May 22, 2002

Adriane Carr's PR

At the same time many activists are talking about recall campaigns, Adriane Carr is gathering signatures for a referendum that would prevent half of BC's MLAs from ever being subject to recall.

BC's Recall and Initiative Act requires that a person who sponsors an initiative petition submit a draft copy of the Bill to be introduced to the BC Legislative Assembly if the initiative is successful. The draft copy of the Bill proposed by Adriane Carr is available for viewing on the Elections BC website. A brief summary of Carr's Bill can also be found in the Elections BC advertisement of her initiative. There is a lot in the Bill that is not revealed in the Elections BC advertisement, on the website for Carr's initiative, or on the Green Party website.

People who are asked to sign the initiative petition may not know that MLAs from party lists will not be subject to recall, and that it will be solely up to each political party to determine the priority order of their lists. Carr's form of proportionate representation is similar to the New Zealand system except New Zealand does not have recall. Carr's Bill would create two classes of MLAs - "constituency MLAs" elected by constituents as we do now (except there would only be 34 of them), and another 34 "party MLAs" appointed by political parties if the party achieved more than 5% of the overall party vote. The threshold is set just high enough to exclude the Unity Party and all other parties other than the Greens based on the 2001 election results.

In Carr's version of proportionate representation, the "party MLAs" would not only be exempt from recall but the procedure used to determine who would be first to be appointed and who would just miss the cutoff line for appointments would be entirely up to each political party. In BC we have the example of a federal MP, Stephen Owen. The Prime Minister used his authority to skip the constituency nominating procedures and he simply appointed him as the candidate. Mr. Owen at least had to stand for election in his constituency. With Carr's bill, the little nuisance of a vote for the candidate would be skipped as long as the party received 5% of the total vote. A lot of people might view that is being less than democratic!

The combination of no recall for party appointed candidates combined with no rules for the appointment or for determining the priority order of party lists would fundamentally change the democratic nature of the Legislative Assembly. In all likelihood the interior of the province would lose effective representation as candidates on the "party list" were selected from the Lower Mainland. It would be almost certain that party discipline would be vastly increased and the influence of unelected party officials would be made greater as they influenced the party lists.

You won't hear Green Party leader Adrian Carr saying sign my petition and I will decrease democracy. Her campaign is titled "Make your vote count." Some would say her Bill would do the opposite.

A great many voting systems exist other than our current first past the post system. Proportionate representation is the most popular. Most forms of proportionate representation use party lists but most European democracies do not use the type of closed party list advocated by Adrian Carr. Systems that use open party lists allow voters to vote for and thereby determine the priority order of candidates in the list from each party. There are many different variations on voting systems, and there is a great deal of literature discussing the pros and cons of each system. That is why many advocates of an alternative to British Columbia's first past the post system recommend that a process be used to engage the public in discussing alternatives before trying to impose one alternative that might be far worse that what we currently have.

Cynics might think that Carr was quick to advocate an undemocratic form of closed party list with full protection against recall because the process of collecting signatures is more important than the outcome. Carr has over 2,000 canvassers and will soon have the signatures and addresses of thousands of people who would like to see a change in our system of voting. In the hands of capable political organizers those lists can be powerful political tools whether her initiative petition is successful or not.