The committee met at 8:45 a.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Jessie Sunner. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Newton, the Parliamentary Secretary for Anti-Racism Initiatives and the Chair of the Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform, which is a parliamentary committee comprising members of the government, official opposition and the Third Party.

Today we are meeting on the legislative precinct here in Victoria, which is located on the homeland of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, the Songhees and the Esquimalt First Nations.

The committee’s mandate includes two parts. The first part includes examining democratic engagement, voter participation and electoral reform. The second part is to review the administration of the 2024 provincial general election.

For our current set of meetings, we are hearing presentations related to the first part of our mandate on democratic and electoral reform in B.C. The committee is also accepting written input until July 25. To participate, please visit our website at bcleg.ca/consultations.

I’ll now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Ward Stamer, MLA, Kamloops–North Thompson and opposition critic for Forests.

Sheldon Clare: Sheldon Clare, MLA for Prince George–North Cariboo, Conservative caucus Deputy Whip.

George Anderson: My name is George Anderson, MLA for Nanaimo-Lantzville and Parliamentary Secretary for Transit.

Amna Shah: Amna Shah here, MLA for Surrey City Centre and Parliamentary Secretary for Mental Health and Addictions. Happy to be here today.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much. We’re also being supported today by staff from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Hansard Services.

This morning we’ll be getting started with Rowan Gentleman-Sylvester, from CityHive Youth Engagement Society.

Welcome, Rowan. Just before you get started, I will remind you that you’ll have 15 minutes for your presentation, followed by ten minutes for questions.

Presentations on Voter Engagement
and Electoral Reform

CityHive Youth Engagement Society

Rowan Gentleman-Sylvester: I will try to speak clearly and slowly, if that works for you. Thank you so much for having me today, and apologies for the technical difficulties.

My name is Rowan Gentleman-Sylvester. I’m the executive director of CityHive Youth Engagement Society, more commonly known as CityHive. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to present to you today.

CityHive, just for some context, is a youth-run, youth-led not-for-profit organization working here in B.C. for over nine years. We’ve been on a mission to transform the way that young people are engaged in shaping their cities and communities on a really wide range of topics.

We have a lot of gratitude to be able to base our work on the unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ Nations in Vancouver.

[8:50 a.m.]

I wanted to ground us in something that I know this committee knows very well: democracy is at a critical moment. We know that democracies don’t sustain themselves automatically. We require constant renewal, investment and responsiveness, in our democracy, to the people that we serve.

Across the globe, we’re witnessing polarization, declining trust in public institutions and increasing disillusionment with the capacity of democratic systems to respond to pressing challenges. These global currents — as you know and have heard from so many other speakers, I know — are not bypassing British Columbia. But I wanted to mention that at the same time, there’s a real growing appetite, especially among young people, for deeper engagement, better representation and more transparent and accountable governance. Together hoping that we can seize this moment to not only protect our democracy but to actively strengthen and modernize it in partnership with the young communities that we serve.

I think one of the things that is really important to remember is that often, when we think about youth and young adults, young people have been treated as very peripheral to our democracy as future voters rather than current stakeholders. That’s not only a democratic failure but a real missed opportunity, as young people aren’t apathetic by default but are rather, in our best experience, very eager to participate in shaping the decisions that impact our lives.

Whether it’s facing real barriers to entry, inaccessible processes, outdated systems or a real lack of meaningful invitation to the table, young people are facing a lot of barriers that prevent them from showing up in our democracy in ways that would really benefit all of us.

We know, from so much data and anecdotal information, that early experiences with our democracy and our communities and our schools shape long-term civic engagement. So when young people feel shut out of those decision-making spaces, they’re less likely to see democratic participation as worthwhile. This over time erodes the legitimacy and the resilience of our democratic system.

Investing in youth participation isn’t just a symbolic gesture; it’s a pragmatic and strategic choice. If we want a democracy that is strong, responsive and sustainable, we need to build it with and for the young people that are existing in it and responding to it in this moment.

That brings us to three recommendations that I have for you today under three key priority areas. The first is to invest in civic education and democratic capacity between elections. The second is to reform our electoral processes to support youth engagement in elections, and I know you’ve heard a lot about that at length over the last few days. The third is to engage young people within our democratic institutions and decision-making.

