Second Session, 41st Parliament

(2017) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 70

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Orders of the Day

Government Motions on Notice

Motion 14 — Amendments to Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement

Hon. S. Fraser

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 6 — Electoral Reform Referendum 2018 Act (continued)

On the amendment ( continued )

M. Hunt

S. Chandra Herbert

T. Stone

J. Thornthwaite

D. Barnett

A. Wilkinson

I. Paton

S. Thomson

S. Furstenau

M. Polak

D. Davies

A. Weaver

J. Johal

N. Letnick

On the main motion

Hon. D. Eby

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2017

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

R. Chouhan: It gives me great pleasure to introduce Gurdial Singh Neel, educator

on three continents, retired from the Richmond school district in 1985,

founding principal of Khalsa School and active in the community throughout

his life. Today he is here with his wife, Swarnjit Kaur Neel. They are

celebrating their 69th wedding anniversary today. Also joining is their son,

Dr. Kanwal Singh Neel.

All of this family have been so active in their community, helping

others for all their lives. Please join me in giving them a warm

welcome.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Farnworth: I call government Motion 14 on the order paper.

Government Motions on Notice

MOTION 14 — AMENDMENTS TO

TSAWWASSEN FIRST NATION

FINAL AGREEMENT

Hon. S. Fraser: I move Motion 14, standing in my name on the order

paper:

[Be it resolved that, pursuant to clause 6 of

Chapter 23 of the

Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement, the Legislative Assembly of

British Columbia consents to the amendments to the Tsawwassen First

Nation Final Agreement set out in the attached Tsawwassen First Nation

Final Agreement First Amending Agreement.

TSAWWASSEN FIRST NATION FINAL AGREEMENT FIRST AMENDING

AGREEMENT

THIS FIRST AMENDING AGREEMENT (this “Amending Agreement”) is

dated for reference July 17, 2017.

AMONG:

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF CANADA, as represented by the

Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

(“Canada”)

AND

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, as

represented by the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and

Reconciliation

(“British Columbia”)

AND

TSAWWASSEN FIRST NATION, as represented by Chief Bryce

Williams

(“Tsawwassen First Nation”).

WHEREAS:

A. On April 3, 2009, the Tsawwassen First Nation

Final Agreement came into effect.

B. The Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement

provides for its amendment and specifies requirements for the amendment

of various of its provisions.

C. The Parties agree to propose the amendments to

the Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement set out in

Part II of this

Amending Agreement, in order to:

1. Update Appendix C-4 ( Parcel Description of Tsawwassen

Lands ):

a. with the legal descriptions and parcel identifiers as of

the Effective Date; and

b. to amend the legal descriptions and parcel identifiers

for two parcels, after new survey plans were prepared and registered

after the Effective Date, to accurately reflect the natural water

boundaries as of the Effective Date;

2. Update Appendix E-2 ( Parcel Description of Other Tsawwassen

Land ),

Part 1 ( Fraser River Parcels ) and

Part 2

( Boundary Bay Parcels ) with the legal descriptions and

parcel identifiers as of the Effective Date;

3. Update Appendix E-3,

Part 1 ( List of Interests on Fraser

River Parcels ) and Appendix E-3,

Part 2 ( List of Interests

on Boundary Bay Parcels ) with legal descriptions and parcel

identifiers as of the Effective Date; and

4. Update Appendix G-2 ( Parcel Description of Tsawwassen Lands

included in the Agricultural Land Reserve ) and Appendix G-3

( Parcel Description of Tsawwassen Lands Excluded from the

Agricultural Land Reserve ) with legal descriptions and parcel

identifiers as of the Effective Date.

D. The Parties have determined that the processes

set out in clauses 3, 5, 6, 8 and 9 of

Chapter 23 – Amendment apply to

the proposed amendments set out in

Part II of this Amending

Agreement.

NOW THEREFORE the Parties agree that the proposed amendments to

the Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement set out in

Part II of

this Amending Agreement be recommended:

a) by Chief Bryce Williams to the Tsawwassen First Nation

Government;

b) by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to

the Governor in Council; and

c) by the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation to

the Legislature of British Columbia.

PART I –

DEFINITIONS AND

INTERPRETATION

1. In this Amending Agreement:

“Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement” means the

Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement among the Tsawwassen First

Nation, Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada and Her Majesty the

Queen in right of British Columbia as it took effect on April 3,

2. A reference to a

Chapter by number or name is a

reference to the

chapter of that number or name in the Tsawwassen First

Nation Final Agreement.

3. A reference to an Appendix by letter or number

is a reference to the Appendix of that letter or number in the

Appendices to the Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement.

4. Words and expressions appearing in this Amending

Agreement that are not defined in this Amending Agreement but are

defined in the Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement have the meanings

ascribed to them in the Tsawwassen First Nation Final

Agreement.

PART II – AMENDMENTS

5. Appendix C-4 is deleted, and the document

entitled “Amended Appendix C-4” attached to this Amending Agreement is

substituted.

Part 1 of Appendix E-2 is deleted, and the

document entitled “Amended

Part 1 of Appendix E-2” attached to this

Amending Agreement is substituted.

Part 2 of Appendix E-2 is deleted, and the

document entitled “Amended

Part 2 of Appendix E-2” attached to this

Amending Agreement is substituted.

Part 1 of Appendix E-3 is deleted, and the

document entitled “Amended

Part 1 of Appendix E-3” attached to this

Amending Agreement is substituted.

Part 2 of Appendix E-3 is deleted, and the

document entitled “Amended

Part 2 of Appendix E-3” attached to this

Amending Agreement is substituted.

10. Appendix G-2 is deleted, and the document

entitled “Amended Appendix G-2” attached to this Amending Agreement is

substituted.

11. Appendix G-3 is deleted, and the document

entitled “Amended Appendix G-3” attached to this Amending Agreement is

substituted.

PART III – PROCEDURES

12. The proposed amendments set out in

Part II of

this Amending Agreement will take effect in accordance with clause 9 of

Chapter 23 – Amendment, on the date the consent requirements required

under clauses 3, 5, 6 and 8 of

Chapter 23 – Amendment are

completed.

13. This Amending Agreement may be signed in one or

more counterparts. A signed counterpart may be delivered by one Party to

another Party by facsimile or e-mail transmission and a facsimile or

e-mail so transmitted will constitute an original document. Signed

counterparts held by a Party, taken together, will constitute one and

the same instrument.

FOR HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF CANADA, as represented by

the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, signed this

_______ day of ______________________, 2017.

___________________________________

The Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indian Affairs and

Northern Development

Witnessed by _______________

FOR HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, as

represented by the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and

Reconciliation, signed this _______ day of ______________________,

___________________________________

The Honourable John Rustad, Minister of Aboriginal Relations and

Reconciliation

Witnessed by _______________

FOR THE TSAWWASSEN FIRST NATION, as represented by Chief Bryce

Williams, signed this _______ day of ______________________,

___________________________________

Bryce Williams, Chief

Witnessed by _______________]

Hon. S. Fraser: I rise in this House to move the amending agreement to the

Tsawwassen First Nation Final Agreement, British Columbia’s first urban

modern-day treaty. The purpose of this amendment agreement is to correct

five appendices of the final agreement.

[1:35 p.m.]

These appendices contain the legal descriptions of the Tsawwassen

lands as of the effective date of the treaty, April 3, 2009. These

appendices have some inconsistencies with the legal descriptions of the

Tsawwassen lands as registered in the land title office on the effective

date. In this treaty, land was transferred to the First Nation both by

passage of the law — it’s called statutory vesting — and by land title

office registration. The legal descriptions of the land in each must be

identical.

The amending agreement will correct this discrepancy and is

considered a housekeeping item among the treaty partners. The Tsawwassen

Legislature unanimously ratified the amending agreement during its

session on November 9 of this year. I’ll take this opportunity to

congratulate Tsawwassen First Nation on its ongoing efforts to create a

powerful, sustainable economy that benefits its members with jobs and

with opportunities.

This treaty is the foundation for the incredible work Tsawwassen

is doing to create a healthy community, improve the social well-being of

their people and uphold their culture and their language. Tsawwassen

demonstrates the power of treaties, and that’s why it’s part of my

mandate to re-energize treaty negotiations. Treaty First Nations have

increased opportunities for participating in the economy, law-making

authority and clear jurisdiction over lands, resources and the wealth

and well-being of their communities.

With our partners the B.C. Treaty Commission, the First Nations

Summit and the federal government, we are working to transform the

treaty process so it better respects case law and embodies the United

Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples. We are looking

at improving that treaty process to take out the bottlenecks and make it

much more effective and inclusive. This is part of our commitment to

transform the Crown–First Nation relationship based on respect and

recognition, building lasting government-to-government

relationships.

Motion approved.

Hon. D. Eby: Second reading on Bill 6, continued.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 6 — ELECTORAL REFORM

REFERENDUM

2018 ACT

(continued)

On the amendment (continued) .

M. Hunt: Continuing on from where I was on yesterday’s debate, I’m speaking

to the amendment that is before us, the amendment to Bill 6.

[L. Reid in the chair.]

I would note that the amendment is a rather simple one, simply

saying to delete the word “now” and substitute it with the words “six

months hence.” I think the reason for this, the reason for this delay,

is because we’ve been raising some serious issues that have not been

addressed in the bill. I believe the public needs much more information

on this because this bill proposes to change the very fabric of our

democracy, which has been built on the British parliamentary system of

representative government and will affect all British

Columbians.

As I began yesterday, I raised the fact that I have serious

concerns about how the question itself is to be determined. Ultimately,

the bill in question is going to be decided, as the bill says, in

cabinet, but we don’t know that for sure. We don’t know the process by

which it’s going to come to that.

We’ve got a public engagement process that has just begun this

past weekend. Interestingly enough, this bill says absolutely nothing

about consulting or consultation. So the consultation that we have —

what is it? It’s a question-and-answer process, but it’s interesting

that the questions are all stacked in favour of proportional

representation. It’s not a surprise, when you look at the four academics

that are involved in guiding this process, because three out of the four

support change and they don’t support the current system that we

have.

We’ve raised the issue about what the majority is. What is the

decision to actually make? As we come to this decision, how is it

actually going to be dealt with as a majority? Traditionally, it’s been

dealt with as a double majority, both a regional as well as a popular

question. But, again, we’ve been finding out that the Premier, before

the election, said: “Well, of course, it’ll be a double majority, just

like the constitution of Canada is.” We had the Greens saying that it

would be a unilateral process.

[1:40 p.m.]

Now we discover that it’s going to be 50 percent plus one, no

matter how many show up. That’s “hard-wired” into this. Well, it’s not

in the bill. It’s not in what’s before us. Surely, the citizens should

have a right to know what’s actually is going on here. The information

certainly is not before us, and the citizens don’t have an

idea.

We’ve talked about how serious decisions are made in so many

different places. Whether it’s the strata council, not-for-profits,

charities, all require 75 percent. Even the NDP themselves, when it

comes to their convention, whether they’re going to meet once a year or

once every two years, they have to have a two-thirds majority for that,

which seems like a fairly simple, straightforward type of decision. But

no. It needed two-thirds.

When it comes to our voting system, 50 percent plus one is fine,

and we really don’t care how many people show up. We’ve had the minister

suggest that, in fact, if only 10 percent show up, that’s fine. So 5

percent of the population plus one is actually going to make the

decision.

