B.C. New Democrat and B.C. Greens finalize agreement - BC Green Caucus
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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.caEnglish
    13·
    1 day ago

    Okay, so if I’m advocating for direct democracy, it’s more democratic than PR. So, this is PR vs non PR.

    Or, do you not actually care about democracy? Because earlier it seemed that the only thing that mattered to an electoral system was how democratic it was. Hard to argue direct democracy is less democratic than PR…

    • AlolanVulpix@lemmy.caOPMEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      You are trying to make the case that FPTP is better than PR. That’s the discussion we are having, so stop moving the goal posts.

      If you want to have a serious discussion, let’s have it, but don’t play these nonsense games of dodging inconvenient facts.

      • MyBrainHurts@lemmy.caEnglish
        12·
        1 day ago

        I’m just seeing how your logic plays out. You can’t have it wherein “if I’m talking about PR, then all that matters is how democratic a system is” AND “if I’m talking about any other system, then the practicalities and consequences matter.”

        You’ve been arguing that PR is the best system because it is the most democratic. I’m pointing out that there are more democratic systems.

        As you stated above, your principles:

        1. In a democracy, we are entitled to and deserving of representation in government.
        1. I am not trying to argue whether democracy (and by proxy PR) itself is successful (or unsuccesful), because that is an entirely different discussion.

        So, according to the two principles you’ve laid out, direct democracy seems superior to PR.

        Edited to include your quotes about the context/reminding you of the goal posts which you chose.

        • AlolanVulpix@lemmy.caOPMEnglish
          2·
          1 day ago
          1. PR can be demonstrated to be mathematically superior to winner-take-all such as FPTP. So this is the baseline.
          2. You are making the claim that FPTP is superior to PR. The onus is on you to demonstrate your claim.
          3. I am not saying one way or another whether there are more democratic systems than PR, because it’s not relevant to the discussion. I am not the one bringing up a controversial claim that is unsupported by the current evidence.
          4. Stop trying to move the goal posts by changing the objective, that you must demonstrate.
          5. You haven’t established the case that there are problems that are unique to PR, that you wouldn’t find in a (direct) democracy. This is a big problem with many of the points you are bringing up.
          • MyBrainHurts@lemmy.caEnglish
            13·
            1 day ago

            So, are you running away from the two principles that you laid out above? I’m just pointing out here that you seem to move the goal posts to whatever is convenient. When you are defending PR, all that matters is how democratic something is. When I bring up direct democracy, all of a sudden, the costs and practical consequences matter.

            You cannot have it both ways.

            And are you confusing me with someone else? My very original point was

            Please, anything but full PR. Please. In a polarized landscape PR is leading to increasingly bad outcomes (Israel, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Poland etc.) In a PR system, the Far Right would be running France.

            • AlolanVulpix@lemmy.caOPMEnglish
              3·
              1 day ago

              So, are you running away from the two principles that you laid out above

              I suppose so…? At the end of the day, PR can be demonstrated to be mathematically superior to FPTP, and you have not provided arguments that also couldn’t be made against any ordinary democracy.

              I’m not scared to say that a direct democracy is more democratic than PR. But this is not new information, nor is it in contention. What is in contention is whether PR is democratically superior to FPTP.

              To say “anything but full PR” necessarily implies that you believe PR is worse than FPTP. Again, you have yet to demonstrate this claim. I’m waiting for you to get back on topic.

              • MyBrainHurts@lemmy.caEnglish
                13·
                1 day ago

                So, are you running away from the two principles that you laid out above

                I suppose so…?

                Okay, then this:

                What is in contention is whether PR is democratically superior to FPTP.

                Doesn’t really make sense. You can’t just say “when we’re talking about PR vs FPTP, what matters is whether PR is more democratic” but then when Direct Democracy vs PR is the question, all of a sudden it doesn’t matter which is more democratic.

                So again, what are the principles by which you are judging PR to be a good or bad choice? If it is purely, which is the most democratic system, then direct democracy blows PR out of the water…

                If you want an answer to the question “which is better, PR or FPTP” you have to have criteria to use as judgement. And again, if that criteria is only “which is more democratic” then why aren’t you advocating direct democracy?

                • AlolanVulpix@lemmy.caOPMEnglish
                  2·
                  22 hours ago

                  Oh boy…

                  what are the principles by which you are judging PR to be a good or bad choice? If it is purely, which is the most democratic system, then direct democracy blows PR out of the water…

                  You want me to say that I am using more factors to judge an electoral system than measures of democracy alone? Yes, that’s true, but I’ve literally never pretended it was anything otherwise. Because I live in reality, where I know a direct democracy is impractical. But everyone knows that, and it adds no value to the conversation, because the true contention is of FPTP vs PR.

