As the federal election campaign seems about to kick off, we thought it would be helpful to review the stances of the various federal parties on voting reform.  For those of us who will be voting in BC, here are our current recommendations of who to consider voting for:

Both the NDP and the Green Party have clearly committed themselves to ending our current unfair Single Member Plurality (SMP) voting system, so Fair Voting BC gives them a green light:

NDP:

The NDP announced earlier this year that “an NDP government would introduce proportional representation by the next election.”  The NDP also introduced a bill in Parliament last December that read:  “(a) the next federal election should be the last conducted under the current first-past-the-post electoral system which has repeatedly delivered a majority of seats to parties supported by a minority of voters, or under any other winner-take-all electoral system; and (b) a form of mixed-member proportional representation would be the best electoral system for Canada.”  Although this bill did not pass, MPs from 5 of the 6 parties (all except the Conservatives) voted in support of it.

Green Party: 

The Green Party’s platform states that they intend to: “Legislate the end of first-past-the-post voting; establish immediately an all-party Democratic Voting Commission to review past research and conduct a public consultation on the style of proportional representation best suited to Canada. We will instruct it to make recommendations to Parliament for the necessary democratic voting reform, including draft legislation, within 12 months”. [full policy resolution here]

Liberal Party:

The Liberal Party is not committed to implementing proportional representation, but has promised to review a variety of electoral reforms including PR.  Their policy states that  “immediately after the next election, an all-Party process [will] be instituted, involving expert assistance and citizen participation, to report to Parliament within 12 months with recommendations for electoral reforms including, without limitation, a preferential ballot and/or a form of proportional representation, to represent Canadians more fairly and serve Canada better.” [full policy resolution here]

Although Justin Trudeau has explicitly stated both his opposition to PR and his preference for the non-proportional Alternative Voting system (i.e., using a preferential ballot to elect MPs in single-member districts), a number of individual Liberal MPs and candidates do support proportional representation.  Most notably, BC MP Joyce Murray made PR a central plank in her bid for the Liberal Party leadership a couple of years ago, and both she and BC’s other Liberal MP, Hedy Fry (along with a bare majority of Liberal MPs across the country), supported last December’s motion by the NDP to implement MMP.  Fair Voting BC has been working with Fair Vote Canada to collect commitments from individual Liberal Party candidates regarding electoral reform (Trudeau is allowing them to make up their own minds on this issue) and will publish this list shortly;  we recommend that you only vote for Liberal party candidates who explicitly support PR, not just the process of review that is their party policy.

Conservative Party:

The Conservative Party announced last week that they would “commit to legislation that would ban any government from changing our voting system without holding a referendum to secure the approval of Canadians first”, and that they would make no changes to first-past-the-post, saying “Changing the way Canadians elect their government is not a priority.”  Given this clear signal that the party leadership thinks no change is necessary, and that no BC candidate has spoken out against this policy, Fair Voting BC cannot at this time recommend voting for anyone from the Conservative Party.

In the coming weeks, we will be sending out more frequent updates discussing issues particularly relevant to the election campaign.  Stay tuned!

We hope you’ve all had a wonderful summer. Despite most people being on vacation, there’s actually been a lot to pay attention to, and two particularly exciting things coming up this fall that we invite you to join in on.

Fall Preview – 2 Great Events, 2 Great Volunteer Opportunities!

Fair Voting BC is planning two big events this fall – (1) the Our City – Our Charter campaign in conjunction with the fall municipal elections in November and (2) a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the BC Citizens’ Assembly in December.

Sneak Preview: Our City – Our Charter

The biggest impediment to voting reform at the municipal level in BC is the current Local Government Elections Act (City Charter in Vancouver) that mandates use of First Past the Post or At-Large Bloc Voting. Ten years ago, Justice Tom Berger recommended that Vancouver ask Victoria to change the city charter. Vancouver has asked for this change several times, but Victoria hasn’t yet responded, so this fall we want to turn up the heat by building public support for the city’s request. Check out our draft OC-OC website, and sign up using the email signup button there to volunteer to help us reach out to the public and NGOs (please note that the map signup is in test mode at the moment – you can add a marker if you want, but it will be reset when the site goes live in a few weeks).