Then we have this whole thing about neutrality. Well, it’s

interesting because it was raised in a previous referendum. A previous

Liberal government had said: “This is how we’re voting.” We were mocked

for that in question period.

It’s interesting. In the agreement that the NDP have with the

Green Party, it says that the government will support the referendum.

Well, isn’t that interesting? So much for neutrality there. But again, I

guess the decisions only happen…. Only this side of the House is bad,

and that side of the House is altogether pure. The question is: how low

can they set the bar? Well, they have done it as far as they possibly

can.

Again, I come from local government. In local government, we

research things. We look for best practices. So where are the best

practices? Well, again, that’s information that hasn’t been given to the

public. No doubt, it’ll show up at some point in time. But who knows

when? Long after this bill is before us.

When we look at the countries that have this, it’s 87 countries.

Simply doing my research — 87 countries. I’m looking for what it is that

the Greens and the NDP are trying to emulate in these countries. Let me

list to you the 87 countries that currently have some form of

proportional representation. Oh, and I guess that’s another thing. It’s

some form of proportional representation. There are so many different

ones. Again, this bill doesn’t address what ones or even give us a clue

as to where the government thinks it’s going.

Let’s list the 87 countries: Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina,

Armenia, Aruba, Australia. Well, Australia partly; it’s only for the

Senate. They first introduced that in 2016, but it’s not for their House

of Commons. Then we have Austria, Belgium, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia

Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso. What are we trying to

emulate from these countries? That’s the question.

Burundi, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,

Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, East

Timor, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia. Even in the European

Union, which in this list is the 31st one. Each member of the union gets

to choose their own form of proportional representation because there

are so many different types. But we haven’t a clue what this government

is thinking.

It goes on with 32. The Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, Germany.

Well, we’ll come back to Germany in a few minutes.

Then, of course, there’s Greece. Now, Greece is an interesting

one. We have a couple of nations that do this. What they do, just to

make sure that the deck is really stacked as they go into these

coalitions — tremendous coalitions of parties, ultimately, is one of the

common themes throughout this — is they give a bonus. If you can

actually get a majority, 50 percent plus one of the seats in the House,

you get a bonus. In Greece’s case, you get a bonus of 50

seats.

[1:45 p.m.]

Now, where do those 50 seats come from? They don’t come from the

people having another election so that they’re there representing the

citizens. No, this comes from party lists, so it’s actually the party

that these members are beholden to, not to the citizens who should be

electing them. That means that in the ruling coalition, over 40 percent

of the government seats were not elected at all. Those are the

government seats. I’m not talking about the other ones that may have

everybody that wasn’t elected.

Then we have 37. It’s Greenland; Guatemala; Guinea-Bissau; Guyana;

Honduras; Iceland; Indonesia; Iraq — Iraq is one; Israel; Iran; Italy —

oh, we’ll talk some more about Italy as well, but Italy, again, also has

that same kind of bonus provision; Kazakhstan; Kosovo; Kyrgyzstan;

Latvia; Lesotho; Liechtenstein; Luxembourg; Macedonia. I’m terrible at

pronouncing half of these names. Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Mozambique,

Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Norway,

Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania.

Here we have it, Madame Speaker. Number 71 is Rwanda. Again, what

are we trying to emulate here in the province of British

Columbia?

San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Serbia, Saint Martin, Slovakia,

Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland,

Togo, Tunisia, Turkey. And the 87th one is Uruguay.

Now, what is the common thing that we find in these 87 countries?

Again, what are we trying to emulate here? Well, we have party lists,

coalitions and instability. We have minority governments. We have

coalition governments that produce instability for the voters and the

investors.

Let’s look at some of these particular nations, like Belgium.

Belgium spent 589 days without a government in 2010 and 2011 while the

parties were unable to come to an agreement on a coalition. Meanwhile,

the bureaucracy was fine doing all the little things in the normal

operation of government. But when it came to things like migration,

legislation and the eurozone crisis that was happening at the time, all

of those decisions were put off because there were 11 parties in the

House and it took six parties to actually create the coalition. By the

way, with almost two years to create the coalition, the coalition only

lasted two years.

What about the Netherlands? Well, in 2017 — 208 days before a

government was formed. The government ended up being a coalition of four

parties that they were able to cobble together out of the total of 13

parties that were in parliament.

What about Spain? Spain: 314 days. Again, tremendous lengths of

time — this was 2015 — without a government. In fact, they couldn’t form

a government. They couldn’t create this coalition to get together, so

there was a new election six months later. There are ultimately 12

parties in their parliament.

Italy is so special. This is why when you look at this, you go:

“Yes, we need to delay this bill for six months in order to find out

what in the world the government is actually looking at in these

proportional representation systems that we’re trying to emulate.” Then

the citizens will at least have an informed debate and an informed

decision.

That’s not what is before us. Between 1946 and 2016, they had two

separate….This is the period I’m talking about with Italy. They had 65

governments across those 70 years. That’s an average of just slightly

over a year per government. They’ve had two separate proportional

representation systems since 1993.

Interestingly enough, here we find out that modern-day Italy has

got a little problem. This is from the recent edition of The

Economist magazine. It’s talking about Italy, and it’s

talking about a particular member who is a senator and how he is

changing parties. Then it comments. It says there have been 533 times in

the Italian parliament that some member has changed sides from one party

to another party in the current Legislature, which has only been sitting

since 2013.

[1:50 p.m.]

Across the last four years, we’ve had 533 times that a member has

changed parties within the Legislature. Now, there are 945 deputies and

senators that are elected. Just think about that. How would you like a

House of 945 members? Massive. And 342 of them — that’s 36 percent of

the members in the House — have felt moved by whatever to change

parliamentary groups at least once. That is good, stable government. I

think that’s exactly what B.C. needs, right?

One of the interesting ones is that one of the reasons why we have

this massive amount of change happening in Italy is because the

parliamentarians don’t feel they have to abide by the wishes of their

constituents. They are largely unanswerable to their constituents. So in

fact, since 2005, they have chosen, in one of the changes they made, to

make multi-seat constituencies from slates that were crafted by party

leaders who decided which candidates can stand the best chance of

getting elected. So again, it’s the party that’s deciding who’s out

there and who’s not out there.

Interestingly, even Italy has thrown up the white flag of

surrender. They have created a new law that means at least a third of

the members — well, it’s only a third of the members — in the next

election will be chosen — how? — by first-past-the-post in single-seat

constituencies. That’s what’s happening. They have gone all the way

around, and now they’ve come back to, “Gee, first-past-the-post,

single-member constituencies make the most sense,” and that’s what

they’re doing. That’s the new law in Italy.

Getting back to the future, again, what is it we’re doing here in

B.C.? These are questions that Bill 6 doesn’t give an answer to, which

is why we’re suggesting that the government go back and reconsider

this.

Now, what about Germany? Well, Germany had their election in

September. Yes, we know that the government was working hard to try and

create a coalition. Well, interestingly enough, the talks for the

coalition have now failed, and now the…. What is she called?

Interjection.

M. Hunt: The chancellor, that’s right. Thank you.

Chancellor Merkel is now suggesting that there be a new election

because she can’t see any way of creating a coalition in this. Well,

that’s interesting.

Again, we’ve had members stand and speak about how this promotes

fringe parties, and it promotes the extremes. Well, again, we have the

Alternative for Germany party, the AFD, which got 94 seats in the House.

They actually support and advocate for a return to Nazism in

Germany.

All of this, these ones that I have just listed, are in the

context of the European Union, which is a government that is elected by

PR, as I said earlier. But they also have the ability to override the

national governments. So, I mean, it is a total confused mess that is

there. I’m not even going to mention Greece and the financial challenges

and the rest that Greece has. Maybe I should just….

I am just too tempted, because it’s so amazing. If you remember

the financial crisis that Greece was going through…. The World Bank was

basically saying: “You’ve got to make your payment.” The president of

the day said: “I can’t do it. We’re calling a new election.” They called

an election. They had the election. The party that won said that they

would stand up to the World Bank and they would not make the payment.

What was it? Less than a week in office, and they had completely changed

their position because reality was facing them. It’s one thing to have a

political thing and another one — the real world of banks and

international banking and the rest of that.

So what are we looking for? What is the government looking for

when they’re talking about proportional representation? Well, the leader

of the Green Party has brought up Northern Ireland and New Zealand as

the two countries with the British parliamentary system that use PR.

Let’s take a look at them.

Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland re-established parliament in

1998, so they’ve only had it for 19 years — under 20 years, anyhow. The

fixed term was set. The fixed term was a five-year term from the

elections. Since 1998, they have had six elections. Do the math, and you

see that no one has made it to the five-year fixed term. So that’s an

average of three years that they’ve actually been able to have the

stability of a government when the term was, in fact, a five-year term.

The last parliament only lasted for one year. The elections that they

held in March of this year, 2017 — a coalition still hasn’t been

established. Is that really what we’re looking for here in the province

of British Columbia?

[1:55 p.m.]

New Zealand. Well, New Zealand is a whole amazing one.

I see the green light has gone on, so I’m running out of time, and

I have so much to say. But the challenge is simply this: who are the

members of this House going to be accountable to under proportional

representation? We don’t even know the system, because the government

hasn’t even gone through its process. It hasn’t even given possible

ideas of what they are looking at so that there can be an intelligent

debate and discussion over what form of PR we’re actually going to

have.

Ultimately, what happens in each and every one of these 87

countries is that the parties put out lists. The electors vote. They

don’t necessarily…. In most of the cases, they don’t vote for an

individual. Rather, they’re voting for a party. They’re voting for a

party slate, and oh yes, we’ve discovered that the party slate hasn’t

got anything to do with anything because the backroom deal changes your

platform completely.

At least they’re trying, but ultimately, it comes back to the

loyalty. It’s not to the constituent. The loyalty is to the party.

That’s why I am supporting this amendment. I am not supporting Bill 6 in

the way it stands, because I believe the government needs to go back,

think about this some more and come back with a more reasoned process

for people to be able to make a fair decision and understand what

they’re actually voting for.

S. Chandra Herbert: I just want to speak against this amendment. For those following

at home, what we’re debating is whether or not we should avoid having a

decision on this bill for six months, maybe longer. The Liberal

opposition can’t seem to take a position, aside from saying they’re

against it, but they want six more months to decide if they’re still

against it. That’s what we’re debating here.

I don’t think that’s all that responsible, in the sense that it’s

pretty clear to me…. We ran on a platform saying we wanted a referendum

on proportional representation. That is what is in the legislation — to

say: “Let us have a referendum on proportional representation.” The

public consultation is starting now to involve the public and what those

questions should look like.

While some on the other side of the House may argue that we’re

wanting this, for some sort of reason, to be somehow against the

interests of our constituents, I should inform them that my constituents

voted to change the first-past-the-post system twice — majority support

both times.

What I’m told from my constituents is that they like it when

parties work together, as the New Democratic Party and Green Party

currently are. They actually expect that to happen in the Legislature

more often. Maybe it’s because they are tired of 16 years where the

Liberals thought that they had every best idea in the world and nobody

else needed to matter.

Unfortunately, it was very rare for there to be any sort of sense

of collaboration together to solve problems. Of course, when we go home,

regardless of who our neighbours are and their political affiliation, we

try to work together to solve problems. We don’t say: “Check your party

card. Oh, you voted for the opposition. You need not apply.” That’s, I

think, what we would get more of. We’d get more togetherness, more

cooperation — not always get everything we want.

