by Jeff and Diana Jewell

British Columbia voters are now accustomed to a 57 percent vote producing a landslide victory that wins 77 out of 79 ridings. In 2001, the BC Liberals received 57.6 percent of the total vote and won 97.5 percent of the ridings. This result was one of several major factors which led the Liberal government to establish the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform (CA), which recommended the referendum on BC-STV, which received 57.4 percent of the vote and won 97.5 percent of the ridings.
So, by the clearly expressed will of the people, BC will now use BC-STV as its voting system, right? Wrong. At least not yet. Not until and unless the people find a way to make the newly elected politicians understand that we really won’t accept anything else. Never, if the power-brokers, backroom operators and spin-doctors of both the government and opposition parties can get away with it.
Why doesn’t the strong majority vote for BC-STV require its automatic enactment by the politicians? Because the politicians arbitrarily set the undemocratic threshold for this referendum requiring majority support in 60 percent of the ridings (which was far surpassed with 97.5 percent) plus 60 percent of the total vote (which was narrowly missed with 57.4 percent), prior to counting advance polls.
Obviously, politicians in a democracy understand that, when an issue is reduced to a simple yes/no vote, the only truly democratic standard to reflect the will of the people is a majority vote (ie. 50 percent plus one). No arbitrarily higher threshold can be established consistent with the most fundamental principle of democracy, “rule by the people.” Otherwise one would need to make the case of how large a majority needs to be for the will of the people to be served. This is why the majority rule standard is accepted, even if with considerable trepidation, for a referendum that might divide the country.
The argument that government supporters would give is that the BC-STV referendum is a matter of constitutional reform, and that commonly requires a higher threshold. But that argument doesn’t really apply in this case for two reasons. Firstly, an implicit consequence of the people’s adoption of BC-STV in this referendum was a repudiation of the existing first past the post (FPP) voting system. And secondly, FPP was never itself adopted by a direct vote of the people of BC, Canada, or England from which it came to us; so reform cannot reasonably be held to an arbitrarily higher threshold given that our existing form was itself never democratically adopted.
With the people having democratically adopted BC-STV in our recent referendum, this may present a constitutional crisis. With the clear majority win for BC-STV came the clear defeat of FPP; hence, it will not be possible to hold another election in BC using FPP and pretend that it is with the consent of the people. But the politicians are also severely constrained in what alternative they might adopt. It could reasonably be argued that BC-STV should be enacted, since it has already been democratically adopted by a strong majority of BC voters. It could not reasonably be argued that some other form of electoral reform should be adopted, since they were all carefully considered and overwhelmingly rejected by the CA.
Mixed member proportional (MMP), what is usually referred to as “proportional representation” was the major alternative studied in-depth by the CA; the showdown vote was approximately 80 percent for BC-STV over MMP. MMP presents numerous serious problems, which are well documented in the CA report. But MMP, while a great improvement over FPP, actually strengthens the control of the political parties and their powerbrokers. This is why, when public pressure pushes politicians to adopt electoral reform, MMP is the one the politicians always try to impose; and this is why the people of BC should resist any such political powerbrokering that is intent on denying the democratic choice of the people for BC-STV.
Back to the numbers, two further points make the case for BC-STV compelling. Firstly, a major question that should be examined is the enormous disparity between the 57 percent public vote for BC-STV in comparison with the 93 percent vote by the CA. The CA was a randomly selected group of 160 ordinary citizens, one male and one female from each riding plus two First Nations people. The CA conducted an 11-month study facilitated by academic experts, with no political interference, with 50 public meetings and 1,603 public submissions. The CA was probably the most demographically representative and impartial body in the history of Canadian democracy. The CA served as a jury of our peers, examined all the evidence, and overwhelmingly chose BC-STV.
The CA vote of 93 percent for BC-STV over FPP is a clear reflection of the enormous advantages of BC-STV, as recognized by ordinary citizens who had the time and opportunity to understand all the details. By contrast, the 57 percent public vote for BC-STV reflects primarily the abysmal level of public awareness of BC-STV and the work of the CA. There is no reason to think that the public vote would not have been in the same range as that of the CA if there had been a proper public information campaign to prepare people to cast an enlightened vote so important to improving the vitality and integrity of our democratic system. Hence, the gap between 93 percent and 57 percent is a measure of the suppression of the popular vote under a “stealth campaign” against BC-STV by the major parties. Rather than being well and fairly informed on BC-STV, British Columbians were kept in the dark while being fed bogus arguments served up by old political hacks and backroom boys who nitpicked BC-STV.
Finally, let’s reflect on the almost identical 57 percent landslide victories of the BC-STV referendum and the BC Liberal win in 2001. Suppose the former NDP government had tried to make the case that winning a majority vote and majority of ridings wasn’t enough to warrant a change of government, and arbitrarily voted to raise the threshold to 60 percent. Of course this would be such a blatant abuse of democracy that it’s unthinkable. And if any government tried to do this, it would almost certainly not be tolerated by the people. So why should the people of BC accept that it is democratically legitimate for their government to arbitrarily set a threshold that is both undemocratic and, in this vital instance, a betrayal of the fundamental principle of democracy for the clearly expressed will of the people to be served by their government.
It’s time for British Columbians to express themselves once more, with a voice even more clear and strong than on May 17, and to call on all politicians to respect democracy and serve the will of the people. We want our BC-STV!

Jeff and Diana Jewell have no party affiliations, but in the 2000 electionboth ran as candidates for the Canadian Action Party. They are social activists dedicated to bringing democracy to BC and Canada. They support the principle of proportional representation and having the will of the people be represented fairly.You may contact them at peoplepower@shaw.ca