Celebration of 10th Anniversary of BC Citizens’ Assembly (Dec 10th)

Ten years ago, BC broke new ground in citizen consultation by running the BC Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. This group of 160 citizens (one man and one woman from each riding around the province) spent the better part of a year listening to British Columbians about how we wanted our government to work and learning how voting systems can make government more responsive to voters. They came to a nearly unanimous recommendation for STV (the Single Transferable Vote), and voters endorsed it with 58% support in the 2005 referendum. Though the government of the day chose not to implement BC-STV, the Citizens’ Assembly was a remarkable and widely-respected consultative process that deserves to be celebrated and reflected upon, so Fair Voting BC will be hosting a celebration event on December 10th to remind the public about the Assembly. We’ve got a great lineup of speakers arranged, including former Attorney General Geoff Plant, the Citizens’ Assembly designer Gordon Gibson, Academic Director Ken Carty, political scientist Fred Cutler, assembly members Wendy Bergerud and Craig Henschel, and several others.

We also have some extra surprises in store. To give this event the public impact we are hoping for, we need your help to put it all together. If you like networking, event organizing and publicity, please volunteer to help us make this an evening to remember by dropping us a note.

Summer Recap:

While it’s a lot of fun to look forward, there were a few notable events in the summer that are also worth reflecting on. Here’s our lineup:

Bill C23 – (Un)Fair Elections Act Revised Under Pressure

The summer started (if you consider April summer!) with public protests about the so-called ‘Fair Elections Act’ passed by the federal Conservatives. Widely opposed by academics, most major newspapers, several former Elections Officers, many NGOs (including some in the US), and the opposition parties, as well as ostensible friends of the government such as Preston Manning and many of the government’s own Senators, the Conservatives finally amended the act to remove the most criticized provisions, but the act that was ultimately passed in May still complicates administrative processes in a way that is expected to deter voting and fails to give Elections Canada the powers the Chief Electoral Officer had requested to investigate electoral fraud.

Conservative Staffer Michael Sona Convicted for Robocalls

Two weeks ago, Conservative Party staffer Michael Sona was convicted of organizing fraudulent robocalls in Guelph aimed at voter suppression by misdirecting non-Conservative supporters to incorrect polling stations. While top-level party officials deny any involvement, the judge found that Sona was probably not acting alone. Ironically, there will likely be no further investigation because Elections Canada does not have sufficiently strong investigative powers, as they have been requesting since 2011. Sona will be sentenced in the fall.

In a related case heard last year that was brought by the Council of Canadians, the judge found that widespread fraud had occurred in the 2011 election (there were reports of such calls in about 200 ridings) and that the most likely source of the information used to make the calls was the Conservative Party’s Constituent Information Management System.

BC-FIPA Case Against ‘Gag Law’ Suffers Setback

We were deeply disappointed to learn in April that the FIPA (Freedom of Information and Privacy Association) case challenging the BC Liberal Party’s election law as unconstitutional for requiring individuals and other small entities to register before publishing a political opinion during an election was rejected by the BC Supreme Court [PDF]. The court did find that the law violates our Section 3 Right to Vote, but also ruled that the infringement was justified by the government’s objective of seeking to “increase transparency, openness and public accountability”. In our view, the government failed to make its case that small expenditures (say, below the $500 limit that exists at the federal level) can allow individuals to exert disproportionate influence over public political discourse. We were therefore heartened to learn that FIPA has filed an appeal in this case, and look forward to supporting FIPA if their appeal moves ahead. [read full judgement here]

Ontario Election Yields False Majority, But May Lead to Better Civic Voting

Ontario’s June election resulted in yet another example of a party winning undeserved majority powers – with only 39% of the popular vote, the Liberals took 54% of the seats, while the second place Conservatives, with 31% of the vote, took only 26% of the seats. On the positive side, Premier Wynne made a clear commitment to “give municipalities the option of using ranked ballots as an alternative to first-past-the-post in their own elections.” If they follow through, this could open the doors to similar changes here in BC – in particular, it could really help our Our City – Our Charter campaign.