So around that first area, around civic education and democratic capacity between elections…. We know that a healthy democracy does not just depend on elections but rather on the day-to-day civic habits and the institutions that build political capacity in our communities. Unfortunately, most British Columbians lack access to civic education that’s relevant, engaging and grounded in lived experiences.

We know that more than 60 percent of youth aged 18 to 29 say they don’t recall learning about the government or ways to get involved in their communities. We know that fewer than half of Canadian teachers feel confident teaching civics and that when young people do get these experiences in school, within their community context, that does actually play a really critical role in building lifelong habits for engagement.

We have three key asks for this committee to consider under this banner of civic education and democratic capacity. The first is to provide funding for and resources to community-based and non-partisan organizations offering civic education and democratic literacy programs. I think it’s really important to notice that we actually have a lot of people doing really great work on this front already, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Supporting organizations meaningfully who are already in the communities, building strong relationships with those working in urban and rural and Indigenous communities and supporting youth from all diverse backgrounds to see themselves in our democracy is something that could really go a long way to supporting the resilience and young people’s engagement in democracy.

The second is around increasing access to multilingual and culturally relevant civic materials to ensure that our increasingly changing demographics in this province are welcoming and supportive of our democracy and don’t hinder its continued success. That includes ensuring that newcomers can access and engage with our democratic processes between elections.

[8:55 a.m.]

The third is to continue exploring, strengthening and modernizing our civic education in B.C.’s K-to-12 curriculum. We have made some great strides but there’s a lot further we can go in terms of supporting young people to understand how government works, where decisions are made and how they can operate in ways that support our institutions.

As mentioned, my second area of priority is to reform our electoral processes to support youth engagement in elections. Being a first-time voter in B.C. — in fact, in most parts of Canada — can be a very discouraging process. Our current first-past-the-post system ensures that a huge percentage of votes cast do not end up contributing towards electing the victor.

Many youth are voting for the first time during a very transitional period of their lives. Being 18 or 19 or 20 years old in your first election means that you may have recently moved to a new place, be it attending a new school or working in a new job. This can be a really challenging dynamic if you’ve moved to a place where you’re less familiar with the electoral processes. You’re in a new riding, so you’re not as familiar with the candidates. Adding that to the other barriers that I’ve spoken about today, this tends to involve young people feeling very disconnected from our electoral systems.

What we’re recognizing in that is that under first-past-the-post young people’s votes often don’t end up contributing to the final outcome. That can be really discouraging, especially if you live in a “safe riding.” Young people may feel like there’s no point in voting and that the election outcome is already determined.

We also know from examples around the world…. In places like New Zealand and Germany and Sweden, we see a lot higher rates of political satisfaction as well as gender balance and collaborative governance, which kind of leads us to some alternative models that can be more engaging for young people.

The third piece of this rationale is around recognizing that that 18- to 20-year-old age range, when young people are often voting for the first time, is a deeply transitional period. There has been an amazing amount of work and research that’s gone into this by Vote16 Canada.

Exploring lowering the voting age to 16- or 17-year-olds, like many other countries around the world have started doing, allows young people to vote when they’re in a much more stable time of their lives and, evidence shows, have just as much knowledge and capacity to understand as their 18-year-old counterparts.

The four key recommendations we have in this priority area are around re-engaging the public in a transparent and well-resourced exploration of electoral reform options, which I know this committee is actively underway in doing and seriously considering alternatives to our current first-past-the-post system; ensuring that any reform process includes accessible education, plain language materials and culturally appropriate outreach in alignment with my first priority area; to assess our electoral systems based not only on efficiency and simplicity but also on how well they foster democratic values, including inclusion, representation, accountability and responsiveness; and to consider lowering the voting age in provincial and municipal elections to 16, sending a strong signal that young people’s voices matter now, not just in the future.

Finally, my third priority area that I wanted to bring to you today is to engage young people within our democratic institutions and decision-making, because we know elections are not the be-all and end-all of our democracy. They’re just one beat in a thriving heartbeat. With that in mind, we need young people to be a part of the decisions that are happening in our halls of power on a day-to-day basis. It’s not just encouraging young people to vote; it’s requiring and resourcing their leadership, amplifying their voices and creating institutional space for them to shape policy decisions.

Right now we see that young people face very structural barriers regarding running for office, participating in the public service, accessing leadership opportunities in the B.C. government and our municipal governments in this province, and there are very few intentional opportunities to engage with our province, especially for a wider audience. We may have a youth council here or there, but there are very few opportunities that are open to many British Columbians.

