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The referendum hasn’t even officially got under way, but there’s already trouble in proportional representation paradise.

This fall, British Columbians will vote in a mail-in referendum on whether to ditch our current first-past-the-post system for electing MLAs and move to proportional representation instead.

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Stuart Parker, the former leader of the B.C. Green party, says he will fight hard to make proportional representation a reality.

But, so far, he’s not impressed with the Yes campaign.

“In order to win, we need to reach out across partisan party lines and assemble a broad coalition of people and interests,” he said.

Instead, the main Yes camp in the referendum campaign seems to be an inward-looking group of NDP and B.C. Green party partisans and big trade unions, he said.

“There are too many elites and lobbyists involved,” said Parker, who led the B.C. Green party from 1993 to 2000.