So, some mixed news, but also two great opportunities to make a difference this fall. Please consider volunteering either for the Our City – Our Charter campaign or for the Citizens’ Assembly Celebration – we really need your help to pull these off!

Dear Democratic Reform Supporters:

Election Aftermath – Building the Case for Voting Reform

The results in the recent election took most of us by surprise – at least, those of us who were relying on publicly-released media polls. While there will be ongoing discussion and debate about this polling failure (we particularly recommend the honest, in-depth analysis of Eric Grenier), this election again confirmed some of the worst aspects of our current Single Member Plurality voting system:

• Half Of Us Are Orphaned Voters: As is typical, 49% of voters are now ‘represented’ by someone they did not vote for. There is no excuse for disenfranchising so many people when almost all other advanced democracies vote in ways that guarantee that nearly all voters help elect a candidate they support. If we were using the Single Transferable Vote recommended by the BC Citizens’ Assembly, we estimate that close to 90% of all voters would now have a representative they’d voted for.
• No Majority From Voters: As always, seat results bear scant relation to the popular vote results. In this election, the BC Liberals won 59% of the seats on 44% of the vote – a seat bonus of over 33%. Despite the voters not giving the Liberals majority support, the party will now control a solid majority of the seats and will have the power to do as they wish for the next four years instead of being in the position they actually earned – i.e., the senior partner in a government that would have to consult beyond its own party boundaries to win sufficient support to pass legislation.
• Over-Influence From Swing Ridings: Somewhat lost in the post-election discussion is that the outcomes in three quarters of the ridings in the province were never really in doubt. In Rafe Mair’s memorable phrase, a “fencepost with hair” could win in certain ridings if the right party label were attached. The election was really decided in about a dozen ridings, largely in the Lower Mainland and central BC. If 3000 voters in the 10 closest ridings in the province had voted for the NDP instead of the Liberals, we would now have an NDP majority government. In other words, a shift of under 0.2% in the popular vote in the ‘swing ridings’ could have moved 10% of the seats to the NDP. This pathological hypersensitivity of our voting system makes a mockery of most of our votes – regardless of which party or candidate we support, if we live in the safest 70 of the province’s 85 ridings, there was relatively little point in voting.
• Regionalization: Just like on the national stage, where the Bloc Quebecois dominated Quebec for years, the Reform, Alliance and Conservative Parties dominated the Prairies and the Liberals once dominated Ontario, here in BC our voting system means that Liberal party supporters have no representation throughout most of Vancouver Island and the North Coast, NDP supporters have no representation in central BC and the Fraser Valley, and Conservative and Green supporters have no representation anywhere outside of Oak Bay. A more proportional voting system would have given supporters of the two major parties representation in every region of the province and increased the chances that Conservative and Green voters would be represented at least in their areas of greatest strength.
• Poor Representation: The key idea behind proportional representation (PR) is that each voter is equally entitled to a representative of their own choosing. While party affiliation is the most common way to assess this, sociocultural aspects of representation are equally important. Our current voting system tends to encourage the election of middle-aged or older white men – roughly 30 of the 50 Liberals and half of the NDP are (arguably) in this category, even though middle-aged+ white men only make up about a quarter of BC’s population. South and East Asians make up nearly a quarter of the population, but only 12% of the MLAs, and no aboriginal MLAs were elected, despite aboriginals comprising 5% of the population (see census data). There was a bit of good news in terms of gender balance, though – the BC legislature broke 33% representation by women for the first time, but there’s still a ways to go to achieve parity. More proportional voting systems that encourage parties to put forward more diverse slates (in terms of gender, age, ethnicity and other factors) are needed to make more progress here.
• Voter Turnout: Although news reports seem to be saying that turnout went up slightly over 2009, we calculate that it possibly dropped to under 50% for the first time ever. The reason for the discrepancy is that the reported figure for 2013 (52%) appears to be the percentage of registered voters, while the figure for 2009 (51%) is the percentage of eligible voters (i.e., registered + unregistered). About 5-10% of eligible voters usually don’t get registered, so the turnout figure for eligible voters is typically 2.5-5% lower than for registered voters. While not as large a drop as from 2005 to 2009 (58% to 51%), it still indicates that, even in a close election, a decreasing number of us find it worthwhile to vote.