So we recommend establishing and intentionally supporting youth participation in public consultation processes, providing mentorship and internship opportunities and providing necessary capacity and resources to facilitate meaningful youth involvement from diverse youth in our government decision-making processes.

[9:00 a.m.]

We also recommend providing supports for young people seeking elected office and participating in official government processes, and creating standing youth advisory bodies or roles within key provincial ministries. We know some of this is underway, but I think there’s a lot more opportunity to expand that capacity.

As mentioned, the three key priority areas that I wanted to talk about to you today were around investing in civic education and democratic capacity between elections, reforming electoral processes to support youth engagement in elections, and engaging young people within our democratic institutions and decision-making.

I’m really, really grateful for your incredible leadership. We know B.C. and Canada are already leaders in democracy worldwide, and I hope that can continue to be the case as we see democracies being challenged in our global context, including here at home. I’m hoping to create a system with you all where every person, regardless of age, background or income, feels that their voice and participation matters. I’m really grateful for all the amazing contributions by many other speakers over the past week as well.

Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Rowan, for your presentation. You had a lot of information in there. Just right off the top, when you’re talking about youth, are you separating it into under-18s and the young adults, 18 to 25? Specifically, when you’re talking about internships and different opportunities, is that what you’re talking about?

You’re categorizing it as youth, but really, we’re talking about two different categories. One is the under-18s that are maybe still in high school, and then the 18-to-25s. Is that what you’re talking about?

Rowan Gentleman-Sylvester: Yes, absolutely, to some degree. I think there is value in separating out a 13- to 18-year-old audience and then what is currently a young voter audience of 18 to 30. I think with the recommendation of exploring lowering the voting age to include 16- and 17-year-olds, that classification may become less relevant.

Yeah, I think there are two different audiences, typically, in these different cases.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Okay. We don’t have a lot of time, so I’m just trying to keep my questions fairly short. Thank you for that.

Second question. We’ve talked about increasing our curriculum in, say, social studies 10. We went through the whole list of all the different things that social studies 10 is supposed to cover in the year.

I would suggest that, if we’re going to actually be trying to meaningfully get kids involved, especially at a middle grade or a high school grade, we should be looking at a transferable type of curriculum, which is pretty much standard throughout the whole province — something that basically describes everything from our parliamentary structure, how we have elections and what we do between the elections, to whether there are opportunities if youth, as they get older, want to be involved in campaigns and that sort of thing.

Do you agree with that?

Rowan Gentleman-Sylvester: Without knowing the details, I think, generally speaking, we absolutely need more clarity in our curriculum. I’m not exactly sure where that should fall and which class that should land in.

I think one of the big challenges that we have, generally across the board, is that not all teachers necessarily feel like they have the resources and support to be able to deliver that curriculum well. I think that’s an important component of any curriculum change — ensuring that our teachers are supported and resourced and provided with all the information they need to be able to do that well.

I mean, on a lot of the details — generally, yes. That’s all I can say.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): I had a question, as well, that actually just jumps off that. I thought it was interesting — the statistic about how fewer than 50 percent of teachers feel comfortable teaching civics today. We’ve talked about curriculum changes. We also know how extensive that can be and how long it can take to actually implement curriculum changes.

I just would like your thoughts on things…. Yes, we hear “curriculum.” Are there things that we can do more of in the interim to have teachers feel comfortable teaching this but also help with teaching civics in schools without actually changing curriculum at this time?

Rowan Gentleman-Sylvester: Absolutely. I think that’s something that CityHive and our partners at organizations like CIVIX are strongly a part of. The non-profit sector, the civil society sector, has been trying to fill that gap for years now.

At CityHive, we have a program called CityShapers in Schools, where we go into classrooms and support teachers by providing a four-part workshop that basically covers jurisdiction, levels of government and a young person’s role in our democracy. We obviously have a bit of a cities-and-communities lens to our work, but that definitely does cover our wider democratic systems.

[9:05 a.m.]

On resourcing the organizations that are already filling those gaps, there’s no dedicated funding in our provincial structures right now to support that work. I think that’s a really great interim method as we work towards wider systemic shifts in our education system. As you said, absolutely, curriculum change takes a long time.

