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Over the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of time debating against the No side in this electoral reform referendum. For the most part, they are waging a highly negative campaign based on fear-mongering and falsehoods.

But in rare moments when the No side makes a positive appeal it goes something like this: “We have a stable system in British Columbia. We have a fantastic, successful province. Nothing is broken, nothing needs to be fixed.”

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B.C. is indeed a wonderful place. But all is not well with the state of our democracy.

Voter turnout is in long-term decline. People don’t feel well-represented by our first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system, which routinely and unfairly produces a legislature that does not reflect how we actually vote.

From a policy perspective, our broken politics means we’ve failed to tackle many of the core societal challenges of our time. From housing affordability, poverty, inequality to the climate crisis, our current system is unresponsive and weak, making us national and global laggards.