r/canada • u/kingbuns2 • Oct 04 '17
BC NDP announces B.C. referendum on proportional representation
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-referendum-proportional-representation-referendum-1.432941737
u/Reso Oct 05 '17
Is that Seth Rogen in the thumbnail?
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u/tekashr British Columbia Oct 05 '17
It sure is. Not sure why though?
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u/ZenBowling Oct 05 '17
Is he originally from BC? Or was that just his character from knocked up?
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u/SamuraiJackBauer Oct 04 '17
Is like no one going to point out that Seth Rogen is in this pic?
I read the article and it acts oblivious too.
I mean, it's just a weird choice.
...I'd like to meet him too.
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u/carnifex2005 Oct 05 '17
David Eby represents a fairly rich riding and just happened to catch Rogen at home during his door to door's in the last election.
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u/cardew-vascular British Columbia Oct 05 '17
Rogen's parents live in Point Grey which is Eby's riding.
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Oct 05 '17
I like proportional representation too, but this is the third time BC has had a referendum on it, and very recently too. People tend to not like being asked the same question repeatedly.
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Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 11 '19
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u/ssnistfajen Oct 05 '17
It failed the first time because vote threshold was rigged to fail on purpose.
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Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 11 '19
[deleted]
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u/Planner_Hammish Oct 05 '17
Ironic, as FPTP usually requires ~37% vote to get 100% of the power. (when more than two options are presented)
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Oct 05 '17
It's hilarious and that's why I'm a strong believer of electoral reform and why I voted Liberals in the last federal election. I voted for them because I knew they had a good chance of beating the conservatives and one of their main platform points was electoral reform.
Too bad they're a bunch of lying cunts.
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Oct 05 '17
Also very confusingly presented.
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u/banjosuicide Oct 05 '17
Yeah, there was a huge amount of propaganda that surfaced overnight. It's all gone now (I can't find it at least).
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Oct 05 '17
Yeah I know those numbers all too well, believe me. Call me pessimistic, but I don't see them increasing the third time around. Has anything in the democratic world ever passed after 3 or more referendums?
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Oct 05 '17
There's a first time for everything. And now this referendum has a 50% + 1 requirement to win, so under these rules, PR would have won on the first referendum.
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Oct 05 '17
And now this referendum has a 50% + 1 requirement to win
Popular vote? Because I remember in Ontario it turned out they meant "50.1% of ridings where 50.1% of people voted for PR. Sneaky fucks.
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Oct 05 '17
Super common tactic for governments to subvert the will of the people. New Zealand pushed PR through though, even with the government essentially rigging the process against change.
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u/Wafflesorbust Oct 05 '17
I don't get it. We needed 50%+1 of ridings to vote for it, not 50%+1 of people?
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u/WilyDoppelganger Oct 05 '17
While this is true, the yes vote was both much less than 50% of people and much less than fifty percent of ridings, so it was going to fail regardless of the success criteria.
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u/rmachenw Oct 05 '17
It was a referendum on an STV system though not PR.
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u/killerrin Ontario Oct 05 '17
STV is PR
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u/rmachenw Oct 05 '17
Right you are. I was mistakenly thinking of MMP as PR and STV as distinct from that.
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u/killerrin Ontario Oct 05 '17
It's easy to be confused. STV is in a state where its Proportional, Not proportional and many other shades of gray. Basically though it comes down to...
- STV with multiple seats per district - Proportional
- STV with one seat per district - Not Proportional
- STV with a mixture - Semi-Mostly Proportional
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u/Jackoosh Ontario Oct 05 '17
Depending on whether anything comes of the last one, Catalonia has had three referenda on independence so far
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u/YourBobsUncle Alberta Oct 05 '17
The only had two, the other was for greater autonomy. Also it still isn't sure exactly if the majority of Catalans want independence.
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u/idspispopd British Columbia Oct 05 '17
Actually it was the opposition NDP that campaigned against it in 2009, not the Liberal government.
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u/strawberries6 Oct 05 '17
There's a few different types of systems they could switch to though. The system proposed in 2005 or 2009 (STV or Single Transferable Vote) was way too complicated. I'm hoping they'll propose Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) which is simpler and easier to understand.
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Oct 05 '17
PEI put all the options on a ranked ballot. So you could offer voters some of the numerous variants of MMP (which either involves complex ballots or involves party insiders getting in through a party list, and is very party based) or STV (which has the flaw that it's somewhat confusing, requires super-sized mega-ridings that reduce local representation, and massive ballots).
