Section 3 – Policy Initiatives & 2025 Deliverables
11. Democratic and Electoral Reform
The Parties will work together to create a special legislative all-party committee to evaluate and recommend policy and legislation measures to be pursued beginning in 2026 to increase democratic engagement & voter participation, address increasing political polarization, and improve the representativeness of government. The committee will review and consider preferred methods of proportional representation as part of its deliberations. The Government will work with the BCGC to establish the detailed terms of reference for this review, which are subject to the approval of both parties. The terms of reference will include the ability to receive expert and public input, provide for completion of the Special Committee’s work in Summer 2025, and public release of the Committee’s report within 45 days of completion. The committee will also review the administration of the 43rd provincial general election, including consideration of the Chief Electoral Officer’s report on the 43rd provincial general election, and make recommendations for future elections.
You don’t see how abhorrent racist parties taking power is a bad outcome?
Yes. We’ve just passed a national school lunch program, are working on affordable day care and expanding healthcare to cover dental work. For better or worse, the Liberals have a very clear record you can vote on, whether you think they allowed too much immigration or you support their work on childcare, they have a clear record that they own and we are thus able to vote on it. This is not possible in a PR system. (What were the things your party actually made happen vs the results of messy compromises with a dozen parties? In the German context, as they’ll need literally every party to avoid working with the AFD, how are you possibly able to apportion blame or praise on any party?)
Again, I refer you to your quote: “The responsibility of the electoral system is to ensure **effective **representation in government” I’m pointing out that there are trade offs. You could establish 100% representation but it would be terrible. Similarly, sure you can argue that PR leads to more representation but that doesn’t mean that it is effective representation.
The ability of small parties to hold a majority hostage. Think about the extreme right in Israel, who despite being fairly unpopular are pushing ahead some fairly aggressive anti-Palestinian moves. This caaaaaaaaan happen in a fptp system but is much less likely.
That’s not at all what I’ve said.
In the short run, if you can vote for any party but none of the parties are able to really affect change, how democratic or useful is your vote?
In the long run, it leads to more people being willing to abandon democracy as PR systems tend to be unable to deliver significant change. If democracy doesn’t help, more people are willing to turn to autocrats.
I’m not making a position on whether a particular ideology is good or bad. In a democracy, people are entitled to and deserving of representation. If you don’t like that, then you are against democracy itself. If that is what people voted for, then they are entitled to a representative that aligns with their interests. Once again, electoral systems are not supposed to determine the ideological makeup of government.
To suggest that these policies are solely thanks to an electoral system is nonsensical. The point I was making was that in non-PR systems, we have members that too often don’t vote their conscience, and just keep in line with party policy.
So you’ve never seen mixed-member proportional (MMP)? And what aspect of our FPTP system allows you to vote for parties???
Yes, that is a characteristic inherent of democracy itself. Are you arguing for autocracy?
By effective representation, I mean every vote would actually elect someone. I don’t mean that every single person would have a dedicated representative (nor even resembling that notion).
So yes, when you say “pure democracy where every bill, item etc was voted on by everyone” versus “an autocracy can pass perfect and brilliant legislation but is completely un democratic”, the axis you are referring to is concentration of power.
Whereas PR vs non-PR doesn’t really deal with that, it’s more about whether votes actually elect someone. This is really getting into semantics, but the takeaway is that we aren’t having the same conversation.
We already have a small minority holding the majority hostage.
Virtually every single majority government has been a minority holding the majority hostage… You really need to do your research.
It’s definitely better than being strangled by a minority, like we have all the time.
True democracy is extremely slow, but that doesn’t we should abandon our principles just to maintain a broken and unfair winner-take-all electoral system.
I’m sorry, but the points you raised are problems with democracy itself, not inherently with PR. PR only gets us closer to the ideals of democracy, and democracy is extremely flawed, slow, and yes can be strangled, but at the very least, policies must be enacted with majority support.
The notion that we should maintain our systems because we can pass more legislation (despite how unpopular it might be), is ridiculous and goes against the principles of democracy itself.
What benefits does FPTP achieve? It doesn’t do anything it sets out to do, it doesn’t guarantee local representation (we can have parachute candidates), it doesn’t guarantee effective representation (we have many votes cast that elect nobody), and FPTP isn’t even supposed to do any of the things you laud it for doing!
You haven’t even addressed the point about PR electoral systems being mathematically superior to FPTP… perhaps because it doesn’t fit your narratives? PR can be mathematically demonstrated to have its citizens better off, every single time than FPTP (or any winner-take-all system for that matter).
I’m saddened that you are cherry picking particular pieces of evidence to support your case, and you are so staunchly opposed to PR. I think about, if there is anything possible to change your mind, and since the answer is likely no, then there is no point in discussing further (not that I am opposed to it). Because, it’s not clear what objective you want to achieve in an electoral system, that isn’t a problem with democracy itself.
You are correct, we aren’t talking about the same thing. I am talking about the actual mechanics and serious downsides of PR. You seem to be talking about how PR does one thing well and then leaping to the conclusion that it is a good thing. Personally, I care about people and the country and PR would harm both. (To you, it seems the harms are just, well, other people’s problems.)
It is utterly irresponsible to advocate for a system with significant downsides and then casting pointing out those downsides as not being a fan of democracy.
Have a good night.
Well, this is a good example of evading the points being made…
Me too, I recognize when options are mathematically superior.
I could literally say the same thing about FPTP! Again, at least with PR, every single policy that is enacted is supported by the majority, can you say that about FPTP?
I agree, FPTP is the least democratic option when choosing democratic electoral systems.
And yet you still haven’t been able to refute the point, only complain about it. Yes, the downsides you bring up about PR are the same downsides you would have in a democracy, and provide no tangible upsides for FPTP…