I know some on the Liberal side want a might-makes-right, “We have

more numbers than you, so we don’t have to listen to you” kind of

politics in B.C. But I think that we should put a little humbleness into

politics and realize we don’t have all the solutions. That’s why

consulting the public and actually asking them if they wanted to change

the electoral system is a good thing to do.

It’s interesting. I’m curious about why some would seem to

suggest, on the opposition side, that somehow proportional

representation is going to lead to a Nazi under every bed, a horrible

situation where extremists rule the roost everywhere. They would never

get elected under the first-past-the-post system seems to be the

argument.

Well, I’m sorry to inform the members, but under the

first-past-the-post system in British Columbia, we had plenty of

governments who were racist. They were sometimes sympathetic to causes

that all those people that the Liberals say are going to get elected now

under proportional representation…. We had those governments in B.C.

under first-past-the-post. That existed in British Columbia under the

current system that they’re defending. They don’t reference that. Maybe

it’s an inconvenient fact, but that’s the truth.

In fact, there are members in their current caucus who argue

against the equality of transgender people in British Columbia. So don’t

tell me that proportional representation is going to lead to extremists

getting elected. They’re in the Liberal caucus right now. That’s the

reality.

[2:00 p.m.]

There are those who believe that certain members of our population

shouldn’t have human rights. They made it clear that they shouldn’t have

the ability to have their gender expression reflected.

Interjection.

S. Chandra Herbert: If the member from Surrey is upset that I’m referring to him, I’m

not.

Deputy Speaker: Member, please take your seat.

Point of Order

S. Bond: On a point of order, please, Madame Speaker. We would ask that the

member opposite withdraw his outrageous statements about the lack of human

rights beliefs on this side of the Legislature. That is totally inaccurate

and should be withdrawn.

S. Chandra Herbert: If the member would like to read into the record that every member of

her caucus voted in support of human rights changes, I would appreciate

that. Most B.C. Liberal members supported human rights changes, and I

applauded them on that. But there are members of their caucus who do not

believe that gay people — there’s one at least that I know — should be

supported to have their education supported in schools. We also know that

members on that side…. One member….

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member, speaking to the amendment.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you, hon. Speaker.

Well, clearly, I think that proportional representation is going to

give the opportunity for a number of voices that have been excluded from

this House, including transgender people, including racialized minorities,

to actually have their voices heard in a bigger way, to have people who have

disagreement, to have people who disagree, actually have that ability to

have that debate in the House. I think that’s really important.

Some people don’t like the fact that under the first-past-the-post

system, extremists have got elected, but they have. That’s why I think this

amendment to delay having a decision on even being able to ask the public

whether they support proportional representation or first-past-the-post is

wrong. I think we should give the public the opportunity to have that

discussion. Simply saying, “Let’s kick that problem down the road,” when, at

least in my constituency, a majority of the public have supported, twice,

changing from the first-past-the-post system…. I think that needs to be

recognized. People deserve that chance to have that opportunity. My

constituents deserve that opportunity.

I’m sorry if members on the opposite side are upset that I’ve

referenced one member in their caucus who I don’t think fulfils all the

great human rights goals that the rest of the caucus does. But I think

that’s in fact true, based on the record in print, media and in this

House.

Deputy Speaker: Member. Member, you’ve been asked to withdraw the comment. Kindly do

so.

S. Chandra Herbert: I wholeheartedly withdraw, hon. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you.

Debate Continued

S. Chandra Herbert: I think it’s important that when we get an opportunity to ask the

public their views on democracy and how it works, we should. That’s what

this legislation does, and that’s why this amendment should fail,

because it’s trying to delay the opportunity for the public to even have

a chance to have their say heard on first-past-the-post versus

proportional representation. Let’s give them that opportunity. Let’s

defeat this amendment.

T. Stone: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise today to speak on the

amendment to Bill 6, the Electoral Reform Referendum 2018 Act. I do

support the amendment, replacing the word “now” with “six months

hence.”

Perhaps the comments and the speeches, the thoughtful debate that

members of the official opposition have been contributing to this

particular part of the discussion, is getting under the skin a bit of

members opposite. The member for Vancouver–West End…. To stand up and

make some of the insinuations that he did about the integrity and the

honour of members of the opposition is, frankly, unnecessary, and it’s

outrageous. It doesn’t have a place in this House.

We do believe that having a thoughtful debate about a delay on

this decision is important. It’s important that political parties and

politicians keep their promises. This is the most fundamental change to

a democracy that one could entertain — how we elect our MLAs — and it

does matter what one says in the public domain. It should matter what

one commits to in election campaigns.

[2:05 p.m.]

In this last election campaign, the current Premier, the former

leader of the opposition, was very, very clear that there would be a

vote on moving to a different system of electing our MLAs and that that

question would be a simple yes-no question. It is not going to be that

now. The current Premier made the commitment in the last campaign that

it would be a very simple question and that the current system would be,

without question, an option on that ballot.

Now we learn that the question will not be that simple, that it

might be a preferential ballot. The first-past-the-post current system

may or may not even be on the ballot.

We heard commitments from the current Premier in the last campaign

that citizens would be very much involved in this process, much like the

citizens’ assemblies of the previous two referendums on this matter that

have been held in the past ten years. Those commitments don’t seem to

matter either, because the question is going to be developed in the

closed confines of cabinet. It will not be developed by British

Columbians in an open, transparent manner, such as was the case with the

previous citizens’ assembly.

When we look at the commitments that were made and the broken

promises that we now see…. When we look at the fundamental nature of the

question at hand that British Columbians will be asked to weigh in on,

how we elect our MLAs, and changing that forever…. You’re darn right

that we think there should be a delay, that there should be more time to

get this right, to make sure that all British Columbians are part of

this process.

It was with a tremendous amount of shock that we learned and

British Columbians learned…. It was confirmed by the Attorney General’s

ministry the other day that, yes, a simple 10 percent may actually

qualify — 10 percent of voter turnout. As long as it gets 50 percent

plus one, it would represent a mandate to proceed with the change that

is so fundamental to our democracy: how we elect our MLAs. Five percent

of British Columbians would, essentially, be making that decision in

that situation. That is patently ridiculous. It’s absolutely

ridiculous.

Prince Edward Island held a vote on this. A majority of Prince

Edward Islanders endorsed moving to a new form of electing MLAs there,

but the government actually held back. It said that because the voter

turnout was not sufficient — it wasn’t high enough — it didn’t give the

strength of confidence that warranted proceeding with that fundamental

of a change. The government backed away.

Yet here in British Columbia we learn that a 10 percent voter

turnout, with a 50-percent-plus-one threshold, will be good enough.

That, in our view in the official opposition, is not good

enough.

Bill 6 does have huge implications for our democracy, and it will

have a tremendous impact on the day-to-day lives of British Columbians

and that relationship that exists between elected provincial officials

and the constituents they represent.

I want to continue my remarks by telling a story. In August of

2003, in the small town of McLure, which is just north of my riding in

the lower North Thompson Valley, someone carelessly dropped a lit

cigarette in the midst of a period of abnormally high temperatures in

British Columbia. It was the driest three-year period on record to that

point.

Now, that thoughtless action sparked one of the most destructive

wildfires the province had ever seen, not really matched again until

this most recent fire season that we had this summer. The McLure fire

burned out of control and forced 3,800 residents out of their homes. The

entire nearby town of Barriere was evacuated. A state of emergency was

declared. Hydro services were lost. The area’s main highway, the

Yellowhead Highway, was closed, and 72 homes went up in flames, and with

them, an innumerable amount of personal and sentimental items, precious

memories collected by those families over the years.

Nine businesses were burned to the ground, including the Tolko

sawmill in Lewis Creek. That mill was the region’s biggest employer, and

its destruction left more than 180 people permanently out of work. The

total estimated cost of the wildfire damage was $31 million, in addition

to $8.2 million in property losses.

The final size of the McLure fire was 26,420 hectares, and it

burned for more than 75 days. Let that sink in: 75 days. That’s 2½

months that this fire raged on.

[2:10 p.m.]

If all this wasn’t bad enough, imagine a scenario where there was

no government in place to help. Imagine our province in the midst of

political gridlock following an election with an unclear result as

parties scramble to cobble together a working coalition. It’s the type

of scenario that often plays out in countries that have adopted various

forms of proportional representation. We’ve heard many, many examples

cited here in this chamber over recent days — and, I would argue, the

type of scenario that we should try to avoid here in British

Columbia.

There are, as I said, many examples that have been cited, and here

are a few others from jurisdictions. We have Germany, which held an

election this year but still doesn’t have a government in place. Last

week we learned that the talks to form a new ruling coalition have

collapsed altogether, so perhaps further delays and even a new election

are possible.

The Netherlands also had a vote recently, and it took 208 days for

a government to be formed there. In 2015, it took 314 days before the

people of Spain had a government. In Belgium in 2010, it took a whopping

589 days — more than a year and a half — before a government was

formed.

This type of outcome isn’t just a one-off. It isn’t just a rare

occurrence. It happens again and again under proportional

representation. When government is stuck in neutral, those big,

important decisions, those visionary decisions — planting the flag in

the ground and saying: “This is where we’re going. We’re going to take a

risk getting there, but it’s the right thing to do….” Those kinds of

decisions just don’t get made.

When I think about this as a possibility for the people of British

Columbia, I think about that story that I just told, about the wildfire

that ravaged McLure and Barriere and all the structures lost and

livelihoods affected. I wonder how much worse it would have been for

those folks had there not been a provincial government in place to work

with all the different levels of government, to put responders on the

ground, to advocate for those folks, to assist them in the initial

emergency response and the recovery effort that followed.

I know my colleagues who represent other communities hard hit by

forest fires in this past wildfire season share these similar concerns.

We’re coming off another devastating wildfire season here in British

Columbia. My colleagues from Prince George–Valemount, Fraser-Nicola,

Cariboo-Chilcotin, Cariboo North, Nechako Lakes and Kamloops–North

Thompson, in particular, have been working really, really hard to

advocate for those affected by this year’s wildfires — from local

residents, who spent days and even weeks out of their homes, to farmers

and ranchers, who saw crops and wildlife fencing go up in flames and

animals fleeing toward injury or even death, to small business owners

losing revenues because of highway closures and a decrease in tourist

traffic.

It’s these types of crises that require an appropriate and timely

response from government. It’s when people really need to have

confidence that their government is going to be there for them. It’s no

time to hit the pause button and tell people to wait. But I fear that

these types of delays in decision-making, in the midst of the

instability that could come under a system of proportional

representation, is what we would see here in British

Columbia.

In the meantime, there are other drawbacks to these various PR

systems that I’d like to outline. We could see a real fragmentation of

the party system, leading to extreme minority parties holding larger

parties at ransom for their support. Fringe parties with extreme ideals

could have a platform to spread them to a wider audience of people.

We’ve certainly seen many examples of this around the world in some of

the countries that have been mentioned often in the debates here in

recent days.

In Germany, where efforts to form a coalition were being made, it

was expected that once a parliament finally got formed, the far-right

Alternative for Germany party would have 94 seats. As I referred to

earlier, those talks appear to have broken down, but it’s worth noting

that this is a party that wants to stop all immigration of other

nationalities to Germany. Meanwhile, the coalition government that’s

formed in the Netherlands includes an anti-LGBT Christian unity

party.

Proportional representation legitimatizes extreme or fringe

parties from the far-right or the far-left wings of political ideology.