That, I think, is an immediate action that can be taken. We’ve done extensive research with teachers; that’s actually one of the easiest ways for them to learn. It’s to bring in an expert who can do the work directly and can show them how they can teach this content. Then the next year, maybe, they don’t bring us in; they feel confident to be able to do it themselves. That’s one model that can definitely help in the near term.

Amna Shah: Thank you, Rowan, for your presentation. In your presentation, you mentioned that there are structural barriers for you to engage with provincial and municipal governments. Could you give me examples of what those structural barriers are?

Rowan Gentleman-Sylvester: Yeah, what a great question. I think one of the challenges that young people have is that what happens — how government decision-making happens, how laws are created and how laws are changed — is actually quite unclear to the vast majority, I would say, of British Columbians.

I think we know that we get our input during election period. I know every one of you around the table is very clear on how those processes unfold, but I would say the vast majority of British Columbians don’t really know that, especially the young people we work with. They’re really concerned about housing affordability, about climate change and about jobs, and they don’t actually understand where those decisions are happening and how they can get involved in them.

I think there’s a lot of knowledge but a lack of understanding of systems and a lack of invitation to the table too. They very rarely, other than at election times, feel like they have an invitation to be able to participate in decision-making processes.

I could talk at length about the many, many barriers young people are facing. Sometimes it’s time and financial capacity. There are the knowledge aspects. There’s also, I would say, a confidence aspect. People don’t often see themselves as experts in their own lived experience and often also feel ageism when they do engage with a decision-maker. The condescension that can happen can make it feel very tokenizing and very discouraging to be able to engage again. I have a whole presentation I could do on that, too, but I’ll leave it there.

Amna Shah: Sure, thanks. If I could just follow up — maybe with just a yes or no — does CityHive support youth and, for example, engaging with municipal councils? I mean, there are council meetings. In my own city, I know, lots of folks go to those to have their voice heard. Do you folks have a program like that to support youth in helping them build their confidence to do that?

Rowan Gentleman-Sylvester: Absolutely. That’s the entire reason we exist: to support young people to engage in their communities and their cities.

Amna Shah: Great, thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Are there any further questions? No.

Thank you so much, Rowan, for being here this morning, for presenting to us and taking our questions. It’s really great to have you be a part of this process.

Rowan Gentleman-Sylvester: Thank you so much for all your work and for your time and attention today. Wishing you all the best for the rest of your meetings.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Next we have Valere Gaspard, from Leadership and Democracy Lab.

Good morning, and welcome to the committee. Before you get started, Valere, I just want to let you know you have 15 minutes for your presentation, followed by ten minutes for questions.

Leadership and Democracy Lab

Valere Gaspard: Thank you all for inviting me here. I’m honoured to have the opportunity to speak with the Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Valere, if you could just wait one moment. I think we’re having some technical issues on our end. We’re just going to take a short recess, a couple of minutes, so we can fix the issue on our end. If you can just hold, we’ll just let you know when we’re ready. Thank you.

The committee recessed from 9:09 a.m. to 9:10 a.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): All right. Thank you so much for sitting with us through that little bit of fixing the technical issue. We can hear you well now.

So, Valere, just a reminder again that you have 15 minutes for your presentation followed by ten minutes for questions. Thank you.

Valere Gaspard: Sounds great, thanks so much.

I’m honoured to have the opportunity to speak with the Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform. My name is Valere Gaspard. I’m speaking today in my capacity as a research fellow at Western University and Trent University’s Leadership and Democracy Lab, and also as a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa.

My research broadly focuses on democracy, electoral processes and politics in Canada, and I’m here to provide the committee with evidence-based information about the topic of the voting age for its deliberations. My hope is that this information assists the committee with the first part of its mandate on examining democratic engagement and voter participation so that its members can make recommendations that they believe are in the best interests of British Columbians.

My presentation today will proceed in three parts. In the first part, I will give a brief overview of why the topic of the voting age matters for this committee’s mandate.

In the second part, I will give the main arguments for both lowering the voting age as well as keeping the voting age the same in British Columbia. I’ll provide a list of potential benefits and consequences for both sides of this debate. And these arguments are informed by both the academic literature as well as other arguments that legislators and other jurisdictions have made in Canada.

Third, using my own peer-reviewed research debates about Canada’s voting age, I’ll provide a case example of what caused legislators to lower the voting age in the past from 21 to 18 so that you can have this additional context for your current discussions. After this, I would be happy to answer any questions the committee might have.

