Citizens' Forum on Public Policy

Many folks have been asking about proportional representation lately--looking for a concrete example. Consider:

If, instead of micro-tinkering with the addition of four more seats to the legislature, the government had added 25 seats to be distributed in a way to maximixe the proportionally of the legislature. 

Let's assume the "worst case scenario" that the 75 "Constituency Seats" would be captured by 75 Liberals, zero to all the others. But let's also assume that the distribution of votes would be Liberal--65%; Green--15%; NDP--14%; and Other--6%. The allocation of the 25 "Extra Seats" that would move the proportionality of the legislature most in line with the will of the people would be: Liberal--0; Green--11; NDP--10; and Other--4. Note that this would not make the legislature fully proportional--it would take 35 extra seats to do this. Nevertheless, the new legislature would look like: Liberal 75; Green--11; NDP--10 and Other--4. Not a healthy diversity, but far, far healthier that a full sweep.

This is just a nutshell of one possibility. There are many other electoral reforms that alone or in combination will make our government(s) more democratic and accountable to the people who elect them. The local Chapter of the Council of Canadians, I understand, will be focusing on "Democracy" at its monthly public meeting on Thursday May 17 at 7:00 pm at the Community Action Centre--corner of 4th and England--across from the Funeral Home. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the renaissance of democracy.

"I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it. "--Eugene  Debs 

Dave Ferguson
Courtenay