VANCOUVER—Supporters of the proportional representation (PR) voting system hit the streets in Vancouver and around the province on Sunday to talk democracy and raise awareness ahead of B.C.’s electoral referendum in the fall.

Maria Dobrinskaya, spokesperson for the Vote PR BC campaign, said the results from last week’s provincial election in Ontario show that the conversation around PR has never been more timely.

“I think dissatisfaction with our current system is palpable,” she told StarMetro outside the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain station. “The example of the election in Ontario … where the majority of people voted for a different party than the one that was elected makes the issue real.”

On June 7, Doug Ford — a populist candidate many have compared to Donald Trump — won Ontario’s provincial election with 40 per cent of the vote.

Proportional representation, Dobrinskaya said, is a system of voting that ensures the number of votes cast is reflected in the number of seats in the legislature. If a party receives 40 per cent of the votes, as Ford’s Conservatives did, it would receive 40 per cent of the seats.

“Our current system distorts that outcome, so we’re able to elect majority governments that have 100 per cent of the power — the legislative agenda — with 40, sometimes event lower, per cent of the vote,” she said.

The upcoming mail-in referendum, expected to start this October, will ask British Columbians to decide on whether to keep the current first-past-the-post electoral system, or switch over to one of three PR systems.

In his May 30 report on electoral reform, Attorney General David Eby recommended that if PR is chosen in the upcoming referendum, B.C. voters should be given an opportunity for a second referendum after two election cycles.

Dobrinskaya said this would provide residents with a chance to see how PR works in real-time, at the ballot box, before deciding to adopt the system permanently — though she was sure voters would embrace PR once they’d seen it in action.

“We have not seen any jurisdiction move to a proportional representation system and then revert back to first-past-the-post,” she said.

Roughly 85 per cent of countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) currently use some form of proportional representation, according to an ACE Electoral Knowledge Network database.

But the PR system is not without its flaws. It can lead to the rise of coalition governments, resulting in “legislative gridlock and (a) consequent inability to carry out coherent policies,” notes the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network.

The ACE network also writes that PR can fragment the party system, allowing “tiny minority parties to hold larger parties to ransom in coalition negotiations.” In Israel, for instance, this has led to extremist religious parties becoming crucial to the formation of government, while in Italy PR has led to years of political instability.

But Attorney General Eby’s electoral report explicitly states any party must win a minimum 5 per cent of the overall vote in order to be eligible to receive seats in an election — a move designed to deter the influence of fringe parties.

And in comparison to the current system, said Dobrinskaya, a representative plurality of voices would reinvigorate those members of the B.C. electorate who have become soured on politics.

She said the phenomenon of “safe seats” — ridings in which voters are so historically likely to vote for a particular party that opposition candidates have very narrow odds of being elected — has created an environment in which many voters feel disempowered.

“If you’re a B.C. NDP voter in Kelowna, or a B.C. Liberal voter in Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, the outcome of the election is largely determined (regardless of) whether or not you cast your ballot,” she said. “That leads to a lot of cynicism and disengagement, particularly amongst younger people.”

Strategic voting — a situation Dobrinskaya said many voters know better as “plugging your nose and voting for the least worst option” — is another problem with the current first-past-the-post system that could be eliminated by embracing a PR system.

“A combination of distorted outcomes, safe seats and strategic voting makes a lot of people feel that their vote doesn’t count, and their level of engagement in their democracy is reflected in that,” she said. “We see lower voter turnout, and a general disengagement, again, particularly amongst young people.”

Vancouver resident and former Calgarian Igor Kopecky told StarMetro he had friends abroad in countries where PR was currently in use, and felt the system simply made better sense than first-past-the-post.

“It just sounds logical to me,” he said.

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Kopecky said in his former hometown of Calgary, NDP, Liberal and Green voters are often left feeling their democratic participation has little impact given the dominance of Conservative politics in the region.

“Whereas I think proportional representation, in every situation, would be impactful,” he said, adding for that reason, he’ll be casting his ballot in the fall referendum.

“I’ll be voting in October,” he said. “Not for first-past-the-post.”

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