                  And then you’re going to ask me how I know a direct democracy is impractical… And then I’ll say, how does this demonstrate which of FPTP or PR is better…

                  if that criteria is only “which is more democratic” then why aren’t you advocating direct democracy?

                  Because it’s not the only criteria. You thought you had me trapped in a corner, didn’t you?

                  The feasibility of the electoral system was always a presupposition.

                  You know what’s even better than a direct democracy? If we could clone everyone’s “spirit”, and have the spirit legislate on behalf of the person, while the person just lives their life (similar to Severance!). But that’s entirely impossible, so it’s not for consideration in the first place.

                  So overall, you’re quite the skilled debater conversationalist. But you play dirty to get it to appear like you can win arguments.

                  I’m going to re-insert a link to my prior comment, that is still unanswered.

                  At the end of this whole conversation, you still haven’t gotten to demonstrating why FPTP is better than PR. Instead, you’ve wasted mine and everyone else’s time by going on wild tangents and playing games.

                  It’s conversations like this that demonstrate to me just how out of touch the no-PR side is. Thanks to you, I now have almost sort of a renewed vigour to push for full PR.

                  • MyBrainHurts@lemmy.caEnglish
                    11·
                    9 hours ago

                    You want me to say that I am using more factors to judge an electoral system than measures of democracy alone? Yes, that’s true, but I’ve literally never pretended it was anything otherwise.

                    That’s simply untrue! I’m not sure if you’re forgetful or honestly don’t remember what you write but here are a handful of examples in our brief exchange:

                    Here’s me pointing out some of the toxic consequences and you just handwaving it because hey, people got what they voted for.

                    Take Germany for example. Just like here, a small minority of people would vote for really hateful parties that are toxic and should be avoided How is that a “bad outcome” when it’s literally what people voted for. Electoral systems are not supposed to decide the ideological makeup of government.

                    Or, here you are deciding you don’t actually want to talk about the successes of failures of PR and all that matters is how good it is at measuring democracy:

                    I’m not about to have a full discussion about PR causing success or not. I’m sure there are already articles written on it. However, if we live in a democracy, we are deserving of and entitled to representation in government, and only proportional representation can get us there. A democracy necessarily requires everyone having a seat at the table, and in a representative democracy, vote percentage must equal seat percentage.

                    Heck, here you are explicitly saying all that matters in this conversation is how democratic PR is:

                    In a democracy, we are entitled to and deserving of representation in government. I am not trying to argue whether democracy (and by proxy PR) itself is successful (or unsuccesful), because that is an entirely different discussion.

                    Heck, this nonsense:

                    PR can be demonstrated to be mathematically superior to winner-take-all such as FPTP. So this is the baseline.

                    Is **entirely **defining superior as measuring democracy.

                    What’s happened here is I think that as a way to deflect any actual criticism of PR you reflexively go into a “all that matters is how democratic the outcome is, I don’t care about any other consequences.” But, I think you’re starting to see that’s not a particularly cogent dodge because there are systems that would produce a more democratic outcome, so now you’re trying to backpedal.

                    But, now that you concede that yes, okay, the consequences of the system matter, let’s go back to the initial points about why FPTP is better.

                    Similarly, you’ll see in Israel where mainstream parties are held hostage by relatively small extremist parties leading to horrific outcomes that are generally not supported by the public.

                    Take Germany for example. Just like here, a small minority of people would vote for really hateful parties that are toxic and should be avoided

                    Your original response: How is that a “bad outcome” when it’s literally what people voted for. Electoral systems are not supposed to decide the ideological makeup of government.

                    So, here, you’re totally okay with a system that puts hate groups in positions of power?

                    Basically, and I wish I still remembered some of the course books, but some of the interesting first year poli sci courses (I think Stanford or Harvard have some online for free. If you’re interested I’ll look for a one for you) are exactly about the tension between democracies and human rights. That tension is why most democracies (including ours) have Charters of Rights and Freedoms that outline things that are so important that we say no matter what people vote for, they have these protections. The point here is that yes, democracy is a good thing but it is not the only good. If you have a system that tends to produce poor outcomes (large coalition governments unable to pass significant legislation, hate groups getting chokeholds on government etc) then those outcomes can outweigh the goodness of democracy.