All of these results are absolutely typical of our current voting system. Interestingly, Premier Clark understands this perfectly. Just before the 2009 election, she argued strongly that voters should support STV. We recently issued a press release asking: Now that the Premier has the power to make the necessary changes, does she have the courage of her convictions?

What Now? Attend the Fair Vote Canada AGM in Vancouver, June 7-8

If last week’s election has you fired up to change our voting system, come on down to Fair Vote Canada’s AGM being held this year in Vancouver starting Friday evening, June 7, and running through until Saturday afternoon. There’s an exciting multi-partisan program planned featuring recent Liberal leadership candidate Joyce Murray talking about cross-party cooperation for federal reform, NDP MP Kennedy Stewart describing his online petition initiative and John Carpay (former head of the Alberta office of the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation, and now with the Canada Constitution Foundation) discussing conservative efforts to promote proportional representation. There will also be workshops by Idle No More on improving aboriginal representation and by FVBC director Stuart Parker on civic voting reform. Come on out, hear inspiring speakers, meet fellow reform supporters, realize you’re not alone in thinking things are crazy the way they are, and learn how you can contribute to change. [Register]

Help Build the Reform Movement – Share This Newsletter!

While you’re waiting for the FVC AGM, one of the simplest things you can do to help us build public support for changing how we vote is to introduce someone you know to Fair Voting BC. If you’ve spoken to someone in the last few days about how unfair our recent election was, please send them this newsletter as a follow up and invite/encourage/beg/plead with them to sign up for our newsletter by visiting our website and clicking on the ‘Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter‘ button. Then you can feel as virtuous as you did when you slapped on an “I Voted” sticker last week!

In Other News

While the BC election certainly captured our attention in recent weeks, there’s lots happening around the country. A few quick highlights: Vancouver last week announced the 16 top recommendations of its Engaged City Task Force [download report – PDF], the Federal Court hearing the Council of Canadians’ case against the Conservative Party’s robocall shenanigans found that serious fraud had occurred (though the judge shied away from annulling the election results) [see stories in Rabble, National Post and Globe & Mail], the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association’s challenge of the government’s gag law has been delayed, and the BC Internet Voting Panel is about to hold the first of its final set of three meetings over the summer, with an interim report scheduled for release in August – we’ll update you on all of these stories as we learn more.

Yours for a stronger democracy,

Antony Hodgson
President, Fair Voting BC

Three times now, Vancouver City Council has unanimously voted to ask the province to approve Justice Thomas Berger’s 2004 recommendation that it allow Vancouver to choose its own voting system, but it has yet to receive a reply.  In 2010, the province appointed the Local Government Elections Task Force to make recommendations relating to municipal elections, but they specifically excluded voting reforms.  Since the Task Force’s recommended measures are supposed to be introduced in the upcoming legislative session, Fair Voting BC met with Premier Christy Clark to solicit support for Vancouver’s thrice-issued request for increased autonomy.  The Premier sounded favourably inclined, but referred us to the minister responsible – Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development Bill Bennett.  We were therefore very disappointed to get a note from the minister recently telling us that the government won’t be considering any voting-related reforms for the foreseeable future.  As the May election approaches, we urge reform supporters to pressure your candidates to finally grant Vancouver’s longstanding request.

