So you want proportional representation, do you?

[Gone_Fishin]

Why not take a look at what's happening right now in Italy with PR, and decide if you want that here? Read the article, understand the divisiveness and violence and corruption and instability that is arising from the PR system, and think about what would happen here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/worl ... urope.html


The election itself is expected to result in an inconclusive muddle, as it is unlikely that any party or coalition will reach the 40 percent threshold necessary to form a government, which could take weeks of haggling.

“No stable government or reliable party leaders creates an unstable Italian situation, no government for several months creates a bad situation for Europe,” he added.

Roberto D’Alimonte, a political scientist at the Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, agreed.

“That is the worst scenario for Italy and for Europe,” he said.

[Jflem1983]

Yes that sounds good to me actually. Less time for the idiots to work against me . Be nice if they were all so busy trying to cling to power the people could get on without these idiots just fine.

I had no idea PR could be so effective. I suddenly support it.

[Snman]

I'm no fan of PR, that's for sure, but what worries me is the potential wording of the upcoming referendum and how the wording itself can manipulate the results. If I could I'll use the Westside referendum as an example. The question was two part with the first part being something like "Would you like to see a change in governance on the Westside or go with the status quo?" and the second part was along the lines of "If so, which would you prefer? Join Kelowna or become our own municipality?". I hope you'll grant me some latitude on the specifics and my memory. Anyway, after the referendum I was speaking with my in laws and found they were disappointed with the results, that they had wanted to leave things as they were. So I suggested that they had cast their ballot for status quo but it didn't work out, that's democracy and blah blah blah. However, they saw it differently. They pointed out that, in their minds, since the second part of the question asked which option they preferred, that they were then obligated to vote yes to the first part. These two are by no means stupid but they are and were elderly and were simply confused by the wording of the referendum and thus cast a ballot they had not wanted to. So I wondered how many others were confused by this and voted contrary to what their wishes were. I'm not saying that the wording of that referendum was designed to confuse folks but it did. Now imagine a referendum that does have a manipulative question, or questions. Yikes.

[Urban Cowboy]

Now imagine a referendum that does have a manipulative question, or questions. Yikes.

Which is exactly what I expect of this non elected horse manure government.

There's probably a panel sequestered in a room somewhere, charged with finding the exact phrasing, that gives the highest probability of achieving the desired outcome.

[George+]

Each of the current govt. MLAs were elected.

[alfred2]

Just what we need,3 mla/s controlling the govt. Weaver says jump and the ndp say how high.We need a majority that was voted in and not some back room deal, that was not elected as the govt.

[JagXKR]

The current garbage marriage has shown conclusively that coalition governments do not work in BC. Weaver is holding Horgan hostage to his eco terrorist agenda and Horgan is power hungry and will take it all day to keep the Weave happy. The whole KM/wine boondoggle is proof positive of ineffective coalition governments.
I do put part of the blame on the BCLP for the arrogance that allowed this situation to happen in the first place. But most of the blame is the left wing and their myopic minds and short memories.

If you think 2 parties is bad imagine 3 or 4.

[Urban Cowboy]

Each of the current govt. MLAs were elected.

See alfred2's post.

He gets it, even if you don't.

[Gone_Fishin]

The NDGreens want to subject us to complete political chaos, as is shaping up in Italy at the moment. What a disaster this would be for British Columbians!

Weeks or even months of political negotiations to line up a governing coalition appeared likely.

Political analyst Lorenzo Codogno of London-based LC Macro Advisors observed that a hung Parliament would make it "extremely difficult for a narrow mainstream coalition to have the numbers to govern."

"Financial markets are likely to take these figures negatively," he added.

