by Rod Taylor, CHP-BC Interim Leader
For more than 30 years, the Christian Heritage Party of Canada has supported the concept of Proportional Representation. The current system (First Past the Post) is flawed and—as its critics say—often allows individual candidates to win with much less than 50% support. If enough candidates from one party win, they can form a government with all the power, sometimes ruling brutally along narrow partisan lines.
So why would I not be cheerfully supporting change in the upcoming BC referendum on this question?
Because the questions are rigged and the writing is on the wall. Since taking power last year with less than half the seats in the BC Legislature (thanks to the 3 PR-promoting Green MLAs who agreed to prop them up), John Horgan’s NDP government has moved inexorably to bring the question of PR to a provincial referendum designed not only to change the way we vote but to change the way we live in this province—permanently!
The simplest explanation as to why I will vote against this change is this: if we had had this type of PR in the 2017 election, we would now have 15 Green MLAs instead of only 3. If you make any kind of a living in a resource industry or if you think responsible resource extraction is a legitimate career, you must see that a permanent NDP/Green coalition government will create so many obstacles to resource and energy development that investment and jobs will eventually disappear.
30 years ago, the majority of Canadians held a Christian worldview—even those who did not consider themselves “religious”. Today, after decades of brainwashing in our public schools and universities, many voters of all ages have relegated biblical morality to the ash heap. The constant barrage of articles and opinions on topics like “climate change” and CO2 have caused many people to shift their moral priorities from defending life, marriage and freedom to simply calling for an end to the production and use of carbon-based energy.
The second reason I will vote against changing the system is that the groups who say they are promoting “electoral reform” so that “all voices will be heard in the Legislature” are either self-deceived or intellectually dishonest. Take the Horgan/Weaver government and its draconian gender-identity political approach to public education. They have no interest at all in diversity of opinion. In fact, they’re trying hard to purge out anybody—trustee, teacher, student or parent—who holds a more traditional view of gender. Barry Neufeld, school trustee for more than two decades, raised questions about the possible benefit or harm done by the radical SOGI curriculum and had both barrels levelled at him by the Education Minister. What’s with that?
The truth is the NDP and the Greens have stacked the electoral deck and all in their favour. They’ve made it harder for the smaller parties to raise funds from their members and they set up a scam to support themselves with your tax dollars . . . $27 million over the next 4 years to start off with, but it’s guaranteed to go up. The NDP and the Greens will benefit but not the smaller parties. They’ve also set a threshold for electing an MLA. The parties who will benefit would have to achieve a minimum of 5% of the popular vote to get even 1 seat.
During the early deliberations of the committee that ultimately pushed this referendum into existence, I participated, hoping to add value to the discussions. I proposed a system which would have incorporated a Preferential Ballot, long with a form of PR. I said that any proposal to change the voting system should have the following objectives:
• local election of members / accountability to local voters
• the closest approximation of PR possible
• keeping the cost of government the same (ie. no additional MLA seats added)
• people voting their true convictions, not their poll- and press- driven assumptions about what other voters might do…
Preferential Balloting or Ranked Balloting (which are, unfortunately NOT on the ballot) would end the fear of “vote-splitting” and allow people to vote their convictions, knowing that their 2nd and 3rd choices would still count. That would have been an improvement. However, my proposal never received even an acknowledgement from the committee and I soon saw that they were not really looking for all voices to be heard but only for a chance to get PR in place and usher in an electoral environment where the socialists and radical environmentalists will perpetually form government.
The two-question ballots being prepared by the government do not give voters any choice for Preferential Balloting or other systems (*with a minor exception), ONLY for PR.
The first question on the ballot will ask whether you like the flawed First Past The Post system or if you want to change it. If you say yes to this flawed question (yes to change, yes to PR), you will get one of their proposed systems and you will get a lifetime of coalition, socialist government. The 2nd question, what “kind” of PR do you want, doesn’t even matter that much. If the Yes-to-change votes win on Question #1, our electoral goose is cooked. Voters do not have to vote on both questions; you may choose to vote against changing the system on question #1and still vote for a preference on question #2, just in case PR wins on question #1.
I’m voting NO-to-change (keep FPTP) on question #1— to defend the possibility that British Columbians will one day elect some MLAs with backbone who will defend Life, Family and Freedom. Mob rule by socialists is not a pretty sight.
Below is a rough draft of the ballot. It’s the first question that is set up to lock you into a system you may regret. Even though the current FPTP system is flawed, I’m voting against the rigged vote for phony PR. I don’t want to change our flawed system for something even worse.*
*Many people have asked me—if we are forced to accept one of the three systems proposed— which of these systems would be the best? Voters can vote against change in Question 1, as I will be doing, and still state their preference on Question 2. Of the three options, I will choose Rural-Urban because, although it does nothing for rural voters, it would at least give voters in urban ridings a preferential ballot. It also does not require a provincial threshold of 5%, as do the other two proposed systems. The downside is that it leaves urban voters with multiple MLAs in expanded ridings.
You can read about all the options on Elections BC’s site:
https://elections.bc.ca/referendum/voting-systems/
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