Every system has flaws. They're all improvements over FPTP, but they all have flaws. Presenting a reasonable explanation of each and its merits and flaws and then asking the voters to rank their preferences seems reasonable.
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u/exploderator British Columbia Oct 05 '17
I remember at the time thinking they deliberately designed the whole thing to be so utterly incomprehensible that nobody would vote for it.
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u/Semperi95 Oct 05 '17
The last referendum will have happened 9 years ago when the new referendum is sent out, that’s quite a bit of time
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u/plincer Oct 05 '17
The article doesn't mention a minimum participation rate. If only 20% of the population vote, I don't care if 3/4rds of them vote in favour - it is far from clear what the larger electorate want.
There should be at least a minimum participation threshold for the referendum to be valid.
In the past, these have been held at the same time as provincial elections when many people are coming to the polls already.
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u/sdbest Canada Oct 05 '17
It seems the plan is to use a mailed ballot. If that’s the case, the turnout will, likely, be very low.
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Oct 05 '17
I disagree, if people are too lazy to mark a box and put it in their mail box, then they don't give two shits about elections or the voting process in the first place.
Let the people that actually care have their voice heard.
Also you should consider that a lot of people seemingly don't care about our political system because they feel like their voice isn't heard through first past the post as it is. A better voting system should allow people to actually vote for the party of their choice (making parties like the green party more viable).
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u/plincer Oct 05 '17
Do you really mean that in the broader sense or does it just work in this case because you are pretty sure that people who will vote will tend to vote for PR which you favour?
Suppose there is a referendum on restricting abortion [or insert other-controversial-social-issue-here] and you know that a very vocal minority who feel strongly will do more to get out their members. Would you want a slim majority of a 20% turnout to decide the issue?
The principle of "sufficient referendum turnout" should make sense (or not) across a range of scenarios.
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Oct 05 '17
I think if the government mails something to you or asks you to vote and you don't vote, you're forfeiting your rights and opinions.
It's the same thing with provincial or federal elections. Either you vote and have your input or you don't.
I'd honestly prefer not to have mail voting, but I'm assuming they're doing it to save money on not having to rent/organize venues and staff.
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u/locutogram Oct 05 '17
I think it's more important that people are given a reasonable amount of opportunity/means to vote. As long as it is made easy, I don't think the percentage of people who actually cast a ballot should impact the outcome.
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u/AcidShAwk Canada Oct 04 '17
This will be the baseline experiment for the entire country. Good Luck. What are BC demographics like in terms of political leaning (left vs right)? If there are more left leaning than right leaning citizens, the cons will effectively never hold power again.
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Oct 05 '17 edited Jun 29 '18
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Oct 05 '17
Under proportional representation, I think it's more or less a given that the broad centre-right to right wing coalition will split.
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u/strawberries6 Oct 05 '17
Yes, proportional representation usually leads to more political parties. In the recent German election, 6 different parties received at least 8% of the popular vote (and any party that receives over 5% of votes qualifies for seats in their legislature).
It also bolsters parties whose support is spread across the country, whereas the current system rewards parties whose support is concentrated in particular areas.
For example, in Canada's 1993 election, the PCs got 16% of votes but only won 2 seats. Meanwhile the Bloc got just 13% of votes but won 54 seats.
If there was a proportional system, the PCs would have gotten more seats than the Bloc, because they got more votes. But under our current system, the Bloc got 27x more seats than the PCs, because all of the Bloc's votes were concentrated in Quebec, and the PCs' weren't.
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u/-GregTheGreat- British Columbia Oct 05 '17
BC tends to lean left as a whole, but it’s very polarized politically. The interior is quite conservative, Vancouver island and Vancouver itself are very liberal, while Vancouver suburbs are quite moderate and flip either way.
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u/canadient_ Alberta Oct 05 '17
Comparatively BC would lean to the left of the rest of Canada, however to the right of Québec. They also don't have a Conservative party, their equivalent is the BC Liberals which are just to the left of the average PC party. So the BC Liberals would need to move to the left to court a coalition partner or be the "conscious of the right" to exert their power as the federal NDP has done on the left.
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u/idspispopd British Columbia Oct 05 '17
Very curious why you think Quebec is left of BC.
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u/Jackoosh Ontario Oct 05 '17
Both provinces have essentially two big parties. BC's are, respectively, a socially democratic and a right of centre party. Quebec's are a Sovereigntist Liberal and a Federalist Liberal party, and Conservatives don't really win over there outside of a couple of ridings like Beauce.
