There was a hint Friday that rural and northern British Columbians are less than enthusiastic about the implications of the referendum next fall on changing the voting system.
Why else would Attorney General David Eby issue reassurances specifically to them that their views would be taken into account?
Eby scheduled a brief news conference that was billed as a reminder to take part in the public-engagement process about the referendum. There are no breakdowns yet of the input. But there must be some reason Eby tried to placate a specific segment of the vote.
“We want to hear from all British Columbians from every corner of the province, including those in rural and northern parts, not only those in metropolitan areas.”
He said the government has heard about the importance of rural representation.
“I’d like to be clear: B.C. is strong because it is more than just the sum of its cities. The opposition and British Columbians raised concerns in the legislature regarding how future systems would impact representation of rural areas. “I take these concerns very seriously.”
He encouraged everyone to provide feedback on how to address those concerns and “make everyone feel more represented in government.”
The government website on the topic (engage.gov.bc.ca/howwevote/) has had 31,000 visits, and 11,000 people have filled out the questionnaire. Eby said the input has been “significant.”
That’s debatable. A similar engagement process on liquor-policy reform four years ago got 76,000 web visits over a similar period of time. Voting systems interest some, but drinking laws look to be far more compelling.
The participants in this round so far have raised ideas that the government might well respond to when it issues the regulations that will govern the referendum campaign.
Eby selected one major new concept to air publicly — having a second referendum two election cycles after the first one. He said there’s support from the public for the idea of testing some form of proportional representation for two elections, then holding another referendum on whether to stay with the new system or revert to the old one.
“The feedback points out that one of the main reasons electoral reform is rare is because the party in power elected under a specific system may be resistant to changing the system that led to their victory. This would be true under proportional representation, as well, which is why it could be important that British Columbians and not political parties have the final say about whether to keep the new system, once they’ve had experience with both systems.”
B.C. Liberal MLA Mike Bernier (Peace River South) said the predominant view among people in his riding is that they aren’t going to be heard in the referendum; they’ll be drowned out by the southern metro areas. Eby said earlier the low approval threshold (50 per cent plus one) is “hard-wired” and won’t be changed no matter what the consultation finds.
Bernier and the rest of his caucus are opposed to the referendum and to proportional representation. He said the indifference so far is “scary,” because they need all hands on deck to campaign against the change.
Another concern is the uncertainty over what exactly the choice will be in the referendum.
Proportional representation is a term that covers various different systems, but which one will be offered as an option won’t be worked out for months. There might be more than one offered on the ballot.
The general concern outside of metro areas is that the change could involve consolidating some ridings to free up some seats in the house that would be apportioned to the parties based on their share of the vote. And the most likely regions to lose seats would be rural areas, where geographically huge ridings would get even bigger.
So they’ll be vastly outnumbered by city-dwellers in a vote that could change their ridings more dramatically that elsewhere. But none of the details will be known for months.
In a conference call from Seoul on Friday, Premier John Horgan said the Liberals have been spreading misinformation about the vote.
People have until Feb. 28 to set each other straight in the engagement process.
