May 15, 2013
The BC election results are in, and the headlines are screaming:
• NDP support collapses
• Liberals win strong mandate
• Green Party elects first provincial legislator
But all these headlines are misleading, according to Canada’s leading citizen’s movement for electoral reform. Fair Vote Canada (FVC) says the real stories contained in the BC election results are these:
• One political party gets 100% of the power, even though most people voted against them
• Voters robbed by winner-take-all voting
• Opposition crippled by distorted election results
The Liberal Party has won (at the time of writing) 50 seats (59%), although they got less than 45% of the votes. Now they can do whatever they want, although most BC voters disagree with their policies and disapprove of their record.
The Green Party is delighted to have won a single seat, but with almost 8% of the votes, they should have won at least six seats. The Conservative Party, with almost 5% of the votes, should have won at least four seats, but they were completely shut out, and their voters are unrepresented in the Legislative Assembly.
The NDP actually won about the right number of seats for the votes they received, but because the smaller parties were almost shut out, the Government is not accountable to the Legislature.
“British Columbians did not get what they voted for, which is business as usual under the current voting system,” says FVC president Doug Bailie.
“The interesting thing is that both parties support proportional voting reform,” adds Bailie. “Christy Clark was a strong supporter of BC-STV during the 2009 referendum campaign. How does she feel about proportional representation now that she has a phony majority government?”
“We will look forward to discussing the BC election results at our national AGM, June 7 and 8 in Vancouver at the Granville Island Hotel,” added FVC Executive Director Wayne Smith.