the votes of visionaries and geniuses (or is it geniei)? Second, there are a number a very valid reasons why a person might not support PR. If you consider the individual more important than the party, PR probably isn't for you. Why should your vote for Tom in Hope help elect Jagmeet in Burnaby? Pro-PR would probably respond that Tom and Jagmeet share a common vision, that if votes for Tom help Jagmeet then this will further Tom's ability to implement policy. But this brings to mind another good objection to PR. Whose policies were given a mandate by the electorate? Coalition governments can and have worked well in Canada but seldom have more than two parties had to cooperate to form government. Imagine a government made up of three parties, each with 20% of the popular vote. Do they each get to implement a third of their policies? Who decides what stays and what goes? Obviously the parties do- and the voters just watch. How is that better than what we have now? I think these are some pretty good questions that needed to be addressed, but that were consistently written off as "fear-mongering". I think that is the crux of the issue overall. Yes to PR groups declared that the PR system was fair and that FPTP was unfair based on the idea that a "majority" should consist of more than 50% rather than the greatest share. They pointed to terrible leaders in other jurisdictions and warned that this was the result of FPTP, ignoring that our current good government was also a product of that "terrible unfair system". This ultimately undermined their message that the system HAD to be changed. Now that the people have decided, it's time to move on and not waste our time complaining about the process or the outcome.
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