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
    11·
    13 hours ago

    Buddy, keep your positions straight!

    This:

    The onus isn’t on me to demonstrate why either of PR or FPTP is better. The baseline is what is mathematically demonstrated to be true: that PR produces governments that maximize representation for its people. It doesn’t make any claims about anything else you want to bring in like human rights.

    Is fundamentally incompatible with this:

    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.

    Unless, what human rights shouldn’t count as a factor in what a good electoral system is? That’s wild and insane. If your side requires you to say “hey, we’re not judging about the merits of human rights here” then it’s not a particularly good side.

    And saying stuff like this:

    The “toxic consequence” you point out isn’t unique to PR, it’s an inherent characteristic of democracy. You haven’t established this to be unique to PR, this is a characteristic inherent to democracy.

    Just lets us know you haven’t thought this through. Giving small extremist groups power is a consequence of PR that is largely mitigated in FPTP. It’s why the AFD doesn’t have a politcally viable analog here. It’s literally how the systems work. Just a quick recap: in PR basically any group that gets over a certain threshold gets that many seats, which makes extremist minority parties much more viable. But in a FPTP system, barring incredible regional variation, that’s almost impossible. This is one of the page 1 textbook arguments against PR. Not understanding it or pretending not to doesn’t endear anyone to your cause.

    • AlolanVulpix@lemmy.caOPMEnglish
      2·
      9 hours ago

      Unless, what human rights shouldn’t count as a factor in what a good electoral system is? That’s wild and insane

      You’re right, it is wild and insane. But not for the reasons you’re thinking, but rather for the reasons that electoral systems don’t have morality. In the same way 2+2=4 doesn’t mean anything other than that. Blame the culture, not the electoral system.

      Giving small extremist groups power is a consequence of PR that is largely mitigated in FPTP

      Yes, why give small extremist groups power, when you can give large minority extremist groups power. FPTP doesn’t even set out to mitigate small extremist groups, and it can easily be gamed. And again you don’t have a response to the following: at least in PR every single policy enacted has majority support, unlike in FPTP where the majority is trampled over.

      Again, I repeat: taking a page from your playbook: so you’re totally okay with a system that denies constitutional rights to the vast majority of the population? And you know you can’t answer that, because a system that denies representation is anti-democratic.

      Bottom line is this, if we live in a democracy, we are entitled to and deserving of representation in government. Yes, there exist bad people, but that doesn’t mean they should lose their constitutional rights, otherwise what’s the point of rights in the first place? And who is the decider of who is good and bad, in no way shape or form does FPTP address that.

      You are trying to take a nuke to the bad guys. And are minimizing all the actual harm being caused. In the process, you hurt everyone else as collateral, throw democracy and people’s constitutional rights to the fire. This is not acceptable by any reasonable person (yes, you aren’t reasonable).

      All PR does, is restore the system that should actually already be there. A proportional representation is a fundamental aspect of democracy itself, and to say otherwise is inherently anti-democratic.

      In every single FPTP election, you infringe on people’s right to representation in government. These hate groups already exist, and electoral systems do nothing to change that, as you so ardently attest to otherwise.

      If you want to fight hate groups, don’t deny people their constitutional rights to representation to do so. That’s an insane loss, that you have no damn right to be taking away in the first place.

      FPTP literally does nothing to prevent extremists. The most problematic extremist is a person who doesn’t recognize reality – that in a democracy, yes you’ll get all kinds of people, but that’s how it works. Your points brought up for efficiency don’t always apply to every FPTP governed country, look at how much waste fraud and abuse there is down south, and to think that our governments are efficient?

      You still haven’t answered several fundamental points:

      1. That FPTP is less democratic than PR.
      2. The benefits of FPTP “preventing” extremists, outweigh the costs of people losing their right to representation in government, as they are entitled to in a democracy.
      3. If FPTP truly does prevent extremists, in the first place (when a candidate can technically get any % of the vote and be elected). You just assumed this without demonstrating any evidence of this.
      4. If PR enables extremists, beyond what a direct democracy would have. Otherwise, PR performs no worse than any ordinary democracy.
      5. Why a minority of the population should be able to govern on behalf of all.
      6. Why a minority of the population, isn’t already the “hate groups” that you are so desperately trying to avoid under PR.
      7. Why a person who believes that people shouldn’t have representation in a democracy, isn’t themselves an extremist, and already having a stranglehold on our supposed democracy. When 62% of Ontarians support proportional representation, and yet we still don’t have it, how is the current government “effective” as you say under FPTP systems? And yet you still insist on FPTP? No you are anti-democratic.
      8. If FPTP is truly so amazing, and PR so terrible, why there isn’t a person in a PR country advocating for FPTP as hard as I am advocating for PR?
      9. Why do you presume that it is impossible/infeasible to limit extremism under PR?

      I also really want an update on this one:

      The ability of small parties to hold a majority hostage…This caaaaaaaaan happen in a fptp system but is much less likely.

      We already have a small minority holding the majority hostage. And this isn’t the exception, virtually all elections under FPTP, a minority strangles the majority.