For part one, we’re going to talk about why does the voting age matter for this committee’s mandate. First, voting matters. Because voting matters, the laws that influence who can vote also matter. In academia and in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, there’s this idea that voting is a natural right of citizens in any democratic country. Because it’s entrenched in the Charter, there’s also the idea that all Canadians can vote, which would include British Columbians.

So the only allowable restriction on a citizen’s right to vote in Canada is the voting age. It’s really the last thing that can prevent a group of people from voting in Canada, which is why the topic of the voting age is such an important consideration in discussions about electoral reform.

The voting age ultimately reflects who the state thinks should have a say in the society and is also a larger judgment about how the state or that society looks at the concept of age. And by the concept of age, I mean what kind of responsibilities an individual has at what age, or even when the society considers them to be an adult.

So determining when an individual is eligible to vote in the society is a core topic of democratic engagement or voter participation because it’s really saying who the society thinks should have a say in the decision-making process to decide on the decision-makers.

With that context about why I think the voting age matters for this conversation, I’m going to move on to the arguments about the voting age. There are really two main arguments in this debate. The first is about changing the voting age, and this can include lowering the voting age or removing the voting age altogether. Removing the voting age altogether — I’m not going to talk about that because I don’t think that’s a very practical consideration, but it has been discussed in other spheres.

The second argument that you can make is to maintain the voting age, which is to keep the current age that it is in the jurisdiction. I’m going to start with the five main arguments that people would use to lower the voting age in any jurisdiction. And again, these arguments come from both the academic literature and have also been presented by legislators in other jurisdictions that have talked about the voting age.

[9:15 a.m.]

The first one is that youth are mature and capable of voting and making decisions. Research shows that youth that are in schools and that are critically engaged in civic education classes or that are thinking every day or are forced to think every day in a school environment have about the same critical capacity as someone who is maybe working a regular job in their 40s. So when people are stimulated and engaged, especially young people, they do have that critical thinking needed that people usually prescribe to have the right to vote.

The second argument for why people might say you want to lower the voting age is because of the stable circumstances of young people when they’re in school. Most youth who are below the age of 18 are in a structured environment. They might be in high school. They are likely living at home with a parent or guardian and probably have fewer competing priorities than an adult, who might have a full-time job or who might be worried about other things, such as rent or making the bills, and, therefore, because of those competing priorities, may be less inclined to make the time to vote.

There’s research that shows that if you get someone to vote for the first time, they’re more likely to continue to go back to vote, the idea is that if you introduce voting while people are under stable circumstances, they will become repeat voters.

It loops into this idea of voter participation, which is the third argument that I’m going to talk about. Lowering the voting age could result in increased voter participation. The idea here is that if you allow more people to vote, the overall vote count increases. And with more people voting in a democracy, there’s an argument that the democracy itself is stronger because there are more opinions that are coming into discourse. But I should note that voter participation is a distinct thing from higher voter turnout rates, and I’ll talk about voter turnout rates when we talk about reasons to not change the voting age.

The fourth reason why people might want to lower the voting age is the idea of enfranchising citizens. If individuals or a group want the right to vote or they want the opportunity to be involved, there’s an argument to be made that it’s better to satisfy those desires for that group unless there’s strong evidence against it.

The idea here is that if there’s a group that wants to vote, unless you can give a reason why they shouldn’t vote, then maybe allowing them to participate in democracy is good if voting is an inherent right to all citizens, and every citizen deserves a say in the process. People might also think that it’s a civic responsibility to be involved, and those young people might feel that they want a say so that they can fulfill their civic duties as young citizens.

The final main argument for lowering the voting age is the idea that the decisions that legislators make impact the future generation the most. Young people might feel the impact of decisions from legislators, or those decisions might also impact them for the longest amount of time. For example, decisions on housing, education, climate change or health care would impact a young person more than an older person just by virtue of the number of years that that young person will be [inaudible recording] after the decision is made.

However, this argument could be challenged with the idea of: “When would this stop?” Theoretically, the decisions that legislators make also impact two-year-olds, but we aren’t suggesting to lower the voting age for two-year-olds. So that’s where this main argument can run into some counter-arguments.

Given those five main arguments about lowering the voting age…. I’m now going to present five arguments about keeping the voting age the same or that are against lowering the voting age. Again, these arguments are also rooted in either academic literature, public opinion or the arguments that other legislators have made. Interestingly, a lot of these arguments mirror the same arguments that are used on the change side, but they are used instead to justify keeping the voting age.

