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“I think the key point, John, is that you’re the one who wants to change the system and it’s important for you to tell people how this is going to work,” Wilkinson said during the debate.

“Twenty-three different features that you haven’t revealed to people. You’re in control of this process. We want to know and the people at home want to know how many MLAs they’re going to have, how many votes are they going to have, and how are these votes going to be transferred all over the province after they’ve cast their vote to get the proportionality you want to have in place?”

Photo by Gerry Kahrmann / PNG

Again and again Wilkinson delivered a variation of this theme. It seemed to flummox Horgan, which is odd because the NDP must have seen the attack coming.

For weeks, Wilkinson and Liberal MLAs have been hammering the NDP in the legislature over all the details the public won’t know about the pro-rep systems until after the vote. The debate simply served as a chance for Wilkinson to hurl more pointed versions of those questions at Horgan in front of a live TV audience.

“I have more confidence in the people of B.C., clearly, than you do, Mr. Wilkinson,” Horgan offered at one point. “I believe they’ll be able to work through this.”

Horgan’s difficulty highlights the shortcomings in the official Vote PR B.C. strategy. The Yes side isn’t campaigning specifically for any of the three options. It isn’t even trying hard to explain them. Pro-rep supporters long ago decided to run a campaign that simply focuses on change, with an added defence that “anything will be better than what we have now” and a further backstop of “don’t worry, there’s another referendum to change back in two elections if we make a mistake.”