Public dialogue closes down

When the Government of British Columbia announced that it would look at election reform after the last election in 2001, I have to admit that I was skeptical. Lots of political parties promise this kind of thing, but once they get elected, they discover that the system as it is suits them fine and the promise is forgotten.

But not this time. To the credit of the government, they launched a comprehensive project to look at electoral options which became one of the most interesting processes in the world. They randomly selected a man and a woman from each riding in the province and put them to work on an electoral body called the Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform. After a year of meetings and deliberation, the Assembly recommended that BC consider changing from the traditional “first past the post” Westminister Parliamentary system to a Single Transferable Vote (.pdf) system like the one used in Ireland and New Zealand. The next step in the process is for people to get educated about this and cast a vote for or against it during our provincial election on May 17th.

And so the process of educating and advocating for and against the proposal kicks in. Of course you might think that weblogs might play a role in all of this, but it turns out that that isn’t the case. Elections BC has ruled that as of March 1, blogs set up for the purposes of advancing one side or the other must register and become part of the official election advertising. Failure to do so could net you a $5000 fine. Now there is nothing on the Elections BC website yet about this, but I’ll keep looking for it.

In the meantime I can tell you that I’m voting for the STV option, both because it will change the ridiculously polarized nature of politics in this province and because I have deep respect for the process and the way the proposal was developed. It would be a shame if Elections BC were to see it differently. After nearly two years of open dialogue and conversation, I would hate to see it all grind to a halt now that an actual decision is in the offing.