It’s worth noting that we’ve seen evidence that far-right leaders and

political parties are rising in popularity around the globe. The

far-right party in Germany that I just referenced, Alternative for

Germany, received 13 percent of the vote in the country’s 2017 election.

That was up from 4.6 percent in 2013. And, of course, in France,

far-right leader Marine Le Pen won a seat in their parliament in the

2017 general election.

[2:15 p.m.]

Another negative aspect of proportional representation is that

voters are unable to enforce accountability by throwing a party out of

power or even a particular candidate out of office. There is no

accountability for parties or politicians to keep their election

promises, although I guess you could argue that’s exactly what’s

happening right now here in B.C. with all of the broken promises that

we’re seeing from this government.

Any assertion made by the member for Oak Bay–Gordon Head — and we

all remember this well — that campaign promises made by the NDP are

actually irrelevant…. Why? Because they have a supply and confidence

agreement which supersedes the commitments that were actually made with

British Columbians in the election campaign.

But I digress. Proportional representation can be difficult for

voters to understand and for electoral administration to implement

because the rules of these various systems are very, very complex. There

are indeed many variations to proportional representation. Some systems

require that a party reach a minimum threshold of the vote share in

order to earn any seats. How it works for the voters is that they

generally cast a ballot for several candidates or a party, and the

results determine which individual members will sit in the Legislature,

as well as the overall distribution of seats belonging to each

party.

Now, let’s take a look at some of these different variations.

There is list proportional representation or list PR, although I will

note that this system is rarely seen in its purest form anywhere in the

world. Within this system, there are two variations, closed list and

open list, which both use a regional or national list of candidates in

each riding.

In closed list PR, the party ranks the names on the list, and

citizens vote for the party rather than a specific candidate. Parties

earn seats in proportion to their share of the national vote. Then we

see individual seats allocated to candidates of each party in the order

in which they are ranked on the party list, usually chosen by the

party.

Meanwhile, when it comes to open list PR, voters choose a

preferred candidate or candidates from the list of the party they wish

to vote for. In this case, voters effectively determine the order in

which the listed candidates will be given seats.

Another option is the single transferrable vote or STV. I’ll note

that a customized version of STV was the system that British Columbians

considered and voted on in both of our two previous referendums. How

this works is that voters in multi-member electoral districts rank

candidates on the ballot. They have the choice to rank as few or as many

candidates as they want.

In most variations of this system, something called a vote quota

is used. That is, winners are declared by first determining the number

of valid votes cast and then establishing a minimum number of votes that

are required based on the number of seats to be filled. Candidates who

have received enough first-choice votes to reach that quota become the

elected representatives.

Now, if there are still seats to be filled, a two-step count

occurs. Firstly, any votes in excess of the quota for elected candidates

are redistributed to the second choices indicated on the ballots of the

elected candidates, using a weighted formula called excess transfer.

Those who then reach the quota are elected. But if no candidate achieves

that, then we go to step two. The candidate with the fewest

first-preference votes is dropped, and the second-preference votes on

the ballots, where that candidate ranked first, are then assigned to the

remaining candidates.

Moving on, we have the mixed-member proportional system, which I

understand is favoured by the federal NDP. This is a mixed electoral

system where citizens cast two votes, one to decide the representative

for their single seat constituency and one for a political party or

parties to fill seats in the Legislature, which are allocated according

to the proportion of the vote share they receive. The constituency

representatives are elected using first-past-the-post voting or another

plurality or majority system.

A citizen’s second vote, which allocates seats to parties

according to list PR, which was outlined earlier, is used to try to

compensate for any disproportionate results in the first-past-the-post

constituency part of the election. So additional seats are given to

qualifying parties where the number of constituency seats they won

doesn’t reflect voter support shown in both components of the

election.

I’m not sure if you’re still following me after all of that. I

wouldn’t blame you if you’re not. It’s a lot of information to take in.

There are a lot of complexities there. And the ins and outs of each

system and its variations can be a bit confusing to follow at times.

Perhaps we saw evidence of the difficulty of understanding PR in the

previous referendums on electoral reform held here in British

Columbia.

[2:20 p.m.]

In 2005, B.C. held a provincewide vote on whether to retain the

existing first-past-the-post electoral system or change to BCSTV, which,

as I mentioned earlier, was a customized version of the single

transferrable vote system. That was recommended by the Citizens’

Assembly on Electoral Reform. This assembly was set up to assess models

for electing MLAs and to issue a report on whether or not B.C. should

change its voting system.

By all accounts, this citizens’ assembly did exceptional work. The

independent, non-partisan assembly was comprised of 160 randomly

selected British Columbians, men and women from all over this province.

There were four from Kamloops, from my constituency — Katie Cavaletto,

Lee Harris, Ray Jones and Ilene Zurowski.

There were 50 public hearings and more than 1,600 written

submissions. The assembly members carefully considered the input and

ideas of thousands of British Columbians before recommending the BCSTV

system. But when it went to a referendum vote, it didn’t meet the

threshold that was established for the referendum to pass. The threshold

was minimum of 60 percent with a simple majority in 48 of the 79

districts.

It came close, very close, so the government of the day committed

to a second referendum, in the 2005 throne speech. In 2009, that second

provincewide referendum on electoral reform was held at the same time as

the 2009 general election. Voters were given the choice again between

first-past-the-post or the BCSTV model. In that referendum, government

split $1 million in funding amongst the registered proponent group,

British Columbians for BC-STV, and the opponent group, No

STV.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General’s office was tasked with

establishing a referendum information office, with a mandate to provide

objective information to voters about electoral systems. For the

referendum result to be binding, the approval level had to be at least

50 percent of the total popular vote, provincewide, and more than 50

percent of the votes in at least 51 of the province’s 85 electoral

districts. This second referendum also failed to meet the required

thresholds.

Twice now this issue has been canvassed amongst British

Columbians, and twice they have rejected it. We’re going to do it a

third time. Actually, I’m okay with that. The official opposition is

okay with that. We’re okay with asking British Columbians to vote on our

electoral system. I think it’s always a good thing to ask British

Columbians what they think. That’s why holding the referendum is not the

issue.

The trouble is that the NDP government and their Green partners

have decided to essentially rig the system, to stack the deck, to ensure

the result that they want — to ensure a yes vote. They thought to

themselves: “How can we make this referendum process work to our maximum

advantage? How can we tweak things to ensure that we get the result that

we want?”

We all know what they’ve come up with. They’ve lowered the

threshold for the result to be binding on government to a bare majority

of 50 percent plus one — 50 percent plus one of the entire population

that votes in this referendum.

Now, as part of moving to that new threshold, they’ve also done

away with what was always there as a second level of threshold required

for such a fundamental change. That was that a majority of ridings would

have to also support this kind of a change.

That threshold is important. It is there and it has been there to

respect the massive diverse geographic realities of British Columbia —

to respect the fact that is a really big place, with many, many small

communities and rural areas dispersed all across this province of ours —

and that the voices of those small communities, the voices of those

rural areas, matter just as much as the voices in large urban

centres.

There has always been some level of accommodation for that diverse

geographic reality in this province, including the number of seats that

we have and where the seats are. When you look at the total number of

voters and the population that lives within seats, there has always been

an acknowledgment that there will be, often, larger numbers of people

living in urban seats, versus those living in some rural seats. Again,

it’s to protect the voice of all British Columbians in our democratic

process.

[2:25 p.m.]

Rural voters will, essentially, be shut out of this process. Their

voice, essentially, will not matter. With a 50-percent-plus-one

threshold and that being the only threshold, the decision will be made

in the large urban centres. That, to me and to all of us in the official

opposition, is a shocking attack on our democracy, and it’s an attack on

rural British Columbia.

What’s more, as I mentioned earlier, not only is 50 percent plus

one the required threshold to be met, of all those who vote, but it will

be a mail-in ballot — which, if we look at the mail-in ballots that

we’ve had in this province, always have a lower voter participation

level than the participation level tends to be in general

elections.

We had confirmation when pressed. We asked these questions. We had

confirmation, from the Attorney General’s ministry, that a 10 percent

voter turnout would be sufficient, as long as 50 percent plus one

support the decision moving forward. Again, that would be 5 percent of

British Columbia’s eligible voters making a decision that would result

in us changing how we elect our MLAs. That doesn’t seem like a

sufficiently high enough bar for such a critical change to our

democracy.

What’s more, the now Premier is breaking a promise he made to

British Columbians. He said, in the recent election, that a referendum

question would be a simple yes-no question — yes or no, just like we’ve

had as the question in previous referendums. Now we learn that voters

will have to choose between multiple proportional representation

options, and there may or may not be a first-past-the-post option on the

ballot, to boot. That’s another element in this process that could sway

the outcome.

I should also note that a first-past-the-post victory is not

favourable under a ranked ballot. Again, we’re hearing there might be a

ranked or preferential ballot that British Columbians are asked to

consider in this referendum process. That’s not a simple yes-no

question. That’s not a simple proposition being put to British

Columbians, as was promised by the now Premier. Voters who choose

first-past-the-post as their first choice will have to choose between

multiple PR systems for their second and third choices. If

first-past-the-post doesn’t win on the first ballot, a victory is

unlikely.

Also shocking is the fact that the referendum question will likely

be determined by cabinet behind closed doors and, I’m sure, with input

from the Green members. Good for them. But as I mentioned earlier in my

comments, the citizens’ assembly, the people of British Columbia,

criss-crossed this province, held hearings and accepted thousands of

submissions.

The citizens, who were removed from the political process, made

the decision, in terms of what was recommended as the question. They

made the decision, in terms of what was recommended as what British

Columbians were asked to vote on, in the previous two

referendums.

We can clearly see that through a number of different approaches

the government has taken to this referendum, it is very much being

geared towards doing everything the government can, in partnership with

their Green coalition partners, to wire a yes vote — to set this up, as

best as they possibly can, for the result to be what they

want.

We can see the desperation that this reflects upon the government,

in their effort to cling to power, in that they would so quickly throw

these promises out the window — promises that were made only months ago

in the election campaign by the current Premier — in order to grab and

retain power.

[2:30 p.m.]

Similarly on the Green Party side, we have seen in this House,

certainly in this session, opportunity after opportunity for the Green

Party to work with the official opposition on different matters, to

truly put their actions where their words are, in terms of working with

everybody in this House. They choose not to do that, issue after issue,

after great fanfare and after lots of arm-waving and so

forth.

The Greens seem to be intent on compromising every single

principle that they stand for to prop up this government to get to a PR

referendum in a year from now. That’s really what’s going on here, and

unfortunately, British Columbians are being caught in the

crosshairs.

I hope that this government and their Green partners have enough

respect for British Columbians that they will change course on this. I

don’t have a lot of hope that they will, but I put that out

there.

I think we saw, in the recent engagement survey that was released

by the government — obviously to just put a check mark in the box next

to public engagement; again, just another example of how skewed this

referendum process is being set up — how wired it is to ensure the

result that they want.

When you ask questions like: “Do you want your MLA to go to

Victoria to represent your interests or to represent the interests of a

party…?” I mean, come on. British Columbians aren’t stupid. This

engagement survey is a pathetic example of a government trying to

demonstrate that they’re actually engaging, when really all they’re

doing is putting out a very weak attempt to solicit some data to be able

to say that they made the effort.

