2024 BC Election Update

Fair Voting BC recently reached out to the various political parties running in this year’s election to ask for their positions on democratic reform issues. We received a statement from the BC Greens, an acknowledgement from the BC NDP (but no statement), and no response from the Conservative Party of BC. We have also reviewed the party platforms and summarized below key points from their platforms (and from their response, in the case of the BC Green Party):

• BC Green Party:
  • In their statement, the Greens make two key promises of special interest to electoral reformers:
    • introduce legislation to implement a Proportional Representation system for the 2028 election
    • establish a biennial Citizens’ Assembly, with the first topic to be discussed [being] the type of voting system to adopt for the 2028 election
  • In the democracy section of their platform, the Greens reiterate these promises to implement proportional voting in 2028 and to establish a biennial Citizens’ Assembly. In addition, they propose to lower the voting age to 16, reform parliamentary practices to promote transparency and encourage collaboration between parties, and change executive practices to proactively release information and support meaningful consultation.
• BC NDP:
  • Under the Effective Government section of their platform, makes no mention of voting or campaign financing issues.
• Conservative Party of BC:
  • We could find no reference to voting or campaign financing issues on the CPBC platform.
• BC United:
  • Although BC United has withdrawn from this election, several former candidates are running as independents. The BC United “Where We Stand” page does not list any democratic-reform-related issues.

More broadly, CBC has published a brief overview of the parties’ positions on a number of issues, though not on anything related to democratic reform.

In summary, of the parties and candidates running in this year’s election, only the BC Greens have shown any recognition of the need for democratic reform. We recommend that voters take this into consideration in determining who to vote for.

What We’re About:

What’s Wrong With How We Vote?

Listen to Andrew Coyne’s humorous explanation of how our current voting system fails to deliver even the basics of what we think our democracy should look like. His punch line?

In sum, the present system allows the minority to rule over the majority, it gives some voters many times the voting power of others, it denies many voters the right to vote for the party of their choice, and wastes the vote of many others. Oh, and it almost killed the country a couple of times besides. Other than that, it’s a pretty good system.

Andrew Coyne, 2016

If a party’s candidates only win 40% of the vote, they shouldn’t win all the power – 40% of the vote should mean 40% of the seats.  You should never have to hold your nose and not vote for your preferred candidate, just because you’re worried about someone else you like less getting in.  And no matter where you live in BC, you shouldn’t be shut out of government, the way the Interior is now.  It’s time for your vote to really count, to make politicians more accountable to you.  It’s time for a proportional voting system that will make sure all voices are included in government.

We’re Going to Court!