The Editor,
After more than a decade in government, the BC Liberal Party, a coalition of former Social Credit, Conservative and, well, Liberal supporters, is showing the strain.
On a rising tide of public grievance that comes from being long in power, coupled with the undertow of a resurgent BC Conservative party, this coalition is looking fairly fragile.
A breakdown here would fragment the non-NDP vote, with the formerly-strong BC "Liberals" splitting into separate, weaker, Liberal and Conservative blocks. It seems inevitable. Like a train wreck unfolding before our eyes, it's hard to look away.
While everyone flying their own true colours for a change would be a good thing, and having more voices in the arena a very good thing, it does create problems in our first-past-the-post elections, which don't work well with more than two significant voting blocks. Such elections are often decided on the largest plurality rather than a majority, and that is not a democratic best-practice.
We need to resurrect electoral reform. Yes, we've had two referenda on this and both failed - narrowly - although both did have single-majority support, as I recall. But both votes were on the exact same question, STV: proportional representation, with a preferential ballot.
I voted for this the first time, despite the proportional representation, because of the preferential ballot, and I voted against it the second time, despite the preferential ballot, because it was made all that much clearer how proportional representation would play.
Let's just skip the proportional representation with a simple, single-member-per-riding preferential ballot, such as instant runoff voting (IRV).
This is an easy change involving only how we mark the ballots and how we count them, and requires no change to electoral boundaries, yet it solves first-past-the-post issues and addresses many concerns of proportional representation proponents. It's a win-win.
The current government is in a position to make this happen - it might not be again. I urge it to do so, in the best interests of all.
Ron McKinnon,Port Coquitlam
