Proposed new election model a worse problem

I join previous writer Brian Marlatt in opposing the imposition of a proportional representation system to elect our government. Our current method is unsatisfactory as it allows the election of candidates distasteful to a majority of the electors when three or more candidates split the vote, but the model proposed to correct this merely replaces this problem with a worse one.

Proportional representation would allot seats based on the percentage of votes gained by each political party. Once the tally is done the party names the successful candidates who will represent us. We do not have a direct choice anymore. The people who make up the list are in charge. This is a problem because each party has a bureaucracy composed of the executive elected at party conventions and the staff employed by the organization to handle administration .

Right wing or left, this is the way all administration functions.

It is the nature of political parties to hire people known to share their core values, who care deeply about the party itself. It is the tragedy of this that all too often the people hired care so deeply about the issues that they cannot stop themselves from interfering in the processes of their employers to become the directors of policy rather than the servants of the members. They are the people who select the various committees that make the rules and run conventions, and history has proven that party managers appoint their own supporters to keep their party safe from ideological error.

As an example I offer the current equity policy mandated by the B.C. New Democrats. This rule requires that any riding being vacated by a retiring male incumbent MUST nominate a minority candidate as defined by NDP Provincial Office. This policy, which seems to assume that local members cannot be trusted to vote without prejudice, deprives the actual owners of the party the right to choose freely. The local constituency association actually passed a resolution for the last party convention calling for an end to this policy, but the resolutions committee selected by party managers never brought the issue to the floor for debate and vote.

That is one example from one party, but elitism is alive and well in all of them. The ideologically pure and organizationally well placed already interfere in the nomination of local candidates; can there be any doubt that a proportional system that allows the party managers to actually name the Members of the Legislature would be abused? Would it be any comfort to us that our freedom to choose would be restricted for the very noblest of reasons?

Fortunately there is a simple solution: when no candidate has a majority of the votes cast let there be a runoff election between the two highest vote getters held within a statutory time period. Yes, that would take perhaps another month to determine the outcome and some of us would have to deal with the suspense, but thanks to the professional bureaucracy that actually runs the public service the people’s business would continue while the process continued, just as they are doing today, and the end result would reflect the wishes of the majority.

David Lowther

Mesachie Lake