Reforming politics in British Columbia: during the 2001 election campaign the Liberal Party of British Columbia laid out a road map for institutional change in the way government works.

• Author: Plant, Geoff

In the run up to the 2001 campaign, I told the voters of the constituency I sought to represent that I believed it was time for change. Not just a change in the cast of governors, but change in the way government works, and change even in the institutions of government themselves.

Our campaign platform -- The New Era -- laid out a roadmap for institutional change. We committed to change the public service, to change the operations of government and to open up a formal discussion about electoral reform through the mechanism of a Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.

The job of this assembly would be to assess all possible models for electing MLAs -- things like preferential ballots, proportional representation, and even the status quo.

We also promised to give the Citizens' Assembly a mandate to hold public hearings thoughout BC and, if it recommended changes to the current electoral system, to put those recommendations to the people through a province-wide referendum.

In the last election a strong majority of the popular vote translated into a massive majority for one party in the legislature. As a result, parties like the Greens received a significant number of votes, but elected no representatives.

But the fundamental goal of elections is not to serve the needs of political parties. The goal of elections is to give citizens a voice in choosing their government. Thus the urgent question for all elections, is this: how do we create a system that better serves all of the people of the province?

The history of electoral reform in British Columbia has traditionally focused not on enfranchising political parties, but voters.

In 1876, for example, BC dropped property ownership as a qualification to vote, thereby expanding the franchise.

Forty years later, the province extended voting rights to women. In the late 1950's BC's voting age was dropped from 21 to 19, and then in 1992, was reduced still further to 18, to conform with national standards.

Even the most significant changes in the last ten years have focused on reforming politics to better serve the interests of voters. For example, the 1995 Recall and Initiative Act represented an attempt to put more power in the hands of voters.

Of course there is also a legislative history of regulating political parties, culminating in the 1995 Election Act, a statute which prescribes in 160 pages of mind-numbing detail the ways in which we are, and are not, permitted to engage in electoral...