Writing the question in the secrecy of cabinet, not by British

Columbians; reducing the threshold from 60 percent plus one, plus the

dual requirement for a majority of ridings to vote in a majority for

this; not putting forward a clear-cut, simple, yes-no question that is

designed, built and recommended by British Columbians independent of the

political process — these are all serious concerns that we have about

the process. Of course, as I mentioned earlier in my comments, we’re

very, very concerned about the merits of moving away from our current

system, with all of its warts, to any of the proposed systems under

PR.

With that, I intend on voting in support of the amendment that is

on the floor, and then I will subsequently be voting against Bill

J. Thornthwaite: I am standing here looking forward to speaking in support of the

amendment, but before that, I wanted to address something that a

previous member from the opposite side mentioned.

One of my constituents, who actually is quite knowledgable on this

topic, Dr. Edmonds, has advised me on numerous occasions about the issue

of proportional representation. In actual fact, he’s not a supporter of

it. He did share with me that he had voted NDP in the past election, so

he wasn’t supporting me, but he doesn’t support PR either. His question

to me was to ask everybody here: if you think you want to expand our

electoral system into proportional representation, then what are you

willing to give up?

I think that’s the key. There’s no doubt that this bill, the

proportional representation bill, is designed to increase Green seats.

That might be okay for some people. Certainly, the Green people and all

of the supporters of the Green people think this is great. Sixteen

percent of the voters in last May’s election actually voted Green. So

that’s okay. But by changing the electoral system to allow more Green

seats, we are also increasing the chances of fringe parties that we may

not want.

[2:35 p.m.]

This is the thing that we’ve got to consider. After listening to

the remarks of the member for Vancouver–West End, I was very concerned

with the way that he talked about the argument about LGBTQ rights. And

wouldn’t it be good to have more parties that focused on trans and LGBTQ

rights? Well, you know what? I actually agree. But in proportional

representation, what are you willing to give up — in that, if we did

have proportional representation, what are the chances of more

anti-LGBTQ people binding together to make a party and also getting

elected?

We also know what has been going on in Chilliwack. There’s a group

called Culture Guard in Chilliwack. Are we wanting them to form a

political party and get some seats? Before you say that this has not

happened, let’s talk about Indonesia.

Indonesia elects their People’s Representative Council via PR

system. There are two parties that are anti-LGBTQ. The Prosperous

Justice Party has 40 seats. The United Development Party has 39 seats.

And they proposed bills to ban LGBTQ activism and criminalize LGBTQ

people, rights and behavior in 2016.

So my question to everybody…. If you think PR is going to increase

just the Greens, it’s also going to increase fringe parties that we

might not feel too comfortable with.

Moving on to the actual amendment. One of the reasons why I am

supporting the amendment is to give us more time to actually think about

this sort of stuff.

The member for Nechako Lakes said that he was moving this

amendment to say “deleting the word ‘now’ and substituting ‘six

months.’” “Upon moving this motion,” that member said, “the intent of

this motion is to allow people, government and the various parties to be

able to go forward, have more consultation and get people to have a

better understanding, a more full understanding, of what this proposal

is for proportional representation.” Because we all have heard from the

other folks in the House that we don’t know actually what this question

is going to be.

It’s critical that if we’re going to move forward, people must

understand what they’re voting for. I remember my dad. God rest his

soul. The thing that he used to tell me when I grew up was that there’s

only one thing worse, if people do not vote. The worst thing for not

voting is voting for something that you don’t know you’re voting.

“Always, Jane,” he used to say to me, “vote for the ones that you know.

Vote for the parties that you know.” And he always encouraged me to meet

my elected representatives.

In fact, in the first-past-the-post system, which I got elected

in, it’s really easy to meet me. I’ve got an open door policy. You can

make an appointment. Obviously, it’s a good idea to make an appointment,

because somebody could walk in off the street today, into my office, and

they wouldn’t find me there. I’m actually here. But certainly, you can

walk in off the street. I am accessible. I’m everywhere.

Now, is everybody that’s going to be elected through a PR system

going to be that accessible? I’ve heard people complain, in areas that

have PR, in European countries, who say: “I never get to see my elected

representative. In fact, I don’t even know who my elected representative

is.” Because most of the forms of proportional representation have party

lists.

I’m not going to repeat what I said in my last remarks, last

month, when I was talking about the bill. Suffice to say, again, if we

are going to support a system like proportional representation, what are

we willing to give up? Are we willing to give up personal representation

for people to have easy and accessible access to their individual

MLAs?

Now, I can tell you that I do have somebody that has written me on

this quite a bit, and he has some great ideas. In fact, he was the Green

candidate that ran against the member for Vancouver–West End, and he

supports proportional representation — but not all forms.

[2:40 p.m.]

He told me that there are a couple of PR systems that would

actually help the negative talk about some levels of proportional

representation with regards to having an individual MLA that you could

easily access. Or even, as my colleagues here from rural British

Columbia, who are really, really, worried about the diminishment of

rural representation…. He brings up the examples of what is going on in

the Scottish national parliament as well as the German state of

Baden-Württemberg. I would be really, really interested to learn more

about these systems of PR, but right now I bet you there’s nobody in

this House that is familiar with these.

The fact is that we need more time. If we are going to be voting

on a system, we need more time to figure out what these systems are. If,

as I said before, we want to elect a PR system — whatever that PR system

is — what are we willing to give up? And that is my point.

Right now what we have is an Attorney General who has already

indicated in his remarks today and yesterday in the House that he is

biased in favour of proportional representation. That’s not right. That

is not an unbiased opinion of somebody who is actually going to be

making a decision that will influence the electoral system of all

British Columbians — and, for now, that’s just under 5 million people.

So one Attorney General, 22 members in cabinet plus a Premier are making

a decision for 4.8 million people in British Columbia.

But I digress. How did we get here? Way back in May, the 2017

confidence and supply agreement between the B.C. Green caucus and the

B.C. New Democrat caucus was announced. Under

section 3 of the agreement

and under the subheading “Making Democracy Work for People,” the two

parties stated their commitment to proportional representation and

declared their commitment to introduce proportional representation in

the Legislative Assembly in this session. They have done that. Great.

One promise.

We’ve also passed a bill that proposes to change the laws

surrounding campaign finance fundraising, a bill that amends the

Constitution Act to ascribe a different meaning to the definition of

what it means to actually be a political party. And now this bill, which

attempts to make wholesale changes to our voting systems and the way we

pick our elected officials.

These three bills speak to the heart of our democracy here in

British Columbia, and the accumulated effect of these bills are set to

change our democratic system in a way that stacks the deck for both the

NDP but — I could argue — more for the Greens. Neither one of those two

parties actually won the election last May, but combined, they did get

one more seat than the B.C. Liberals.

Our current system is first-past-the-post, and it is the most

common electoral system in democratic elections. Under the current

first-past-the-post system, each voter gets one vote and chooses one

candidate to represent their constituency. The candidate who wins more

votes than another is elected — thus each first-past-the-post

constituency has one MLA who is personally accountable to their voters

and their respective constituency. It’s a very uncomplicated and

straightforward process.

That highlights some of the key advantages. It’s simple, and they

have one MLA. My constituents, as I mentioned before, find it very, very

easy to come and visit me. They have great access to me, and I represent

everybody in my constituency, not just the people that voted for me.

With a stronger link between constituents and elected representatives,

accountability is increased. My accountability is increased. Certainly,

there are people that support me as a person. Even if they didn’t

support my party, they supported me. I am elected to represent, as I

said, all of my constituents, and that is what I do.

Almost all of the models, like mixed-member plurality or the MMP

one — that, apparently, the leader of the Green Party has expressed an

interest in — have party lists. In addition to an elected MLA in a

particular riding, depending on the provincial percentage of votes that

other parties got, those party leaders would appoint MLAs to certain

regions.

That, in my opinion, is a lack of accountability. Again, I

recognize that there are other models out there, but give us the time

with this amendment to actually examine them before we actually vote on

whether or not we want proportional representation to begin

with.

[2:45 p.m.]

That’s not to say we haven’t put the question of proportional

representation to the electorate. We did. In 2005 and again in 2009. The

B.C. Liberals held two referendums on proportional representation. That

would make this proposed referendum our third in 13 years.

What’s different about this proposed referendum when compared to

the other two? Prior to the 2005 referendum, the process was handed over

to the public through the creation of a 161-member panel on electoral

reform. The B.C. Citizens’ Assembly was created in an effort to

determine what kind of improvements needed to be made and how the

referendum question would be processed.

British Columbians from every corner of the province were

consulted, and the process was universally lauded for its independence

and impartiality. From this extensive consultation, the citizens’

assembly recommended a referendum on the single transferable vote. After

being put to a vote in 2005 and ultimately failing to meet the minimum

threshold, the question was again proposed to British Columbians in a

2009 referendum. Moreover, the government promoted public awareness and

understanding of the two elected systems, openly and transparently, and

provided equal funds to supporters and detractors of each

system.

This was a truly public process. While the first referendum was

close, the second was not. The STV suffered a wholesale defeat with only

39 percent voting in favour of the proposed reform.

Now, we have the Green Party, a party that had the support of only

16 percent of the popular vote, wielding the balance of power and

dictating policy for all British Columbians. And one person, as I

mentioned before, the Attorney General, will be making that

decision.

Is there is a model of proportional representation that the

Attorney feels would be better suited for British Columbia? How about

some examples in Europe where proportional representation is widespread.

Consider the system of proportional representation currently in place in

the Netherlands, where there has been a proliferation of no fewer than

28 smaller special interest parties and where 13 of them currently sit

in parliament.

Or what about the system in Belgium, where it took 589 days

without a government to form a six-party coalition government. What

about Germany? Everybody seems to be talking about Germany, until

recently. It almost looked like the coalition talks between Chancellor

Merkel’s CDU-CSU alliance, the Free Democratic Party and the Green Party

would successfully lead to the creation of a minority coalition

government.

Well, those talks fell apart on November 19, with immigration

being cited as the major obstacle to any agreement being reached. With

51 percent of Germans now supporting a new election, there is the fear

that the far-right, anti-immigration party, Alternative for Germany,

which secured 94 seats in parliament, would stand to gain even more

seats.

For decades, it appeared as if far-right, anti-immigration,

pro-Nazi fringe groups like AfD had been sidelined. Yet in recent years,

European voters seem particularly attracted to the political rhetoric of

the extreme right.

In the Netherlands, we now see the Freedom Party holding 20 of 150

seats. This is a party whose leader has called for the banning of the

Quran, the closing of mosques and a halt to immigration from non-western

countries.

In Austria, the Freedom Party of Austria currently holds 51 of 138

seats in the lower house and 13 of 61 in the upper house. This is a

party that was founded by former SS officers and whose party leader has

called for a ban on Muslim symbolism in response to Austria being

“Islamified.” In 2000, the FPÖ was even part of a governing

coalition.

Throughout Europe, a recent string of confusing and inconclusive

elections have eroded political stability from Spain to Ireland to

Slovakia and Portugal. Elections across the EU have produced fractured

parliaments, improbable and unstable coalitions, weaker, more divided

and more extreme governments.

I find it quite reasonable to suggest that the rise in popularity

of far-right populist parties is partly owed to the electoral systems

that have given them legitimacy. Smaller parties get a disproportionate

amount of power, which leads to horse trading between parties during

post-election transition periods.

Look no further than the B.C. election last spring, where the

Libertarian party took 0.4 percent of the vote, the Christian Heritage

Party took 0.717 of the vote, the Vancouver Island Party took 0.03

percent of the vote and the Communist party of B.C. took 0.04 percent of

the vote.

