British Columbia split into three areas of equal population:
By way of Michael Mortensen
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If one was to assume a direct democracy based on population then one could divide the BC population by 50,000 and arrive at 81 ridings in total. Today, there are 87.
If one is to assume a direct democracy based on population, then the Vancouver West End riding (~55,000) would be divided into two ridings to roughly equate with the population of two of the three northern most ridings. Alternatively, Skeena and Stikine could be combined into one riding of a bit above 50,000 people to approximate the population of the urban ridings.
As it stands, many northern ridings have roughly two times the voting power as the most populous Metro ridings. This is not fair by any sense of logic, especially considering that the Metro contains half the provincial population and generates half the wealth, but is underrepresented in the Leg. Northeners and Interior residents would not want to see the Big Bad City get more representaiton, so it would be important to approach this from an independent legal approach.
An aside. It’s obvious with this graphic why so many people in BC are unconfortable with the Kinder Morgan project and any other major expansion of oil shipments by sea. Almost 3 1/2 million British Columbians live on or near the South Coast shoreline that the tankers will traverse. And there is an orders-of-magnitude larger economy on the coast in the red and yellow areas that KM would put at risk.
Most people are actually NOT that concerned with the KM pipeline https://biv.com/article/2016/12/poll-finds-majority-bc-support-trans-mountain contrary to your beliefs Alex !
One need to also give SOME credit to land stewardship ie population is not the only measure how one divides ridings.
Regional representation matters. That is why in most democracies the rural areas with more land have less people per riding.
Many immigrants live in urban centers but do not vote [ uninformed, disinterested, too busy rebuilding a live, poor language skills, etc) or aren’t able to vote so one has to deduct the population count somewhat as well.
As we can see in Germany right now, with 6 parties in parliament over 9% of the vote, it is not that easy to form a stable government. teh AfD party with the third most seats gets shunned, although Germany overall voted center-right they now have a center-left GroKo coalition between SPD and CDU/CSU. Not what voters voted for actually by % of votes or seats !
If BC votes for proportional systems I think we’ll see AT LEAST 4 parties: Greens, NDP, left-of-centre Liberals and right-of center Liberals / conservatives .. perhaps even communists and/or Liberatarians ie perhaps 6 parties, depending on what the minimum # of seats is.
At 87 ridings if 2 seats is the minimum we might get 10 parties, some with very narrow interests, perhaps along these lines
No to Pipeline Party
Christian Party
Sikh Party
Indigenous Party
Muslim Party
Separation Party
Minimum Living Wage Party
Free Housing for all Party
We love BC Wine Party
Rhinos
etc
That is not necessarily better for democracy and compromise finding, as we see in Israel for example where the extreme right wing Orthodox Party holds up the fairly conservative Likud party in power ..
Here is the hell that Prop Rep begets; politics at its worst (yes, here in BC it can get much, much worse):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1269043/In-favour-hung-parliament-Read-damning-account-Italian-politics.html
Just after the last provincial election Andrew Weaver of the Green Party accurately stated that all campaign promises were now moot.
He had made a deal with the NDP and based on his signed agreement this certainly could exclude any promises they had made.
This is proportional representation. All campaign promises are completely pointless, as are party platforms. It is entirely a personalities contest.
It is not a personalities contest, it is a negotiated coalition. Decisions and consensus require work between elected representatives that have differing priorities. Parties finding things they can agree on….what is so wrong about that?
Ask NDP strategist Bill Tieleman.
Why would I do that?
And if you are Bill, you should post using your real name.
This is the real Bill Tieleman – happy to discuss but I’ve not posted anything here yet.
I’m going to guess that those opposed to PR align themselves with parties who get more than their fair share of seats under FPTP. Those who are in favour of PR are those who take the time to vote but have been throwing those votes away because it is almost impossible to be represented. Both will have arguments and examples about which is better.
But how, in a democracy, can twenty percent of voters have zero (or lately, near zero) representation? How can anybody argue that that is fair or desirable? And twenty percent is probably really low since many vote strategically instead of for who they really want and many don’t bother voting at all knowing it’s pointless.
If PR has some good stories and some bad stories at least it’s fair. If FPTP has some good stories and some bad stories it’s almost always unfair.
Who has 20% in BC ?
Greens have about 15% and Liberals and NDP each have around 40% .. and as posited above IF we get PR we have at least 4 parties (i.e. a conservative party) and likely more based on narrow interests .. different but not necessarily better !
If the Liberals and NDP each have 40% then that’s 20% in any school I’ve ever gone to. Where did you study math Thomas?
Math was my top subject. Green has slightly below 15%, and NDP and Liberals each a hair above 40% each. The remaining 4% or so was a bunch of smaller parties that did not get any seat.
I have a need for precision. Greens got 16.84% in the final tally
http://www.timescolonist.com/life/islander/b-c-election-2017-final-voting-results-1.20251756
This does seem to be a little over your head Thomas, or they taught some weird kind of math in Germany. 100% – 40% – 40% = 20%. I don’t know what the Greens specifically have to do with it; others also lose unfairly. (There might be a few fringe interests who couldn’t gain a seat under PR either.)
Please argue why 1 in 5 citizens should be denied the voice they deserve.
Where does your favourite system have a successful government?
FPTP often enables a strong government that is immediately able to forward their promised policies.
The extreme of PR is a gaggle of parties that often never agree to anything and, often too, one fringe idea party that suddenly wields power completely disproportionate to its fan base.
“FPTP often enables a strong government that is immediately able to forward their promised policies.”
And then a different strong government that undoes them all and inserts their own policies… and back and forth we go wasting $billions, causing confusion and making it difficult to have long range business plans.
It’s way better to get nothing done than the wrong thing done. Under PR it’s more difficult to get things done but much less likely to have them come undone at the whim of the next government.
And proportional representation has produced many years of stable and progressive government in Scandinavia.
If FPTP is such a preferred system, why didn’t the Liberals use it to pick their new leader? If they had, Dianne Watts would be the new leader. Instead, they used a preferential ballot.