Vancouver could see a greater mix of minority parties in upcoming elections if a BC NDP/Green Party of BC coalition gets its say.
Premier Christy Clark will almost certainly have to step down when she recalls the legislature in the next few weeks, ceding power to the coalition of the two parties — who say they plan to hold a referendum on proportional representation (PR), likely in conjunction with the municipal elections in October 2018.
Both parties will actively campaign for the yes vote, according to Cowichan Valley MLA and Green Party member Sonia Furstenau.
PR has gone to a referendum twice previously in BC. In 2005, an STV (single transferrable vote) referendum, put forward by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, fell just shy of the 60 per cent popular vote it needed to pass. A second referendum on STV in 2009 fared much worse following a divisive campaign that resulted in less than 40 per cent support from BC voters.
Elections under PR
The results of the last provincial election would have looked very different under a PR system, says Richard Johnston, a professor of political science at the University of BC and Canada Research Chair in public opinion, elections and representation.
“If the shackles were removed from anti-socialist voters in this province, the relative balance between Conservatives and Liberals would shift dramatically, and the BC Liberal Party might be in serious trouble,” Johnston said.
As Lydia Miljan, a political science associate professor at the University of Windsor, sees it: “The complaint against [our current] first-past-the-post (FPTP) system in Canada is that it’s virtually impossible since basically 1984 for a government to get a majority of the votes and seats.”
This is because the more parties there are, the more competition there is and, thus, the more compromise from politicians and voters. Under PR, she says, the reality would likely be more of both: parties and compromises.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if that’s what the electorate wants, says York University political scientist Dennis Pilon, who specializes on democracy and democratic reform in Western countries and has authored and co-edited several books on related subjects, including Politics and Government in British Columbia.
Compromise is part of the political process, says Pilon, and he believes the system is more democratic when parties best represent the interests of their electorate.
“Most Western countries use PR,” including Italy, New Zealand, Germany and Sweden. “Most of them switched to it around the First World War and it was done in the context of those countries becoming democratic,” he notes.
The majority of voters cast their vote for a party and not the candidate, he says, which is one of the reasons why “a proportional system is more accurate” and “allows for each vote to have equal weight in terms of the results.”
Looking back to the May 9, 2017 BC election, the breakdown of votes for the top three parties in City of Vancouver ridings was as follows:
|
Party |
Votes |
% of votes |
# of seats |
|
NDP |
114,577 |
52% |
8 (73%) |
|
Liberals |
69,942 |
32% |
3 (27%) |
|
Greens |
34,357 |
16% |
0 (0%) |
|
TOTAL |
218,876 |
100% |
11 (100%) |
*Statistics taken from Elections BC.
The Liberals won almost a third of the popular vote, but less than a third of the seats, and the Greens won no seats despite having 16 per cent of the popular vote. Under a hypothetical PR system, the 11 Vancouver ridings may well have had more Liberal and Green MLAs.
Both the NDP and Greens say they will consult with British Columbians before deciding what form of PR — there are several different types, including STV and mixed-member proportional representation — to put to a referendum.
It remains to be seen how BC voters will side. But what is clear is that, should the referendum pass, BC would be the first province in Canada to use a fully PR system for provincial elections, and the results will likely shake up our local representation.