[2:50 p.m.]

But thinking ahead to the next provincial election would be

premature. Unfortunately for myself and all British Columbians, we’ve

still yet to find out what exactly the system is of PR that we’re even

being allowed to vote on. That’s because the NDP won’t release the

ballot question until after this bill’s debate has passed. Again, that

is why I’m supporting this amendment for delay.

The single biggest demarcation from the referendum posed in this

bill and the referendums of 2005 and 2009 is the lack of transparency in

the public engagement process. Gone is the report from the independent

citizens’ assembly. Instead, the NDP and the Greens say the government

will ultimately determine the outcome, which is going on right now with

regards to their consultation, after they hold these so-called

non-binding public consultations on a new system.

Don’t take my word for it on what people are saying about this

consultation. I will quote a portion of what Keith Baldrey has said: “I

think it is very clear this government is stacking the deck in favour of

getting people to vote for proportional representation in the referendum

next November, a mail-in ballot.”

Vaughn Palmer said that it is designed to create a rosy set of

responses on what the NDP and the Greens want, which is a system of

proportional representation that will entrench the Greens in the

Legislature and make it more likely that we will have these kinds of

coalition governments in the future. Given the government’s enthusiasm

and support for proportional representation, a more neutral

questionnaire would have been more helpful. Despite assurances from the

now Premier back in May that the referendum question would be a binary

yes-or-no option, that’s now gone out the window.

Again, in conclusion, as I wrap up my comments on the amendment,

I’d like to reinforce my strong objections to not only the content of

the bill but the spirit of it. To radically change our electoral system

because of the NDP’s capitulation to backroom demands of the Green Party

strikes me as a real rotten deal for British Columbians. Should this

bill pass, and should British Columbians be forced into a referendum, I

feel we are destined for weaker governments, more frequent elections and

a politically splintered Legislature.

I’d like to repeat what I said before, at the beginning. I’d like

those who are currently in favour of proportional representation to

think about just how much they are prepared to give up. It may be more

than what they think. We might be okay with increased Green seats. I’m

not making a comment on that. But we might not be okay with fringe

parties grasping more seats and allowing them to control more power and

therefore significantly influence legislators of British Columbia in the

future.

In closing, I think the future of our democracy here in British

Columbia is actually at risk. I would hope that everybody, in addition

to researching this issue thoroughly, would support this amendment to

put it on hold for a little bit of time so we can study it a little bit

more and not make any rash decisions that might potentially make British

Columbia worse than it is.

D. Barnett: I, too, would like to add my support for this amendment to the

legislation that we have before us. Bill 6, the Electoral Reform

Referendum 2018 Act, is indeed deeply flawed and should be reviewed by

the minister responsible, the Attorney General.

This amendment would delay this legislation for a period of six

months. Given the fact that the government does not intend to implement

proportional representation until July 1, 2021, I believe there is ample

time for the Attorney General to reconsider.

This particular bill can be described as enabling legislation. It

attempts to set the stage for a referendum question and even sets a

deadline to have the whole affair wrapped up by November 2018. This is

rather a tight timetable. Mistakes have already been made along the way.

This strongly indicates that this legislation was drafted too quickly

and without a full appreciation of all the unintended

consequences.

[2:55 p.m.]

For example, according to the power-sharing agreement signed

between the NDP and the Green Party last May, the referendum was to be

held concurrently with the next municipal election in the fall of 2018.

However, we already know this is not going to happen. Somewhere along

the way, the government finally realized that municipal voter lists were

not the same as the provincial voter list.

The people of British Columbia were led to believe the whole

purpose of holding the referendum at the same time as municipal

elections was to achieve some economy of scale. One might also expect it

would have given the referendum greater public profile by holding it at

the same time as municipal elections.

Faced with this embarrassment, this particular flaw had to be

defended by the Finance Minister during her last appearance on Voice

of B.C. I would like to read what the Minister of Finance had

to say.

“We looked at all options. We looked at tying it in with the

municipal elections. That became very challenging — different voter

lists for municipalities than there are for the provincial voters lists.

So it didn’t look like it was actually going to be a savings. In the

end, when you looked at the turnout for mailout ballots, it was actually

quite high, so we felt there was a cost savings there.

“It’s accessible for everyone. There’ll still be some voting spots

where people can go if they want to actually mark their ballot and leave

it there. There’ll be a number of centres around the province. But a

saves money as well. It really was the best choice.”

The Finance Minister’s defence reveals that the decision to fall

back on the mail-in ballot is really just a compromise. The NDP

government left it up to the minister to defend the next best thing, but

not because it was in the best interest of the public. Rather, the NDP

had to meet a deadline imposed by the Green Party.

Any responsible member of this Legislature has to ask the obvious

question: why the giant rush? Why is the Attorney General attempting to

stampede the people of British Columbia into a referendum?

The people of this province elect us to serve as their

representatives and to pass good laws on their behalf. This bill, in

fact, is fundamentally flawed. In their haste to rush through

legislation, we are witnessing a government opening itself up to a court

challenge. The challenge will come as a result of having a lack of

proper thresholds. This legislation contains only a 50-plus-one-percent

threshold on the referendum question.

We do not know what form the question will take. Under this

legislation, the public will not have direct input into how the

referendum question will be phrased. All of those decisions have been

reserved by cabinet, and any decision will be protected by cabinet

secrecy. In fact, it is most likely that the referendum question has

already been negotiated in private between the NDP and the Green

Party.

We know this. We are dealing with a government that is rather fond

of holding public consultation on everything from ride-sharing to Site C

to bridges. However, electoral reform has been conspicuously left off

that list.

The future of our democratic franchise is the most important issue

being debated by this Legislature, yet the public is being left out of

the process. It is well acknowledged that the on-line questionnaire

launched by the government last week is designed to produce a specific

outcome, an outcome slanted toward some form of proportional

representation that the government will not reveal until the last

moment.

When the government finally does spring the question on voters at

the 11th hour, we already know the NDP and the Green Party will gang up

on the public and use government resources to push through their

referendum. According to the power-sharing agreement signed last May,

the NDP and the Green Party will “campaign actively in support of the

agreed-upon form of proportional representation.” So why hold a bogus

public consultation exercise at all?

[3:00 p.m.]

The government has lowered the bar for approval to a threshold of

50 percent plus one. This is to ensure safe passage for any one

alternate favoured by the NDP and the Green Party. In effect, they have

established a low ceiling for some form of proportional

representation.

What the government hasn’t done is to establish a minimum level of

voter participation. This puts the province in a precarious position. It

also opens the government up to a court challenge. It is a fact that

stand-alone referendums do not get the same level of voter

participation. So we have to ask the question: what is an acceptable

minimum level of voter participation in the referendum?

According to the Attorney General’s office, even if only 10

percent of registered voters cast a ballot, that would be valid. Let’s

be clear. We are not even talking about 10 percent of the population

voting in favour of proportional representation. We are just talking

about the total voter turnout. In other words, this government is

willing to accept any result, as long as it meets their objectives.

That’s where the danger lies.

The most recent Canadian experience with a provincial referendum

lies with our sister parliament in Prince Edward Island. They, too, held

a referendum on proportional representation. This is a province that

takes its politics very seriously. Over the past ten provincial

elections in Prince Edward Island, the average voter turnout was 80

percent — much higher, in fact, than in British Columbia in 2017, where

only an estimated 60 percent of eligible voters turned out at the

polls.

Prince Edward Island pulled out all the stops to increase public

participation in their referendum on proportional representation. Voters

had access to on-line voting and telephone voting, too — something very

attractive to rural voters. They even lowered the age of eligible voters

to 16, based on the idea that they would be 18 years of age come the

next election.

On voting day in P.E.I., 52 percent of the people who participated

approved of something called mixed-member proportional representation.

This is what the NDP and the Green Party are pushing the province

towards. Unfortunately for proponents of proportional representation,

Prince Edward Island had to declare the referendum null and

void.

What happened? The problem was that only 36 percent of eligible

voters in P.E.I. chose to participate in the stand-alone referendum —

this in a province where, normally, 80 percent of eligible voters take

part in general elections. The Premier was therefore forced to declare

that the referendum did not state the clear intention of the people of

Prince Edward Island.

This sets a precedent in our Westminster system of government in

Canada. That’s the problem with this legislation. If 36 percent of

eligible voters in our sister parliament does not constitute an eligible

threshold for public participation in Prince Edward Island, then how in

the heck is 10 percent good enough for British Columbia?

That comes to where a court challenge comes into play. I suspect

that the Attorney General’s office is already preparing for that

possibility. With no minimum threshold and a bare-minimum ceiling on

approval, what is the government hoping to achieve? Let me explain.

Prior to the last election the Premier met with an editorial board to

make his position clear.

[3:05 p.m.]

The Premier said: “Once we establish the referendum question, we’d

establish the threshold, and this would be part of our consultation

process. The amending formula for our constitution, for example,

requires approval by seven provinces with 50 percent of Canada’s

population. So it is an absolute 50 percent, but it has to include seven

provinces…. This amending formula is similar to the kind of formula

we’ll need for a plebiscite on changing how we elect people in

B.C.”

The Premier is following through on his plan. We already know that

the NDP and the Green Party have likely determined what the referendum

question will be. And therefore, any public consultation has commenced….

This bill already lays out what the threshold of approval is — 50

percent plus one. But without a minimum threshold of voter

participation, any result will do.

This is unacceptable. It comes from a party that strictly requires

a 66 percent majority to alter any NDP party policies. Why is only 50

percent plus one good enough for the people of British Columbia? Because

this referendum is not a serious attempt at democratic reform. It is a

thinly veiled attempt to consolidate power by the NDP and the Green

Party.

Unlike the two previous referendums, in 2005 and 2009, the results

of the referendum in 2018 will rely on a simple majority. This means a

simple majority of the largest population centre in British Columbia can

determine the outcome, and 2.8 million British Columbians live on the

Lower Mainland. In a province of only 4.6 million, the Lower Mainland

will determine the outcome of the referendum.

When you look at the results of the last election, you will notice

a distinct divide between urban and rural British Columbians. There were

virtually no members elected in northern or rural British Columbia.

There are no Green Party members either. They are all located on the

Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island, so it would make sense to

a minority NDP government and their Green Party partners to adopt a new

voting system that would favour them the most.

It doesn’t matter that people in rural British Columbia, like the

people of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, would no longer have a voice in the

Legislature. Under proportional representation, people would no longer

vote for their MLA. They would only vote for political parties. At a

time when the public is showing lower tolerance for partisan politics,

the NDP and the Green Party want to institutionalize it.

This is fooling no one. It is well acknowledged that the NDP and

the Green Party want proportional representation because it will favour

their foothold in urban British Columbia. That represents an affront to

our democratic process. During the last election, the NDP and the Green

Party did not spend any time north of the 50th parallel in British

Columbia. The results of the last election reflect this divide, a deep

divide between rural and urban British Columbia.

Why not pose a simple referendum question that people can

understand? A simple yes or a no to proportional representation. Prior

to the last election, that’s what the Premier said he would do. That is

another broken promise.

According to the legislation that we have in front of us, voters

will be asked to rank any number of different types of proportional

representation. Most political scientists would have a difficult time

trying to explain, for example, the difference between a single

transferable vote and a mixed-member proportional system. How is the

average voter going to make such a determination?