Ahead of the vote, some pro-European analysts had envisioned a possible "nightmare scenario" of an extremist alliance among the 5-Stars, the League and the right-wing Brothers of Italy.

https://www.castanet.net/edition/news-s ... htm#220280

[Jflem1983]

The advantage is nothing gets done. That sounds better than continuing down the progressive ndp / liberal path to cultural marxism. Queer crosswalks. Junkie buses . This stuff represents cultural decline. Soon we will be so far under the boot of ndp / liberal cultural marxism. There will be little chance to escape it. Dont get me confused. The liberals and the ndp are both the exact same . Hardly any difference between the two. The ndp is just worse for all the reasons mentioned. They are even further along the long march .

Some one in BC needs to step up. PR will give voice to many distant people. Having different views. Hopefully that acts as a disruptive force. The very least maybe it would slow down the death rate due to harm prevention.

I think a bunch of people arguing and doing nothing is better than what we have now.

What we have now. Is 3 parties. 2 of witch work directly against the people. The third one the liberals. They try to walk a tight rope between outright marxists and capitalist when it suits them. Far as im concerned doing nothing is just as good as being on the long march.

So if PR gave us some far right parties to balance out the left wing merry go round id be in favour.

Sorry i know this is a long rambling post.

[hobbyguy]

If you actually look at how the Italian election shapes up, it just shows the futility of PR systems to genuinely improve democracy.

When you think about it, democracy is supposed to be a consensus building process. PR divides folks into a whole bunch of small and narrow ideological positions, and the more ideologies are involved, the lower the possibility of reaching a consensus. That makes no sense whatsoever. The political parties in a PR system are built on NOT reaching a consensus.

What FPTP does is divide folks into regionally similar districts, and each district reaches a consensus on who should represent them. Within that process each district gets representation on the strongest consensus viewpoint.

So what happens with PR is a lack of direction emerges. Whenever a major coalition partner chooses a direction, they run the risk of losing a smaller coalition partner, and generally what happens is that the viewpoints of the minority take precedence as the larger coalition partner seeks to appease the fringe party or parties - which tends to mean that policies that majority of folks don't like or don't want are the ones that get instituted.

That lack of direction and the "back room deals" required for the weak coalition governments often mean long periods of no direction at all for a country, as we have observed in Germany where the election was held in December, and in a time when Germany needed leadership, no government was formed until yesterday. The other thing that happens in those "backroom deals" is that the desires of voters are sold out. 33% of SPD voters in Germany voted against the "deal" that Merkel struck with the CDU. I don't know how many CDU members were opposed.

In the end, it looks like fully 1/3 or more of voters who voted for the SPD or the CDU did NOT get what they voted for, even though their folks are in power. Those voters, in fact all of the voters who voted CDU or SPD, had no opportunity to vote on the revised governing platform of the CDU/SPD coalition.

Italy will be lucky to have a government formed at ALL out of the election. The interesting thing is that essentially, Italy has had two dominant parties, a center left, and a center right - plus a bunch of fringe parties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_general_election,_2018 - what PR advocates would tout as 9 parties have actually pretty much merged into two parties. So much for the "more choices" argument of the PR advocates.

The other thing to observe in the Italian example is PR emboldens and enables some pretty unsavory fringes, like the neo-fascist party and the far left anarchists. Doing that, and legitimizing them by allowing them some representation in legislatures hardly seems like a good outcome. In my opinion such groups SHOULD be marginalized, not emboldened and enabled.

What we see in PR Europe also is a rise of populism, and that really shows in Italy with the 5 star party. Populism can be a very dangerous negative force in societies.

If you don't think that Canada has issues with some unsavory groups that we should not embolden/enable: https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8297097-locke-street-bounces-back-after-terrifying-masked-mob-attack/

Those who want more democracy within our system of governance need to think more deeply. The problems that have developed with our democracy (notably lack of participation) will only be made worse by PR.

FPTP forces major parties to evolve with our society, or fade into obscurity. The governing parties have traditionally been center left or center right, as we see in Italy, for the simple reason that those political worldviews reflect the worldviews of the vast majority of Canadians. Generally, when the center left moves too far left, the center right takes over, and when the center right moves too far right, the center left takes over. If you look at the bell curve of Canadian political worldviews, that is logical. It is also pragmatic, in that it reflects real movement in our society's central position(s).