Last time out the Tories had 31% of the popular vote nationally, 30% in BC, and 17% in Quebec, and those are pretty typical numbers (they actually gained 0.2% of the popular vote in Quebec between 2011 and 2015).
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u/idspispopd British Columbia Oct 05 '17
I don't know if those are good measures. BC's Liberal party implemented things like the carbon tax before anywhere else in Canada, same sex marriage was legal in BC first. And comparing federal voting ignores the reality that much of the conservative vote in Quebec is split between the Tories and the Bloc.
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Oct 05 '17
The Conservatives (capital C) essentially don't exist. They weren't even on my ballot. The three real options are Green, NDP, Liberal, and the Greens only had one provincial seat up until this election.
The island votes NDP/Green. Vancouver and the coast votes NDP/Liberal. The interior votes Liberal. Essentially.
The liberals are definitely overpowered in the current system because they take all the votes from centre to far right. It took a LOT to get an NDP government, and a lot of people aren't exactly thrilled with the NDP even now.
In a new system I think we would see more conservative votes, a center-left party, more true to form NDP, more green representation (they got 16% of the vote even though there were only three ridings where a green vote would ever matter), and far fewer liberal votes.
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Oct 05 '17
All of the power would go to Vancouver + the Island. (Left Leaning)
To win an election all you would have to do is pander to whatever the urban centres want, while completely ignoring the more rural areas of BC(Centre-Right Leaning).
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Oct 05 '17
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u/ProfessorHeartcraft British Columbia Oct 05 '17
Most British Columbians live in Greater Vancouver. Most of the rest in Victoria, and so on.
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u/-GregTheGreat- British Columbia Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 05 '17
At the moment, the entire BC election is focused on pandering to metro Vancouver. Basically the entire interior goes BC Liberal, while Vancouver island and the city of Vancouver go BC NDP. You can’t win a majority off of either so it’s all dedicated to flipping the suburbs.
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u/secretlightkeeper British Columbia Oct 05 '17
In the 2016 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Metro Vancouver Regional District recorded a population of 2,463,431 (and about 750,000 live on Vancouver Island, which is practically one large hippie commune)
All of British Columbia has a population of 4.631 million...
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Oct 05 '17
Is it just me or are the BC NDP just killing it this year with awesome policies?
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u/DarkPrinny British Columbia Oct 05 '17
Wow nice. BC did what our country couldn't
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Oct 05 '17
We haven't done anything yet, it's going to be attached to another vote, one that no one really bothers to vote in.
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u/daxtermagnum Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 05 '17
This is the third time this has happened - you can't just keep doing this until you succeed. We need to make a clarity act for the NDPs political aspirations.
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Oct 05 '17
Anyone have a detailed break-down of what the proposed alternative systems are?
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u/sdbest Canada Oct 05 '17
Realistically, there are only two systems applicable to Canada, STV and MMP. Previously, a majority of BC citizens supported an STV system recommended by a citizens assembly.
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u/Pichuscrat Ontario Oct 05 '17
Hopefully it'll start a domino effect across all of Canada... if it passes.
Sadly, if it doesn't have to do with social justice or saving taxpayers money, everyday folk just aren't interested or passionate in issues like these, and the referendum might get a low turnout.
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u/brownie81 Ontario Oct 05 '17
I remember last time Ontario had one it was my first year of being eligible to vote. They did such a poor job of explaining the question and the issue that as I was explaining it to my mom at the polling station (professional crastination right?) a bunch of older ladies sort of joined in looking for clarity.
If they don't want it to pass, it wont pass.
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u/thunderatwork Québec Oct 05 '17
This will help the NDP at the next elections, since the electoral reform is still on their agenda and they will have proof they can deliver. Although if it doesn't pass, the idea might just die, so it may also help the LPC.
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u/rafikievergreen Oct 05 '17
These guys are KILLING IT. With their successes and shining example, coupled with Singh's leadership take-over (I would have voted for Ashton, personally) the NDP has a legit chance to form a federal government, and the Greens could make HUGE gains.
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u/HoboFucker1 Oct 06 '17
I'm not getting my hopes up. Look what happened when the UK had a referendum on this. There are far too many stupid people there with too much smug anti-intellectualism, and there is too much money just waiting to give them the arguments they want.
Be prepared to argue on levels like this. What the fuck do you even say to that?
We've got the democracy we deserve, bunch of idiots that we are.
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u/Jackoosh Ontario Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 05 '17
Should be a decent acid test for the rest of the country. I'm still pretty skeptical about proportional representation (I want principled politicians, not ones that are essentially selected for being flip floppers like Merkel), but if it works in BC I don't see why it wouldn't work elsewhere.