The vast majority of voters on Prince Edward Island decided not to

participate in the referendum because it was just too darn complicated.

That’s why the outcome was declared illegitimate. This sets a precedent

for British Columbia.

[3:10 p.m.]

Why can we not have a yes-or-no question that the Premier seemed

to favour only a few months ago during the election? The consequences

can be quite difficult for our province.

Proportional representation has proven to be a disaster around the

planet. Let’s look at some international examples.

Iceland, 2017. This country recently concluded their second snap

election in less than one year. Eight political parties in a new

parliament with only 63 seats, one of them which is the Pirate

Party.

Germany, 2017. This country will not have a new government until

2018 after a September election. The far-right party, Alternative for

Germany, will have 94 seats in their parliament.

Spain, 2015 — 314 days without government, 12 parties in

parliament.

Belgium, 2010 — 589 days before government formed, a six-party

coalition government. That government lasted only two years.

Italy, 1946 to 2016 — two separate proportional representation

systems since 1993; 65 governments in 70 years, with as many Prime

Ministers since World War II as Canada’s entire history. Currently 28

parties form six separate alliances in parliament.

This is what the NDP and Green Party have in store for British

Columbia, and this is why I support this amendment. When it comes to

fiddling with the way people vote in a province, the public deserves a

better process for electoral reform. This bill is fundamentally flawed

and needs to be sent back to the drawing board.

A. Wilkinson: We’re here, of course, to debate the amendment to Bill 6, which

provides for a proportional representation referendum here in British

Columbia. Now, this has been controversial in this House, and we do hope

that it becomes more of a controversy amongst British Columbians,

because this really is a stealth campaign to change our

democracy.

It’s part of a three-bill package, one of which extends the term

of the NDP government, if they last that long, for another six months.

The second one provides for taxpayer funding for political parties,

which has never been agreed upon by the people of British Columbia. It’s

just something that the NDP have invented since they took power. And the

third part, of course, is this referendum bill about proportional

representation.

Of course, the stated goal is for the NDP to make every vote

count. That sounds good until the actual mechanics come into focus. What

it means is that there will be large ridings, perhaps one riding for all

of northern British Columbia, with multiple members. There’d be a loss

of accountability at the local level because people won’t know who their

MLA is. Sure, they’ll make every vote count, but as soon as they leave

the ballot box, the voter will realize that they just voted for four

people and they actually have seven MLAs in their area. The other three

come from party lists.

This is exactly what happens in New Zealand — 120 members for a

population about the same as British Columbia. What happens? Well, 48

plus of them come from party lists. They aren’t chosen by the voters on

geographic boundaries. They’re chosen off party lists by some central

machinery. So making every vote count actually doesn’t mean much when

you lose track of who your elected members are and the geography of your

riding. You don’t really know who represents you. This is the first part

of this stealth campaign.

The second

part is when those elected members come to Victoria,

meet in a room and decide who will form the government. There will be a

multiple list of parties, because there were so many small parties

represented in proportional representation. So what will happen, of

course, is that the larger parties like the NDP might have 20 members,

and they have to go and collect a bunch of minority parties to join them

into a coalition. This means horse trading in the worst kind of way,

behind closed doors. Those small parties get to demand whatever they

want.

This is exactly what happened in New Zealand, with an

anti-immigration party holding the balance of power, exactly what

happens routinely in Israel with an Orthodox Jewish party holding the

balance of power. They get whatever they want because they hold the key

to power for the larger parties.

[3:15 p.m.]

If it’s the NDP, of course, their platform would go out the

window. They have to compromise their principles behind closed doors to

form a large coalition that’s sufficient to form government.

It gets worse, too. If a coalition member gets grumpy and quits

the coalition, there usually isn’t a new election. In fact, they just go

and find a new dance partner. So the policy background, the drive behind

government, the goals of government keep changing because these

coalitions are so unstable. We also get that extreme instability on who

leads the government.

In Israel, we’ve seen dozens of governments in recent years. In

Italy, we’ve seen 70 Prime Ministers since World War II. We don’t need

this kind of instability. This province has thrived on peace, order and

good government, which is written into the Canadian constitution. We’re

celebrating the 150th anniversary of Canada, which has performed

remarkably well in a big, diverse country with lots of regional

interests. It’s worked.

That’s, in fact, of course, why the federal government embarked on

a campaign for electoral reform and then abandoned it. They realized all

it would do would empower regional parties. There’d be a New Brunswick

party, a Newfoundland party wanting their own special interests taken

care of and, of course, the Bloc Québécois, which tried to tear this

country apart.

The federal government backed down from this because they realized

it would have been catastrophic for this country. That is what we see in

a smaller form in British Columbia. Those of us who’ve been around the

province recently know that the issues list in the Peace River country

has almost nothing in common with the issues list here on the southern

part of Vancouver Island.

We keep this province together. We keep our almost five million

British Columbians on the same path because we have political parties

that have to represent the entire province.

There’s also a great irony, of course, that this party, the B.C.

Liberal Party, finds itself in opposition with a razor-thin minority

government in charge. Yet we aren’t asking for the system to be changed.

We aren’t asking for some kind of advantage to be built into the next

election. We’re saying: “We take our lumps. We lost this election even

though we got the most votes, even though we got the most seats. The

other side were able to form power in a minority government.”

That is the beauty of parliamentary systems. If there is no

majority, you get a minority government, which usually doesn’t last very

long, and then there’s an election when the appropriate time comes. It’s

not a matter of continually building coalitions that are unstable and

lead to unreliable and unpredictable government.

The concern, of course, about proportional representation is while

it’s attractive to the person entering the ballot box, thinking they’re

going to get the party of their choice, whether it’s the Marijuana

Party, a regional ethnic party or a special interest party…. Sure, they

might get their way and get a member into the Legislature. Sure, they

might get political party funding after the votes are counted. But

nonetheless, it leads to opaque, unstable and unpredictable governments

where the balance of power is held by small special interests. We don’t

need that because we have thrived on a system based on openness and

clarity in who we vote for and why we vote for them.

The history, of course, in Canada of mixed-member proportional

representation has been very flawed. There was a referendum in Ontario

in 2007 that failed. The manoeuvre toward some form of change in

electoral process in British Columbia that started in 2004 failed twice,

in 2005 and 2009. It was for a different voting system, but it wasn’t

for proportional representation. Nonetheless, the public said they

didn’t want it.

Of course, in Prince Edward Island last year, there was a vote,

and 36 percent of the public voted. Fifty-two percent of them voted in

favour of proportional representation, meaning that less than 19 percent

of the public asked for the change. Of course, the provincial government

in P.E.I. came to its senses and said that’s not enough of a mandate to

change the basis of their democracy.

We can see that these moves towards proportional representation or

to change voting systems have failed across Canada repeatedly. Yet we

find ourselves here today debating a bill that will lead to exactly that

proposition being put forward once again. But this is no ordinary bill.

It provides for 50 percent plus one of a mail-in ballot to be held in

the fall on questions decided by an NDP cabinet and, of course, with the

proponent and opponent groups funded and chosen by the NDP cabinet. So

this is an extraordinarily secretive and closed process which the NDP

are doing everything they can to appease the Green Party.

The Greens got three seats in the election. They think they’re

entitled to 13. The only possible way they can get there is to force

through proportional representation for the next election. Hence, we

have this bill, which is really the only substantive piece of

legislation that this government has put forward this fall. Every other

issue has been put out for study, whether it’s marijuana or ICBC or the

George Massey Tunnel replacement. All of them have been put out for

study and consultation because this government can’t make a

decision.

[3:20 p.m.]

One thing they can make a decision on is the naked grab for power

where they want to keep the Green Party on side. So what they will do is

sell away our democratic process to the Green Party and allow them to

maintain this crude coalition as long as they possibly can. The Greens,

of course, hope it will last long enough to get the referendum passed

and that any election thereafter would be done on PR.

Of course, the NDP are conflicted on this. Their own commentators

are saying that proportional representation is not the path to the

future, yet we find them having been cajoled into this by the Greens

because they have no option. If the Greens leave, the governing

coalition then falls apart. There would be an election, because that’s

what parliamentary systems are for. They do not tolerate instability.

They generate new elections, which generally result in a stable majority

government.

In this scenario, instead, we’d have proportional representation

with constantly shifting coalitions and transitions of power without

accountability. Of course, at the riding level, there is almost no

accountability, because if I live in Chetwynd or Terrace, I may not have

an MLA within 300 miles of my home. They could all live in Prince

George. They could all live in Williams Lake. We just don’t know where

they would come from.

This is, of course, fundamentally problematic in rural British

Columbia, because representation really does matter in rural B.C. People

need to know who to complain to about their roads. They need to know who

is responsible for building that school or that hospital. They want to

know who to complain to about the issues that affect their daily

lives.

It’s, perhaps, less of an issue in a riding like mine, in Metro

Vancouver, but if I’m in rural British Columbia, I want to know who my

MLA is. Being told there are seven of them for an area of size of France

or Germany does not cut it in our country. It should be the subject of

this amendment, and this bill should be defeated.

We heard in the throne speech earlier this summer about the threat

to democracy. We just have to look around the country and see how

countries that were formerly very stable, like Hungary and Poland, are

going through nasty transitions. Countries like Turkey and the

Philippines, where unstable government, in the guise of democracy, is

coming forward.

Why on earth would we mess with a system that has provided, in the

transitions of power? This is the heritage we have inherited from the

British parliamentary system. It works, and we should not screw it up

with some fanciful venture into proportional representation done behind

closed doors by a secretive NDP cabinet solely to maintain their grasp

on power by keeping the Green Party happy.

We should vote in favour of this amendment, because it means that

we can avoid this world of confusion, lack of representation and poor

accountability — a world in which we’ll have a proliferation of

political parties. Around British Columbia, those of us who have spent

the time to get around this province know that the interests in local

communities vary dramatically. All of us can spot, in the fabric of our

society, the potential for fractious parties, small parties that

represent regional, ethnic or religious interests or, God forbid, the

extraordinary special interests of something as narrow as a marijuana

party.

This is absurd in a modern democracy, but that’s exactly what

we’ll get with proportional representation. Not only that, under this

government’s package, those parties that can get 5 percent of the vote

get full funding for the next election. They get their election expenses

rebated. This, of course, encourages even more flaky parties to get into

the marketplace, because all they have to do is get 5 percent of the

vote and they’ll get four members in the House and full funding to carry

on their cause. This is not what we need in this province, because we

have had nearly 150 years of stability, and that is what we have thrived

on.

More specifically, in the bill itself, there’s simply no

definition of proportional representation anywhere in the act. This is

irresponsible — for this government to go out there and force through

this House a bill that provides for them to have a greater grab on power

with no definition of what they’re asking for.

They say there’ll be consultations. Well, those are to be

conducted by the Attorney General, who is supposedly neutral. Yet last

week, we saw their supposedly neutral questionnaire come out which is

massively biased toward a proportional representation choice.

I look at my own history in this House of being on the other side

and being accused of being the minister of propaganda. That’s been the

subject of some sanctions recently. We’re not allowed to use those

mocking names anymore for ministries. But look at this bill. The

material that’s coming out on it is nothing less than propaganda. It is

highly biased toward convincing people toward a certain result which

makes no sense for the people of British Columbia, but that’s what the

NDP want.

[3:25 p.m.]

The other factor in this bill, of course, that completely defies

logic is that there’s no benchmark provided. What’s the goal? What’s the

place you want to get to? Why are we doing this? There’s no explanation

for that whatsoever. Certainly, the bill is empty in that

regard.