The first main argument that people will use is that young people are not mature enough. This is a similar rationale to saying that young people are mature enough. In this one, people will argue that young people are not mature enough, and they will primarily base this on public opinion. While there’s not a lot of research that shows that young people are not mature enough, there is this idea maybe within public opinion or possibly even amongst British Columbians that citizens that are below the age of 18 are not yet ready to exercise the right to vote and are not yet mature enough.

You come into this challenge between what a cognitive behaviouralist might say versus what the average person might say. The average person could argue that they’re not mature enough, which is one reason to keep the voting age the way that it is.

The second argument in favour of keeping the voting age, or not lowering it, is the idea of lower voter turnout. Again, this is different than voter participation. In the past, when different countries lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, they saw a period of lower voter turnout. There is research that shows that young people go out to vote less than their older counterparts. There are still young people who will go out to vote, but they go out as a group less than other groups.

[9:20 a.m.]

I say this is different from voter participation because voter participation is the amount of overall voters who go out to vote, so the sheer number that are going to the polls, versus voter turnout, which is the proportion of eligible voters that go out to vote.

There’s this contrast between participation and turnout. It tries to fulfil the same idea, but you will have lower voter turnout, or likely lower voter turnout, and this could be problematic because if there is lower voter turnout, people might think that the results of the election are less legitimate, by consequence, because fewer eligible voters from that larger population went out.

To explain this contrast, I’ll give a little example. Let’s say last year ten people were allowed to vote, and eight showed up to vote. That would be an 80 percent turnout, and eight people participated. Let’s say that this year, 15 people were allowed to vote, and nine showed up. That would mean that while the participation is higher because nine showed up instead of eight, the voter turnout in this case would be 60 percent. That’s a case where lowering the voting age could increase the sheer number of people that go out while still decreasing the overall turnout. So that is a consideration to think about.

The third argument against lowering the voting age is this idea of temporary disenfranchisement. This is the idea of being allowed to vote in one election but not in another. This is important in both the British Columbian context and the larger Canadian context because we are in a federation.

Let’s say one level of government lowers the voting age. So let’s say a province lowers the voting age, but then it’s not lowered up to the federal level. It could make citizens more dissatisfied of democracy at both levels because if, let’s say, an election happens when someone is 16, provincially they go out and vote, and then at 17 they can’t vote on the federal level. They might be more dissatisfied with democracy overall either due to confusement or due to this sense of unfairness because they could vote in one election but not the other.

The fourth argument is this idea of a lack of will amongst young people. Not all young people care about elections, so it could be safer to not include them in the process until enough of them demonstrate that they want the right to vote. However, it is hard to define what is enough support, because there are adults who are over the age of 18 who also might not care about voting in elections. You wouldn’t remove their right to vote based on that logic.

In terms of will, there’s also this idea that when young people are under the care of adults, there’s concern that there might be undue pressure from parents or guardians for them to vote a certain way. Think of it as a power dynamic. If I’m living under someone’s care, they might try and influence me for how I might vote.

However, this could arguably also happen at any stage of life because if I’m an adult living under the care of a parent or a partner, am of eligible voting age or am just influenceable, then someone could try and influence how I vote as well. This might not only apply to young people, but this is an argument that has been made by people concerned about lowering the voting age.

The fifth and final main argument for why you should keep the voting age the same is that you can get involved in other ways. There’s this idea that if we have youth be involved in other forms of political participation, such as joining a political party, volunteering for a political campaign or joining an issue advocacy group, they can learn the skills to discuss and debate these issues before having the responsibility of voting and having more exposure to the political environment.

So with these five main arguments for both sides stated, I’d like to move on to part three of this conversation, which is to quickly discuss a case example from my own peer-reviewed research on the federal case in Canada for lowering the voting age.

I looked at the arguments made by legislators from 1901 to 2022 about lowering or maintaining the voting age from 21 to 18 as well as from 18 to 16 after it was lowered to 18. What I found in both periods is that the arguments that legislators made about lowering or maintaining the voting age from 21 to 18 are almost identical to the ones being used today for 18 to 16.

So you might be asking: if these arguments are the same, then why was it lowered from 21 to 18 in that initial period? There are really two reasons for this based on the research. The first one is that when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18, legislators in different parties were in favour of lowering it. It wasn’t just one party trying to drive the push to lower the voting age; it received support from different individuals.

