On February 25, 2002, prior to the appointment of the Citizens' Assembly, opposition leader Joy MacPhail asked Premier Campbell whether he would include recall in its terms of reference. Campbell suggested that he would but he changed his mind by the time he gave the Assembly its mandate. BC's Chief Electoral Officer has filled the gap by issuing a report on "the Recall Process in British Columbia". It probably wasn't his intent, but the report serves to focus attention on another broken promise. Campbell's New Era Document promised to "Establish workable recall legislation, to make it easier for citizens to hold MLAs accountable."

Those reading the full report might think that the Chief Electoral Officer decided to help Campbell with his promise. His recommendations go a long way to "make it easier for citizens" to recall their MLAs.

Under the current legislation, no MLA can be recalled until 18 months after the last election. Anytime after that any citizen can file an application for recall petition forms and begin collecting signatures. The recall proponent and authorized canvassers then have a maximum of 90 days to collect signatures from 40% of the people who were on the voters list at the time of the last election.

The reasoning behind the legislation was that recall is "reconsideration", and it should be restricted to those who were able to vote at the time the MLA was elected. This makes recall very difficult because the voters list is in terrible shape and; as people move, the list become even more inaccurate. Based on the 2001 election, at least 600,000 people declined to participate by not registering to vote (Gordon Gibson estimated 800,000), and a further 650,000 people declined to participate by not voting even though they were registered to vote.

The Chief Electoral Officer's report discusses the Delta recall campaign and says that "Of the ineligible persons who signed the petition, 68 percent identified themselves as residents of Delta South but were not registered voters." He went on to say that "Twenty-six percent of the ineligible persons who signed the petition were registered voters but were not registered in Delta South at the time of the general election." His recommendation to solve that problem is to allow all registered voters to sign a recall petition. Implicit in his report is that those who are eligible but not registered could register and then sign the petition. Changing who can sign is the most significant recommendation in the report; if implemented, it will make recall much easier and make it less difficult to obtain the number of required signatures.

The report contains many other recommendations that may be considered administrative. Under the current legislation a successful recall petition results in the legislative seat being declared vacant and it requires a by-election to be held within 90 days. The report recommends keeping the MLA in the seat, but requiring a recall vote. No recall campaign has gotten that far, but with an easier signature requirement, BC could see recall elections in the future.

The report recommends that recall petitions not be available for public inspection. The Chief Electoral Officer argues that keeping the names secret will protect those who sign from "reprisals". That change would not only make it a little easier to get signatures, but it would also help recall proponents in any subsequent election since the proponent would know who to pull for the vote while the MLA would be working in the dark.

The report mentions that 18 US states allow recall; nothing is said about why the absence of recall has never been an issue in the majority of US states. It describes how the recall elections work in the 18 states and then comments that "No other jurisdiction in the world uses the process currently in place in British Columbia." It didn't bother to mention that the US is not a parliamentary democracy, and that no parliamentary democracy other than British Columbia allows recall (although it credits BC as being the only jurisdiction in the Commonwealth with recall).

The Citizens' Assembly will be asked to consider whether BC should adopt proportional representation. If BC remains enamored with recall, it might be yet another reason why proportional representation should be rejected. No jurisdiction in the world has a model for applying recall to officials who are elected from a party list. Recall adds another reason why proportional representation creates two classes of MLAs - constituency MLAs who would be subject to recall and party list MLA's who would be beyond the recall process. That is another reason why Campbell was wrong not to include recall in the terms of reference for the Citizens' Assembly.