Full text agreement here.

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.

  • MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    20 hours ago

    Great question! In the very short term, sort of. (Though from the start I’d point out that it is much harder to envision a party like the AFD gaining traction in an FPTP system)

    PR causes 2 different styles of issues with the AFD. 1) It makes politics much less likely to produce significant or helpful change, so people don’t see meaningful political improvements in their lives and are more likely to turn to extremist parties like the AFD. and 2) Because the AFD has so many seats, the winning coalition has to be super broad, basically the same coalition of the Conservative and Progressives that was seen as ineffectual the last time around. Admittedly, this time they can exclude the Greens. The same reasons the previous government collapsed and led to such a significant rise in support for the AFD are still in effect.

    • Team Permanent DST@sfba.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      18 hours ago

      @MyBrainHurts living in the us I guess it feels like fptp is producing government that is every bit as unresponsive to people’s problems. (Really a lot more unresponsive, for the problems important to me, like climate and housing.) And given the choice between a party system where it’s a little hard to build a coalition that lasts more than a couple years, and a two party system with one party actively dismantling democracy; I’d so so happily take the first one.

      • MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        17 hours ago

        Yeah, a 2 party system is generally not very ideal. Here in Canada we’re lucky enough to have had multiple parties able to nudge one another into various directions.

        and a two party system with one party actively dismantling democracy; I’d so so happily take the first one.

        I’m not sure how PR would stop those attempts. And if anything, it could make them significantly worse.

        where it’s a little hard to build a coalition that lasts more than a couple years,

        It’s more that those coalitions have serious trouble creating significant legislation, which still leads to issues like housing and climate change legislation being very unlikely. Except worse, it’s now very hard to assign blame OR to propose bold reforms. So you just muddle through with things getting worse. There’s a reason so many PR systems have started producing great outcomes for hard right parties. (The sort of anti democratic, racist parties that make the republican party look almost progressive.)

          • MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            17 hours ago

            I strongly recommend reading about modern German politics. Actual AfD manifesto “Islam does not belong to Germany. Its expansion and the ever-increasing number of Muslims in the country are viewed by the AfD as a danger to our state, our society, and our values.” As much as we hate them, imagine the Republicans writing something like that in their manifesto.

            Yes, the Republican party is doing terrible things. But none of that would be stopped by a PR system. (Especially when the republicans won more than half the votes…)

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      19 hours ago

      What you’re seeing as a broad ineffective coalition happens in Canada within the parties themselves, prior to the election. They’re preconfigured to be broad and ineffective. The end result of ineffective governance is the same.

      An AfD in Canada takes root not as a separate party but as a faction of one of the large parties. They grow internally and either split or take over that party. Has happened to our PC party which got split in two, then reunited again under the extreme part’s leadership.

      The significant difference between that and PR which produces the AfD is that the dissenting voices are hidden and suppressed for much longer under our system. Either by their own parties, or by gaining no seats under a third party. Both of those don’t eliminate the problems that make people vote this way. They just delay the knowledge of those problems and therefore any serious solution. With PR the AfD shows up on the radar as soon as 5% of the people have a problem which makes them vote this way. The incumbent parties have an incentive to fix those problems much earlier. Sure they can do nothing and be ineffective but they could also decide to do something. Or there could emerge another party that rises up to address what they wouldn’t. In our system that’s basically impossible. Meanwhile in Germany, De Linke got 9%.

      • MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        17 hours ago

        What you’re seeing as a broad ineffective coalition happens in Canada within the parties themselves, prior to the election

        Sort of? That coalition still comes forward with a set of proposals that they generally have a chance to enact (or, they choose not to and bear the electoral consequences for it.) This is different than going forward with a set of proposals, then in a murky set of compromises behind close doors with multiple parties, some other result happens. How to assign blame or credit?

        Has happened to our PC party which got split in two, then reunited again under the extreme part’s leadership.

        Come on. I don’t think a serious or well informed adult can honestly look at the PC party and say that it is seriously comparable to the Hard Right like the AfD. While some of those folks are swept up into a faction, their outcomes get moderated by the PC party because of the FPTP incentives to appeal to a broad swathe of the electorate.

        They just delay the knowledge of those problems and therefore any serious solution.

        I mean, you’ve seen this learning happen pretty quickly to the Liberal party. People got fed up about inflation and housing, started abandoning the party. There’s a reason the guy who crushed the Liberal party election was the only one who could credibly say he’d had nothing to do with those bad decisions.

        Like, political parties aren’t only informed about public opinion during elections. (Otherwise, their campaign promises and platforms would just be wild guesses.) There’s all sorts of public opinion polling etc. And thanfully, we have a strong system that can address these issues instead of just muddle through with a coalition that’s too broad to actually address those issues.

        Look at Germany. Does it seem likely that the coalition government will be able to do anything about the AfD or will they just muddle through while the problems fester and the AfD gets more popular? I’d put heavy money on the latter. Whereas Canada, has already started broad plans to create housing etc (these are the sorts of plans that take a long time to materialize, a sad irony about the upcoming election is that whatever party wins will likely be credited for dealing with housing developments spurred by the current Liberal government.)

        • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          13 hours ago

          I was referring to the federal PC party which no longer exists. First, the right-wing populist Reform Party split from it, then eventually the two merged again to form the current CPC party, with Stephen Harper from Reform becoming the leader and eventually PM of Canada. The PC party was unable to moderate its extreme elements and it ceased to exist.

          I mean, you’ve seen this learning happen pretty quickly to the Liberal party. People got fed up about inflation and housing, started abandoning the party.

          I beg to differ. Housing was a serious problem when they came to power under Trudeau in 2015. They campaigned on doing something about it. They did nothing significant for 9 years and let the problem get worse and worse to the point where Ontario has 80000 homeless people today.

          People only abandoned the LPC when things got so bad they thought the CPC may do something even though they’d be worse in many other respects. Many people don’t even try voting third or fourth party because they have experiences with their votes being lost due to FPTP. Instead they keep voting for the ineffectual party they prefer till some issue gets so bad that it seems the party worse for them might do better on that issue.

          What we just witnessed with the replacement of the LPC leader without an election is pretty unprecedented and exceptional. This is not how things typically work. Normally the LPC would have stayed the course, lost the next election, have the CPC for 4-8 years and maybe then have a changed LPC that has learned a lesson and ready to do something about housing. Meanwhile the CPC would have let the problem get even worse as their policies are also ineffectual in that regard.

          Finally, I also believe the AfD will grow but I think there’s a chance for De Linke to grow with it and force the next-next government to do something about the issues AfD voters are facing.