The Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform will meet in Vancouver on January 24-25 for its second study session. The curriculum for its six weeks of study is posted on the Assembly's website. It contains discussion papers prepared by staff and interesting questions that help to focus attention on some of the trade-offs between alternative systems.

The question of whether any vote is "wasted" is one of the topics on the agenda. One view is that voting for a loser is wasting a vote; the alternative view is that it is simply not voting for the winner. The question of losers comes up again when the curriculum poses the question of what is fair representation for political parties in the context of whether representatives should be elected from geographical constituencies in a modern democracy.

A discussion paper put before the Assembly at its first meeting characterized our current system as "adversarial", and it suggested that "consensual" politics might result from a system "designed to allow as many different opinions as possible be represented in parliament and even in government." It went on to assert that "Consensual politics often means coalition politics". A second discussion paper spoke about stable vs. unstable governments but did not go as far as it might have in pointing to the inherent instabilities of coalition governments, a feature of proportional representation. It criticized stable governments as being potentially "arrogant and insensitive to public opinion, unwilling to compromise and too easily dominated by 'dictatorial' leaders".

Members of the Assembly have experience with our "first past the post" system so it is understandable that more time will be spent explaining alternative systems. It may be a mistake, however, to assume that voters chosen at random necessarily fully understand our current system. It is one thing to vote, or have the opportunity to vote, every four or five years; it is quite another thing to understand the relative advantages and disadvantages of our particular system relative to the various alternatives.

The six weeks of study concludes on March 21 with "suggestions for a draft report". It would be ideal if the Assembly's work captured the imagination of all British Columbians so that participation in the public meetings lays the groundwork for a decision. The Assembly will hit the road in May and June with a schedule of 40 or more public hearings. After a summer break, they will return to the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue for five meetings focused on reaching a recommendation which must be delivered by December 15, 2004.

If the Assembly makes a recommendation, it will go to the voters at the next election, May 17, 2005. In order to pass, the referendum must receive the support of 50-percent-plus-one from 60 percent of the ridings in the province, plus 60 percent overall voter approval. That kind of "super majority" may seem onerous, but consider the overwhelming majority vote that was given to the referendum on recall when it was put before the voters in 1991. There is a danger that any recommendation from the Assembly will pass easily without further debate in the heat of a provincial election. What passes for input and debate during May and June 2004 cannot possibly be the equivalent of thorough examination and debate of a specific alternative which would fundamentally change the composition of the legislature and the power of the government.

Those who are concerned about the possible loss of strong majority governments need to express their opinions to the Assembly before it finalizes its recommendation.