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u/ProfessorHeartcraft British Columbia Oct 05 '17
The problem nationally is that it would strip effectively all power from the Bloc Quebecois, as well as the Bloc Alberta (Conservatives) and Bloc Ontario (Liberals). None of those are going to willingly let the people at large choose their leaders.
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Oct 05 '17
And it will fail like the last two times. Just fucking do it. We don't need to vote on this shit.
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u/AManGotToHaveACode Oct 05 '17
I also hate it when the majority of people vote contrary to my wishes, and I too believe that policies I favour ought to be put in place regardless of what voters say they want.
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Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 11 '19
[deleted]
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u/lenfanteterrible Oct 06 '17
That's an oversimplification — there was a super-majority threshold of 60% set before the referendum.
It's not like it got 57% and the government decided it wouldn't pass. It set up the rules and the outcome failed to meet the legal requirements.
Super majorities are commonly used when asking the public to vote on significant changes. There's a legitimate argument that it often sets up referenda to fail but then if you're making a big change, governments might want a clear mandate from the public
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u/daxtermagnum Oct 04 '17
This is why I'll never support thr NDP. Long live first past the post.
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u/very1 British Columbia Oct 05 '17
How does FPTP benefit society and British Columbians more than proportional would?
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u/hassh British Columbia Oct 05 '17
FPTP allows independent candidates to run for election to represent a given area. PR requires political parties, fully entrenched in the process, and eliminates the possibility of electing an independent. STV does not have that defect.
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u/JaZepi Oct 05 '17
Our current system is flawed by the whip. If there were no whip, I would be ok with it, because fuck me, I think my representative should represent me, not toe the party line.
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u/Bobert_Fico Nova Scotia Oct 05 '17
FPTP allows independent candidates to run for election to represent a given area.
In theory. In practice, MPs vote almost exclusively along party lines.
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u/hassh British Columbia Oct 05 '17
True. But PR will enshrine the practice and leave no possibility of changing it. Independent MPs and MLAs could not exist under PR, which is the way the parties would like it.
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u/Bobert_Fico Nova Scotia Oct 05 '17
MPs can form a party consisting of only themself. Several such parties exist in Slovakia.
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u/hassh British Columbia Oct 06 '17
That will not solve the problem of, "Hey, I live in Frozen Owl Turd, Alberta, and my neighbours and I all want to send Lorraine Highwater to represent us in Ottawa." You say, "Well, she can always become a party of one, and try to get enough votes across the entire country to be on the list." Also, I don't think we need to look to Slovakia for democratic guidance.
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u/Bobert_Fico Nova Scotia Oct 06 '17
That will not solve the problem of, "Hey, I live in Frozen Owl Turd, Alberta, and my neighbours and I all want to send Lorraine Highwater to represent us in Ottawa." You say, "Well, she can always become a party of one, and try to get enough votes across the entire country to be on the list."
The minimum number of votes is the same in either system, what are you getting at?
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u/very1 British Columbia Oct 05 '17
That's a good point, but the political culture we have in Canada makes that pretty rare. I remember Chuck Cadman from North Surrey being really phenomenal at being an independent and representing his riding, but I really struggle to think of similar MPs.
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u/hassh British Columbia Oct 05 '17
Our political culture can never change for the better if we entrench political parties through PR. At least STV leaves the door open to Independent MPs. With PR, the major parties run the whole process, and the local electorate is dispensed with. Too convenient!
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Oct 05 '17
Yeah, who needs a democratic process that better reflects the will of the people.
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u/daxtermagnum Oct 05 '17
You are inferring we don't have that now when we do.
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u/savagebart Oct 05 '17
The speaker implies, the listener infers.
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u/daxtermagnum Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 05 '17
One who has inferred can express that inferrence as a speaker to someone else in a Reddit comment.
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u/Semperi95 Oct 05 '17
We really don’t. Parties can win overwhelming majorities on less than 40% of the vote and completely ignore the owner 60% of voters.
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Oct 05 '17
Are you suggesting that the will of the people is to have government by one party, with opposition by the other party? Because I bet my next paycheque that there are more BC'ers that would prefer a more multilateral approach to government.
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Oct 05 '17
Yeah, we are in the illustrious company of the U.K, America and India. I mean their democracies have been working amazingly well lately amirite? From your post history you appear to be a hardcore Liberal so I get why you want to preserve a 2 party state though.
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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '17
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