The BC Election

So there is an election coming soon to BC. For various reasons I am not in a position to comment too much on BC politics right now. I have, however had some time to go over some of the things with respect to the referendum on electoral change. So far, I have not come to a decision on the merits of the proposed system, however, I have some thoughts.

Often people say: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I am leaning towards support of the old system, but I am not convinced that it is without flaws. Here are some reasons why the First Past the Post (FPP) system that we have is not ideal:

• The proportionality problem: This is the problem of electing members by plurality instead of majority and consequently having a house whose numbers of sitting members do not reflect the proportion of votes the member's parties received.
• The independence problem: Members of a house are not independent enough of their parties to vote in the interest of what they see as the best interest of the province. This is a symptom of a system that requires candidates to staple their fortunes to the party ticket.
  
• The constituency problem: With a clearly defined constituency members are always able to fall back on the will of their constituency in order to avoid making hard decisions - that is right decisions that may seem unpopular.
• The Paucity of Parties Problem: Perhaps a side-effect of the proportionality problem the FPP system seems to discourage the establishment of new parties because of the difficulty in breaching the entrenched blocks of power. Federally this problem seems to have been beaten because 2 things: 1. The ready to hand blocks of voters that come by way of regional parties; and, 2, the large numbers of seats that are up for grabs that disperse the size of blocks that need tobeestablished in order to elect members.
  

I am not saying these are are the only problems or the most pressing, or even that one system can solve all of these problems and be attractive. Simply, I am saying that any opportunity to revise a system as important as our electoral system ought to be seized and the system examined for its merits. That opportunity ought not be wasted because of a smug satisfaction with a system that has worked and continues to work though is not perfect.