The arguments from the fringes, that "their vote is wasted" because neither of the dominant parties reflect their personal views, are just exactly what we should expect from a functioning democracy. Fringe ideas that the majority will not accept are not good policy. Change is not, as some would see it, "a revolution" - rather real change is an "evolution" - and political parties in FPTP are forced to evolve or fade. None of us ever gets 100% of what we want - just sit with a group of 10 people and argue over the best flavor of ice cream to order - somebody will wind up with a dish of ice cream that they don't like (oddly enough, not everyone likes chocolate ice cream).

There is a bell curve of political viewpoint, and 80% of folks will be very close to the center of that bell curve, although not a 100% fit in most cases. It is logical that dominant political parties are found there, center left and center right.

Everyone has the opportunity to express their views, and when a viewpoint outside of those centrist l/r divides gains traction - through attracting votes - those dominant parties will take note, because that is an indication of a shift in society's center. Thus no vote is wasted, except perhaps those of the very far fringes like neo-fascists and anarchists - but those far fringes don't believe in democracy anyway.

If you want to see improvements in our democracy, it starts not with the electoral system, but with the party system. Michael Chong's legislative success in beginning the process of making political parties less "top down" actually accomplishes more than changing the electoral system - especially to a PR system that offers no advantages, only downsides.

PR is a dud, and a Trojan horse in BC simply to disguise the theft of taxpayer $$$ for the bankrupt BC NDP and wannabe permanent tail that wags the dog Greens.

FPTP has served us, and Canada, pretty well for 150 years - after all, Canada is ranked as one of the freest, most prosperous, and most advanced societies in the world. Yes, there have been some stinker moments, but many more triumphs as society evolves (and gets better) as reflected in our governance.

[twobits]

The biggest confirmation to FPTP representation IMO is that it has forced people to compromise a party platform that most represents their own personal political interests and has a chance of enacting that policy. We do allow anyone to run, any new party or independant. But since we give that right, and fringe parties have failed to historically change governance because we strive for an effective gov't that has just a 4 yr mandate......why would we want a cluster fck of nothing getting done by a PPR of non agreement or watered down policy as is clearly evident with the current minority. It is quite obvious that three outliers are holding the entire Province hostage to what even the NDP might want to do without Weaver holding a 3 pound hammer.

[Jflem1983]

The biggest confirmation to FPTP representation IMO is that it has forced people to compromise a party platform that most represents their own personal political interests and has a chance of enacting that policy. We do allow anyone to run, any new party or independant. But since we give that right, and fringe parties have failed to historically change governance because we strive for an effective gov't that has just a 4 yr mandate......why would we want a cluster fck of nothing getting done by a PPR of non agreement or watered down policy as is clearly evident with the current minority. It is quite obvious that three outliers are holding the entire Province hostage to what even the NDP might want to do without Weaver holding a 3 pound hammer.

Current governments seem to want to create a progressive hell . Agenda 21 is not for me

[twobits]

Current governments seem to want to create a progressive hell . Agenda 21 is not for me

And unfortunately, capitalism has created this dilema to some extent. It has created wealth. Enough to be shared actually. What went wrong is that certain segments of the population realized they didn't actually have to contribute to share in the wealth. They actually became dependant on that wealth creation created by people that actually created the wealth and made it an industry called socialism. And when they had enough members, they formed a political party called the NDP.

[The Green Barbarian]

And unfortunately, capitalism has created this dilema to some extent. It has created wealth. Enough to be shared actually. What went wrong is that certain segments of the population realized they didn't actually have to contribute to share in the wealth. They actually became dependant on that wealth creation created by people that actually created the wealth and made it an industry called socialism. And when they had enough members, they formed a political party called the NDP.

Why work for a living when you can vote for a living?