The second key reason is that at that time, young people were protesting so much and wanted the right to vote that legislators thought it would be less costly for democracy to enfranchise them, and they had an incentive to lower the voting age.

[9:25 a.m.]

Given these historical facts, I think it’s important to consider these in the current context to see if these criteria are potentially being fulfilled today, such as cross-partisan consensus on the voting age and also the desire from young people.

In conclusion, there is no correct answer about changing or keeping the current voting age. There are compelling arguments on both sides of the debate. Ultimately, both sides of the debate mirror one another and use similar rationales to justify their own side. Learning from histories, I would ask the following three questions, and I would say that the members of the committee might want to ask these three questions during their discussions.

First, do young British Columbians below the voting age desire the right to vote? Second, do legislators and the society they represent believe that young people desire the right to vote? Third, do legislators have an incentive or reason to consider changes to the voting age, whether those incentives come from young people, societal circumstances or their own self-interest?

I’d like to once again thank the special committee for inviting me to speak and for their service to British Columbians. I look forward to any questions you might have about my presentation today. Thank you so much.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Valere.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you, Valere Gaspard, for your presentation. I appreciate the balanced approach on the matter.

There are a couple of other things that I’ve had people discuss with me on this particular issue. One of them was your point about other concerns and will and pressure from people. One of the concerns is pressure from the educational system and teachers specifically. There’s a perception in some circles that the teaching community has a political bias or agenda and could be using preconceptions from some teachers to advance particular political agendas, regardless of political stripe, and that these may also have an undue influence upon young voters.

What are your thoughts on that? I have a follow-up question on another aspect too.

Valere Gaspard: Sounds good. Thank you so much for your question. I’ll speak from both what the research says and then from my own perspective.

On the research basis, there hasn’t been a lot of work done to see whether there’s a connection between partisanship and teachers, so I can’t guarantee with substantial evidence that this is the case or is not the case. But from looking at this more broadly and as an academic, I would say that this type of influence could also happen for other age groups. So the concern for it happening for 16- and 17-year-olds specifically could theoretically be a concern, but then that theoretical concern would also be the same for other groups.

For example, people who are above the age of 18 might be in university or college. Could they be influenced? Workers might be part of a union or might be told by management: “Hey, this is in your best interest. You should vote this way.” Those could also be a concern. I do appreciate the argument of undue influence, but there’s also the reality of people being in the broader society, and they might have several points of different kinds of influence.

I think what would be most important in the educational context is to provide students with the critical thinking tools and the civic education tools needed to decipher arguments so that if there is undue influence, they can deconstruct it themselves instead of being influenced.

Sheldon Clare: Okay, and thank you. My follow-up to this is that I’ve also had discussions with people from the medical community who are concerned that young people may not be fully developed to be making some decisions in that regard. Now, this is highly debatable, of course, and could be argued from a number of different positions.

But in legislation, there are a number of things that 16-year-olds are not allowed to do. For example, the drinking age from province to province varies. So choices with regard to substances, alcohol and so on, notwithstanding some interest towards fentanyl and other things in some provinces, including this one…. There are also issues about things like driving vehicles, the processes for this, owning firearms, engaging in some particular activities.

I’m just wondering about the apparent inconsistency that could develop were the voting age to be lowered. What do you think about that?

Valere Gaspard: Absolutely. Thank you for the question again. Regarding the inconsistency with age, I think that I would have to do more research on how other ages were chosen.

[9:30 a.m.]

I’ll use the driving age as an example. I don’t know if some provinces might have chosen 16 for the driving age based on either medical research or based on the public opinion at the time. There would definitely be inconsistencies in laws about when someone would be considered an adult under what law — like you might be 16 to drive or 18 to vote, etc.

Surely, there are inconsistencies, but ultimately, it’s the decision of legislators to decide what their society considers adulthood to be. Yes, there is evidence that shows that 16-year-olds are cognitively sufficient and mature to vote, and there are others that might contest this evidence.

I think this is why the larger point of my presentation is that, ultimately, it is up to the legislators to decide what is in the best interests of British Columbians. Both sides — in favour of lowering the voting age, or of keeping the voting age — will use those similar arguments. I do think that it’s up to legislators to decide what their constituents want and also what the society wants, because we can keep going back and forth about these kinds of arguments for about 50 years.