Fair Voting BC was an intervenor last fall when the BC government lost yet another bid to have the Court accept their gag law.  However, the Court’s ruling didn’t address our most significant concerns – namely, that the current law imposes unconstitutional restrictions on small entities.  The way the Act reads now, any communication with the public during an election period that is in any way related to an election issue or candidate counts as “election advertising”, so you must register with Elections BC – even if you didn’t spend a penny.  As the Chief Electoral Officer said in his 2010 report, this means that if you so much as put a handwritten sign in your window without registering with Elections BC, you risk a $10,000 fine and/or a year in jail.  This is an obvious and serious affront to free speech in BC.  We are therefore delighted to let you know that our co-intervenor, the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, has filed a Charter challenge in BC’s Supreme Court seeking to have the law struck down if the government fails to make amendments that respect citizens’ rights to free speech. Full information on the case can be found through FIPA’s website.

The BC team of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission (EBC) released their federal ridings redistribution report on January 28th.  In October, Fair Voting BC had asked them to follow the Nova Scotia Provincial EBC’s lead in recommending that the legislature consider how adopting proportional representation could substantially simplify and reduce the need for future changes to electoral boundaries.  Unfortunately, the BC EBC did not take our advice, although they briefly noted that “there were recommendations about changing the present first-past-the-post electoral system to provide for some form of proportional representation” without specifying the linkage between these recommendations and the implications for boundary-setting processes.

As if one robocall scandal weren’t enough, the Conservatives last week denied, then admitted, that they were behind robocalls in Saskatchewan aimed at interferring with the non-partisan Electoral Reform Commission’s proposals for redistributing seats in Saskatchewan.  Despite the fact the calls purported to come from an independent research company and did not alert those called that the Conservative Party had designed the ‘poll’ and was funding the calls, in contravention of CRTC regulations, the Prime Minister asserted that his party had followed the rules.  Liberal MP Ralph Goodale has asked the CRTC to investigate.

• Preston Manning: Redesigning Parliament? How about redesigning parliamentarians?
• Laurin Liu (NDP MP): How MPs can fix Parliament
• We don’t need politicians in charge. With technology, it’s time to put citizens first
• Ignatieff: Too much executive power is harming democracy
• Do MPs talk about your priorities in Parliament? Turns out, they do
• Wildrose or PQ Senators? Welcome to an elected red chamber
• Reinventing Parliament: What’s the one thing you would change?

In more local news, Vancouver announced the 22 members of its Engaged City Task Force last month.  Although the members of this task force have impressive pedigrees in citizen engagement, there was a lack of transparency in the selection process.  Some significant unanswered questions:  Who applied but was not chosen (eg, there are no members with an explicit focus on changing the electoral system to improve representation)?  Are there significant unrepresented groups?  (The Georgia Straight reported that indigenous activist Scott Clark was concerned that there are no aboriginal representatives).  And will the Task Force carry out any of its deliberations in public, invite input from the public or publish its preliminary recommendations for public comment prior to issuing its final report in June?  In the Straight article, Reimer is quoted as saying that “during the task force’s first informal meeting, members expressed an interest in incorporating the perspectives of groups not represented on the committee.”  This is promising, but Fair Voting BC urges the city to take this opportunity to be as inclusive and open as possible in its deliberations.

Finally, we are delighted to announce that there is a new Vancouver chapter of our sister organization, Fair Vote Canada.  FVBC board member Stuart Parker is the chapter president and they have several exciting initiatives getting underway, including a new study of options for electoral reform in the city of Vancouver that won’t require changes to the city charter.  Anyone interested in getting involved with FVC-Vancouver is invited to contact Stuart.