Select Page

Fair Vote Canada Movement Founder Awards 2013

On May 28, 1996, a provincial election was held in British Columbia. The BC Liberal Party, under new leader Gordon Campbell, got the most votes—but the NDP formed a majority government!Campbell was convinced on the spot that the people of BC needed to be consulted on the possibility of a new voting system. He called on former Liberal leader Gordon Gibson to design a process for that consultation. What Gibson designed turned out to be the BC Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, a ground-breaking process for citizen consultation that has since been copied in Ontario, in the U.S., and in the Netherlands.Gordon Gibson and three other pioneers of the electoral reform movement will be honoured this Friday evening by Fair Vote Canada (FVC), Canada’s citizens’ movement for electoral reform.

Fair Vote Canada is proud to announce the creation of the Fair Vote Canada Movement Founder Awards. These awards are intended to recognize individuals for their lifetime contribution to the electoral reform movement.

The inaugural FVC Movement Founder Awards will be awarded at 7 pm on June 7, 2013 at the Granville Island Hotel in Vancouver as part of the opening ceremonies of the FVC Annual General Meeting for 2013.

This year, the following pillars of the electoral reform movement will be honoured with FVC Movement Founder Awards:

Gordon Gibson, OBC is a former member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and a former leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party. He has been a senior fellow in Canadian Studies at the Fraser Institute since 1993, and has written several books on Canadian federalism and governance. His columns appear frequently in the Vancouver Sun, Winnipeg Free Press, and the Globe & Mail. In May 2008, Gibson was awarded the Order of British Columbia.

Following the 2001 provincial election, Gibson was hired by the government of British Columbia to make recommendations on the structure and mandate of the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. His report was substantially adopted, and he is rightly regarded as the designer of the historic Citizens’ Assembly process.

Charles Boylan is a Canadian radio broadcaster and political activist. He produces and hosts Wake up with co-op and Discussion, programs on CFRO 102.7, a community-run, co-operatively-owned, non-corporate radio station broadcasting from Vancouver. Mr. Boylan has been a College teacher for 10 years. He has also run for political office federally and provincially as a representative of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada and People’s Front respectively. He currently serves as leader of The People’s Front.

Boylan has been active in the movement for proportional representation since 1997 when he became a director of the BC Electoral Change Coalition. He was also an active campaigner for Adriane Carr’s Free Your Vote initiative in 2001 and 2002.

Sonja Sanguinetti is a successful lawyer with a practice in Squamish and Vancouver. She was president of the BC Liberal Party from 1993 to 1997.

Sanguinetti was founding president of the BC Electoral Change Coalition in 1996, and co-author of the BC Liberal Party policy that promised a citizens’ assembly on electoral reform.

Nick Loenen is a writer, and was a Social Credit MLA from 1986 to 1991.

Loenen was a founding member of the BC Electoral Change Coalition, and a founder of Fair Voting BC in 1997. He was the principal spokesperson for the YES to STV campaign during the 2005 BC referendum, the most successful campaign for proportional representation in recent Canadian history.

The FVC AGM and conference will continue all day Saturday, June 8, and is open to the public. Registration information is available at http://fvcagm2013agarec.eventbrite.com.

-30-

Contact:

Doug Bailie, President/Président
Fair Vote Canada/Représentation équitable au Canada
780-432-9407
[email protected]

Stuart Parker, President/Président
Fair Vote Canada Vancouver Chapter/Représentation équitable au Canada, Section de Vancouver
604-620-2163
[email protected]

Wayne Smith, Executive Director/Directeur exécutif
Fair Vote Canada/Représentation équitable au Canada
416-407-7009
[email protected]

Share This