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VICTORIA — Pity the ordinary British Columbian trying to understand B.C.’s debate on proportional representation as ballots begin to arrive in the mail.

Either our province is at risk of devolving into a dystopian future of goose-stepping neo-Nazi soldiers on every street corner, or we’re just one vote away from a utopian paradise in which all your social and economic problems are solved by elected officials who co-operate transparently as they hold hands and plot world peace at the legislature.

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Those are the extremes being portrayed by groups for and against changing B.C.’s voting system from the current first past the post (FPTP) model to one of three new systems of proportional representation (PR).

Surely, somewhere in-between is a realistic debate on the pros and cons of this referendum. But you didn’t find much evidence of that during the first week of serious campaigning by the official proponent and opponent groups. They’ve each been given $500,000 of taxpayer money to argue their points. And the province is, so far, dumber for it.