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Opinion: Greens lose big with referendum result

andrew-weaver-photo-dan-toulgoet
Andrew Weaver. (via Dan Toulgoet)

The big-tent parties can heave a sigh of relief, while the B.C. Green Party can only look on despairingly as its best chance at escaping the political margins has vanished.

British Columbia may have also dodged a bullet that could have allowed the rising intolerance gripping much of the world to gain a foothold.

Those are my main takeaways from the recently concluded referendum on electoral reform, which saw voters decisively kick to the curb the idea that a proportional representation model for electing MLAs was a preferred option.

It is the third time in the past 15 years in which voters have rejected the idea of getting rid of the current first-past-the-post system.

Given the fraying of democracy in so many places, where minority interests disproportionately wield power over a collective majority, I am not surprised at the outcome. Our current system usually produces stable, fairly moderate governments.

After all, can anyone make the argument that any of the governments led by W.A.C. Bennett, Dave Barrett, Bill Bennett, Bill Vander Zalm, Mike Harcourt, Glen Clark, Gordon Campbell, Christy Clark or John Horgan were or are really horrible or extremist?

Of those administrations – all elected under FPTP - only the Vander Zalm regime could arguably be labelled a bit extreme, and that was really only regarding the abortion issue.

Moving to a PR system would have allowed fringe parties to potentially hold the balance of power in the legislature, and conceivably be able to push around larger parties that received more votes but need the support folks on the fringe to hold power.

In other words, the minority would have held the keys to the car and could insist on taking turns driving it. The price to pay in order to form government could have been a steep one, or one that could prove offensive to so many people.

The political fallout of this failed scheme is unclear.

The Greens lost the most, since they had the most to gain from a change to PR. One has to wonder on whether the enthusiasm within the party itself will begin to wane with no big PR payoff.

But will it wane to the point of withdrawing its support for the BC NDP in propping it up into power? I doubt it. I think their partnership will continue.

The NDP will wear this referendum loss, but only to a point. For the vast majority of the voters, this wasn’t even an issue so I can’t see it coming back to bite the New Democrats too hard at the next election.

No, the chief certainty is that electoral reform in this province is dead. Now everyone can get on with solving much more urgent and pressing problems.

Keith Baldrey is chief political correspondent for Global BC.

— Keith Baldrey, Burnaby Now