Who provided input into this bill? We have no idea. Was there any

public consultation? Absolutely not. There was none. And now the NDP

cabinet say that they’re going to do that after the fact. As soon as

they’ve got their bill in place and as soon as the referendum is

inevitable, then they will go out and make some consultation.

Then they will go out and appoint these proponent and opponent

groups. And how will they be determined? What is their legitimacy? Did

the public choose them? Did the public have any input into these

supporter and opponent groups? Absolutely not. It will be chosen by the

NDP cabinet behind closed doors, once again sending out public money to

a special interest group to serve their own purposes.

This is an appalling embarrassment for this House to have to

debate something which grants, basically, the two parties that form

government a blank slate into the future and a blank cheque to support

their process for the decades to come. As part of the electoral

financing bill, they say they’ll review it in five years. Well, that’s

farcical, because we know that once the NDP get addicted to cash flow

from the taxpayers, they’re hardly going to give it up if they have

control over it in the years to come.

We come back to this bill, and we have the issue of the voting

package that is defined in the act. But there’s no definition whatsoever

of what the question will be in the statute. So why are we talking about

a voting package when we don’t even know what the question is? This is

the kind of crazy approach that this bill provides, which is

bootstrapping itself into the result by guaranteeing the fact that there

will be a mail-in referendum, with no content at all to the idea. No one

knows what will go into that referendum.

It also provides for one or more questions. This is ridiculous.

Why can’t we know what the proposed question is now? Why can’t the NDP

come out and tell us what the question would be before we vote to

support it and fund it? This, again, is an attempt to hijack our

democracy.

Why was the date chosen for the fall of 2018? Out of the blue. The

timing of these things matters. Why was the mail-in referendum format

chosen? Again, no rationale, no reason — just an assertion of a

certainty that things will be great if we follow the plans of the

NDP.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

Well, we know who’s conflicted here. The Greens and the NDP will

be the ones who are driving the decision on what the question is and who

gets funded to support and oppose it. This is basically a fraud on the

voters, and it’s a fraud on this House that we find ourselves having to

debate this today, when the House should actually be debating what

happens in the future of British Columbia economically and in terms of

our social programs.

All of those issues have been put aside. They’ve been swept off

the table so that we can debate one topic only this fall, which is the

issue of keeping the NDP and the Greens in power indefinitely. This is

an embarrassment in our democracy. Of course, it’s going to be up to all

of us to get out in our communities and make sure that people are fully

aware of the scam that the NDP are trying to pull on the rest of

us.

We have to look at the issue of 50 percent. Why did they choose 50

percent plus one as the threshold for changing the fundamental fabric of

our democracy? No rationale whatsoever. Well, it sounds like majority

government. This is exactly what they’re trying to get away from with

PR. They’re saying that PR will present a better system than 50 percent

plus one, yet that’s the threshold they set for this vote.

We know what happened in Prince Edward Island — I referred to it

earlier: an embarrassingly poor turnout, with a 52 percent vote in

favour. Is there any provision in this legislation for a low turnout?

No. If 20 percent of the voters show up and 51 percent of them vote for

PR, the NDP get to say: “Well, that’s what happened in the legislation.

It was fulfilled, so now we’re going to move ahead with PR.”

The legislation states that the government “must take steps that

the government considers necessary or advisable to implement the

result….” There’s no discretion whatsoever. The

Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council has no discretion in this. It’s

obligatory. If there’s a 51 percent vote, if it’s 15 percent of the

public who support this thing, it has to go ahead.

Then the real nastiness arrives: “…that the government considers

necessary or advisable….” Well, necessary usually means advice by

lawyers. Advisable? Is that a political decision of how to go about

ramming this down the throat of the general public after a small

minority of the public vote in support of it? Once again, this is an

embarrassment for this House to have to debate this at all, let alone to

fund it on behalf of the NDP and the Greens as they try to bootstrap

themselves into power for the next ten years.

[3:30 p.m.]

Overall, we can see that this is a rushed campaign. This is an

effort to blow it past the public. This has been a low-profile campaign

to date, but it’s our mission as the opposition to make this a very

high-profile issue in 2018. This is the fight of our lives as a

political organization, to make sure that we keep the NDP and the Greens

where they belong, which is accountable to the public.

The result of the election will be whatever it is. Whoever wins in

a first-past-the-post election gets to form government, and we accept

that. That’s why we’re on the opposition benches right now, and we are

not advocating a change in the voting system. We’re saying: “Our chance

will come next time.”

That’s what British parliamentary systems do. They give a

reasonable time for the government to prove itself. If it doesn’t, it

provides, unlike American or French systems, that the term of the

government will be shortened. Certainly, the performance of this

government should be shortened, because of its complete lack of

substantive policy work and its profligate spending habits that are

starting to show up already.

Why are we here? It’s plain and simple: to appease the Green

Party. This is the only thing that they really want. We are already

finding ourselves in that nasty world of proportional representation,

where the Greens are the tail wagging the NDP dog. The dog, in the form

of the NDP, can’t do anything substantive. So what do they do? They keep

the Greens happy, to maintain a grasp on power. Everything of substance

in this term of government has been sent out for study and review,

because they don’t have the guts to make a decision. All they do is

spend their time playing politics.

Do we want to acknowledge and accept that behaviour? It’s

something that will change our democracy forever, that will go to the

very fabric of our society, and this is the only thing the NDP has to

offer. Why are we doing this? It’s to keep the Greens happy.

Let’s keep in mind, after 146 years of democracy in this

province.... This building has been used, and this room has been used,

as our Legislature since 1897. It works — 150 years in this province of

effective, stable government. Sure, there have been mistakes. Sure,

there are things to learn. That’s why we’re here. If everything were

perfect, we wouldn’t need a Legislature. It’s our job to improve the

state of the province, to improve the lot of British Columbians. That

does not include changing their voting system behind their

backs.

Who would benefit from this, beyond the Greens? Narrow special

interests. I referred earlier to special interests, like regional

interests, religious interests, ethnic interests. That is not what

Canada is built on. We are built on including everyone in this —

including immigrants like me — including people who have come from

different parts of the world and settled here but who form part of the

overall fabric of society. They do not want to see a situation where

those particular groups are forming special sub-parties which are then

seeking their own particular self-interest, where everything else

doesn’t matter.

That’s what proportional representation will do. It will create

funded, perpetual, small-interest parties that are not in the general

public interest. That’s why our democracy has thrived for so long. We

have to have parties with broad appeal.

That’s why it’s ironic to see the NDP doing this. They, I

grudgingly admit, have been moderately successful since the CCF was

formed in 1933. They’ve actually managed to get it past the voters in

three elections — in 1972, in 1991 and in 1996. We hope that they won’t

be able to fool the public anymore, but they should do so in a

first-past-the-post general election of the sort that has been so

years.

The core of this, of course, for the individual voter goes to the

idea that they’ve been told their vote will count when they enter the

ballot box. When they leave the ballot box and go home, they realize

that they’ve been conned. They didn’t actually vote for their MLA.

There’s no accountability to that group of seven people who supposedly

represent them. Of course, it makes the whole political party process

increasingly irrelevant. One of the learned columnists in this province,

Paul Willcocks, wrote a column in the regional newspapers, saying that

the electoral funding package the NDP have put forward makes political

party membership almost irrelevant.

If they don’t have to raise money, if we don’t have to raise

money, then we don’t have to prove ourselves to the voters. We don’t

have to convince them not only to show up and vote for us but to open up

their chequebooks. If we don’t have to raise money for political parties

anymore, then anybody and his dog can get into this game. Anybody who

seeks to get a few votes will be running for office, and we’ll see a

proliferation, on the ballot, of oddballs and special interests seeking

to get to that magic 5 percent marker provincewide that gives them

long-term funding and a job for the future.

The other thing, of course, is this phenomenon of unstable

coalitions. Deep in my heart, I must say, I’m certainly hopeful that

this coalition of the Greens and the NDP proves to be very unstable.

We’ve seen how timid they’ve been, apart from this attempt to blow past

the voters to cement themselves into power. But they’re lacking in

backbone to make decisions. They put everything off, because they’re not

sure what to do. They’re already showing a level of instability that

will only be magnified if we form governments under proportional

representation.

[3:35 p.m.]

Our mission in this House, as a party and as elected officials,

must be to hold this province together, to serve the interests of the

people of British Columbia, to make this great, big, beautiful province

even better than it is. It’s one of the finest places in the world to

live, and that’s partly because we’ve had good, orderly government under

first-past-the-post elections for 146 years. This is not the time to go

and fiddle around with the basic tenets of our democracy, to tear the

fabric of our society. Let’s let British Columbians decide how they want

to vote and not take it in a rigged referendum. We should carry on with

the system we have now.

This amendment should be passed to provide a lengthy study period

of this bill, and then the bill itself should be defeated, because our

job is to keep British Columbia whole, to protect our democracy and

serve the interests of British Columbians, not to serve the interests of

political parties seeking to grant themselves an extended term in power

paid for by the taxpayer.

This is a turning point in our democracy, and it’s time for all of

us and the people of British Columbia to stand up and say: “We don’t

have to take this nonsense from the other side. We will not be conned

into this by the NDP and the Greens.” That’s our mission for 2018.

That’s what will determine the agenda in 2018, and it’s up to us to make

sure this proportional representation bill does not pass.

I. Paton: Thank you to my colleague from Vancouver-Quilchena — very well

done, a very tough piece of debate to follow.

I rise to voice my support for my colleague’s amendment, which

moves that the motion for second reading of Bill 6 be amended by

deleting the word “now” and substituting “six months hence.”

As I outlined in my previous remarks, I have many concerns about

aspects of this bill. Although its subject matter is serious and its

proposals will change the fabric of our democracy, we see it being

discussed in the back room with very little consultation, transparency

and openness with British Columbians. A process of this magnitude with

so much potential impact on voters should be treated better than that.

Indeed, the issue of change in our electoral system has come up before

in this province, once in 2005 and again in 2009.

In 2005, the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform was set up. It

was comprised of 161 members from throughout the province. It included

one man and one woman from each of B.C.’s electoral districts — of which

there were 79 at the time — two First Nations representatives and one

chair. They worked diligently to learn about and assess models for

electing MLAs in B.C.

After extensive work and consultations with British Columbians,

they issued a final report and a recommendation. They thought we should

move to a customized version of the single transferable vote, called

BCSTV. The level of voter approval needed for the referendum result to

be binding on government was a minimum of 60 percent, with a simple

majority of 48 of the 79 electoral districts.

In this referendum, the yes vote passed one of the two thresholds,

and thus failed. However, because the vote was close, our province held

a second referendum on the issue in 2009. Again, voters weighed whether

we should stick to our current first-past-the-post system or move to

BCSTV. And again the referendum failed, with support for reform actually

declining from 2005 to 2009.

It looks like we’re going to go through this exercise again,

despite these two previous rejections by British Columbians — not that

that is a bad thing. It’s an important issue. It’s healthy for us and

it’s healthy for voters to discuss it, but it’s the way this government

and its Green partners are going about it that has many people quite

upset.

It appears that it’s all being driven by their political

negotiations. We know that this referendum is a key component of their

confidence and supply agreement, which not only stated that government

would hold a referendum on electoral reform but that both the NDP and

Greens would campaign in favour of an agreed-upon system of proport