Former NDP premier joins fight against proportional representation

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The movement against proportional representation is getting the support of a former BC premier.

Ujjal Dosanjh is against it for a number of reasons.

“Proportional representation is complicated and confusing,” he said at a news conference in Vancouver. “It creates perpetual minority governments, ongoing instability, and constant back room deals that exclude voters. And it gives more power to the political parties by taking it away from the voters.”

However, alongside Bill Tieleman, the president of the No BC Proportional Representation Society, he says his main concern is proportional representation allows extremist parties to be elected to the legislature “with a tiny percentage of the vote — five per cent or less.”

“Proportional Representation gives these extremists a platform and a profile they don’t deserve,” he said.

Dosanjh points to other governments who have adopted Proportional Representation voting systems, and flags issues among them.

“The Freedom Party of Austria is now part of the coalition government, a party founded by ex-Nazi SS officer originally, and whose current leader Heinz-Christian Strache was detained by police involved in neo-Nazi youth activities, but is now vice-chancellor.”

He also cites his concern with governments campaigns in the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Dosanjh also has concerns about ridings, boundaries, or details about how the three proportional representation systems would apply in BC.

“And two of those three proportional representation systems do not exist anywhere else in the world. That means we’re voting in absolute darkness, and asked to choose which of the three unexplained, complicated and confusing electoral systems is best.”

British Columbians are set to vote on whether or not the province keeps its current voting system this fall.

Attorney General David Eby announced last month that voters should be asked two questions. The first will ask voters to indicate if they want to keep the current first-past-the-post system. Anyone opting to switch to proportional representation must then rank three possible choices; Dual Member Proportional (DMP), Mixed Member Proportional (MMP), and Rural-Urban Proportional (RUP).

While questions have previously been finalized, Tieleman has also raised concerns with riding boundaries not yet being disclosed.

He says having Dosanjh’s support is “enormously helpful,” considering his political background as a former premier.

“It’s enormously helpful to have one of the living former BC NDP premiers come out and say, quite clearly, that Proportional Representation is the wrong idea. Period. But particular to BC NDP voters from the last election. I think they need to listen to former Premier Dosanjh, hear what he says about fear of extremists getting into our legislature, about the instability that proportional representation creates.

“They should really have a very hard look at this and not just accept that this is not going to make a substantial and fundamental change to what happens and how our province is governed.”

According to the province, a 14-week public engagement saw 180,000 page visits and more than 90,000 submitted questionnaires.

“I have every confidence in the people of BC to be able to make their own decisions about how they send people to [the legislature],” Eby said in May. “And I have every confidence in Elections BC to be able to provide them the necessary information to be able to do that in a neutral and impartial way.”

~With files from Martin MacMahon and Marcella Bernardo