STV – The smorgasbord approach to choosing a government.

On May 12th the people of British Columbia will be asked to vote on a referendum that will fundamentally change our system of choosing a government. In Canada we have prided ourselves in having one of the most open, fair and reliable electoral systems in the world. We send people to emerging democracies to assist with the development of fair practice. Our system is based upon the fairest practice of all; every citizen of eligible age is given one vote. One person one vote; what could be fairer?

The proponents of the STV (Single Transferrable Vote) try to make the case that other countries notably Australia, and New Zealand, but also Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland use the STV. That is partly true as Australia uses the STV for the upper house, Senate and the ACT or Canberra city council, and some states have preferential ballots in “multi member constituencies”. No North American jurisdictions use the STV, and certainly no Canadian governments are elected that way.

The proponents of STV love to use the term “First Past the Post” to describe our current electoral system, and argue that “it cheats the voters: We do not get the government or opposition that we voted for, and whole regions are often not represented in Cabinet”. What utter rubbish. Each voter may cast one vote for the individual candidate he/she believes will best represent him/her. If the voter believes strongly that the person chosen is the very best, then it is incumbent upon that voter to get off his/her butt and work for that candidate. What the STV provides is a venue for the lazy or ill-informed voter to choose a marginal or fringe candidate, who will then have a shot at being elected. If a candidate is top-notch, hard-working, and espouses a vision that resonates with the majority or a strong plurality of the electorate he or she WILL get elected. Oh and as for who does or does not get into Cabinet, that is the choice of the Premier and this electoral system won’t change that, nor should it.

The next point that the proponents of the STV put forward is that “The current first past the post system doesn’t hold the government responsible to the voters: When 40% of the votes can win 60% of the seats and 100% of the power, the government believes it has a mandate to do what it likes, rather than what the voters want.” This is a very tired, old argument that has everything to do with effective opposition of those elected under our current system and nothing to do with putting out a smorgasbord of candidates and providing “hedge your bet” voting. With an effective opposition, change can happen regardless of the breakdown in the seats.

Refer back to Ottawa in November 2008. The opposition elected under our current system almost brought down the Harper government. STV proponents take note; the prevailing public opinion of well over half the electorate was that the opposition should not use that power to remove a “democratically elected government”.

Then there is the argument from proponents of STV that our current system “favors political parties over voters: Where parties have “safe seats”, nomination meetings count more than elections. And political parties would rather keep a weak, elected MLA than risk replacing one”. Answer to that, get off your ass and get involved in the political process rather than weaken our electoral system so that we can have a government made up of second and possibly third choices. Talk about weakening government: let’s fill the Legislative government with a bunch of people whom few wanted as their first choice to represent them.

Finally they argue that our “current first past the post system divides us and weakens our province: It fuels polarized policy-making, seesaw governments and partisan posturing, leading to instability.” Again this is utter nonsense. Sound policy making is done through conventions where Canadian get involved, argue their positions, listen to other informed points of view, and struggle to move the issues that they believe are important to them forward on a convention floor. These are people who try to get their neighbors involved in the process of policy development. A movement to an STV in our ONLY Legislative chamber in this province will be an experiment at best, and will cause unpredictable instability.

Andrew Coyne writes in support of a change to an STV system that small start up parties such as the Green Party knows what it’s like to run and not get elected. Come on Andrew. They don’t get elected because they haven’t put forward any policy or candidates that are electable. And, to be clear on this point, in 1991 I was the leader of a party in British Columbia that had not elected anybody to the Legislative Assembly for almost two decades despite contesting every election, it was called the Liberal Party. Through hard work, yes very hard work, door knocking, good candidate recruitment and solid policy work, the Liberal party not only elected members but formed opposition. And we did it using the current system. If that isn’t proof enough that the current system works if you are prepared to get off your ass and work hard, I helped found a party that didn’t exist in 1994 called the PDA. We ran candidates in the 1996 election and I was elected as its leader in the riding of Powell River-Sunshine Coast. The Green Party has been running candidates for over 20 years; if people wanted to elect any of them, they would have.

We don’t need a smorgasbord of candidates representing all manner of the wild, the weird and the woolly. We do need solid candidates who are running on a clear platform developed through sound policy convention so that we the voters are able to cast our ONE vote for the BEST candidate.