Sheldon Clare: Of course, and I mean, there have been pressures to raise ages for certain things, as well, from time to time. We haven’t heard an argument to raise the voting age back to 21 — or anything like that, as of yet, that I’m aware of — but there have been, certainly, arguments made for other activities that people engage in, in society to have it raised.

I just thought I would want to ask that. So thank you.

Valere Gaspard: I appreciate that. Thank you so much. If I can quickly comment to your point about raising the voting age, in the academic research, there has only been one argument I’ve seen that has tried pushing that forward. Largely, people don’t try and push that, because once you provide a democratic right to a group, it would seem unconstitutional to remove that right from them.

Sheldon Clare: I concur. Thank you.

Amna Shah: Thank you, Valere, for your presentation. You made a point, an argument, around young voters potentially feeling disenfranchised if, for example, the province were to decrease the voting age, and then they’d hit a federal election and suddenly realize that they can’t vote. I’m wondering if you have, in the past, seen any research related to that type of disenfranchisement or feeling of dissatisfaction in the past.

When I look at the voting age being decreased from 21 to, for example, 19 or 18, you see provinces having changed that from 21 to a lower age prior to 1970 or 1971. For example, British Columbia reduced the age from 21 to 19 in 1952. So there are stretches of time when the voting ages have been different for federal and provincial elections. I’m wondering if there’s any research that you’ve seen of any dissatisfaction amongst people within the differing age groups.

Valere Gaspard: Yes, and thank you for your question. That’s an excellent point. The research that I’ve seen in the academic literature on the idea of this disenfranchisement for different levels came from European case examples.

In the period that you’re talking about, where British Columbia changed it to 19, and then 18 after the federal level, and where the provinces had different age groups, to my knowledge, there weren’t surveys done during those time periods to see if this affected the Canadian case.

The argument does come from other jurisdictions; I believe it was Sweden, but I’d have to double-check. I read this a while ago. It’s when they changed it at one level. They changed it at the regional level, and then I think they had an election at the federal level happening later on.

I can get back to the committee on which country it was, but it would have been a European case example that informed that study.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Any further questions? I don’t see any further questions.

Thank you so much, Valere, for your presentation and for taking our questions this morning. Please take care.

Valere Gaspard: I appreciate it. Thank you all. Have a great day.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Next we have Beatrice Wayne from the Samara Centre for Democracy.

[9:35 a.m.]

Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Beatrice. Just a reminder before you get started: you’ll have 15 minutes for your presentation, followed by ten minutes for questions.

Samara Centre for Democracy

Beatrice Wayne: Thank you for having me here today. I’m the director of research and policy at the Samara Centre for Democracy.

The Samara Centre is a non-partisan charity that produces research and events to advance a vibrant culture of civic engagement across Canada. We were founded in 2007, and our mission is to realize a resilient democracy with responsive institutions shaped by an engaged public. Through this work, our research and programming regularly serve citizens, educators, journalists and policy makers. The Samara Centre has appeared before parliamentary committees on the Fair Elections Act, the Reform Act, hybrid parliament and working conditions for MPs.

The first issue I would like to address, which the Samara Centre sees as crucial to the topic of democratic and electoral reform, is that of technology’s influence on our democratic culture. The online safety action table convened by the province in 2024 demonstrated both the value and the limitations of voluntary cooperation with technology companies to address online harms. Despite some positive industry-led actions, the refusal of major tech companies to sign the province’s declaration on online safety for children and the absence of binding accountability mechanisms underscore the deep need for legislation.

Research from the Samara Centre’s technology-related projects, alongside much substantive academic research, demonstrates that recommendation algorithms fuel the spread of effective polarization, alienation and harmful content generally. At present, the algorithms and design that underpin the most popular digital platforms regularly assist in spreading and enabling digital information threats rather than limiting these harms. By digital information threats, I’m speaking about online abuse; mis-, dis- and mal-information; and inauthentic engagement, such as bot activity.

Recently, major platforms, including Meta, X — formerly Twitter — and Reddit, have significantly restricted data access programs, undermining efforts to assess how platform designs affect user well-being and democratic health. To effectively identify and understand the scope of harm occurring on digital platforms, civil society must be enabled to investigate these platforms and must have access to the tools to do so. A duty for digital platforms to retain and share data with independent researchers is essential to restoring positive civic conversation and engagement.

To combat the democratic backsliding exacerbated by digital information threats, British Columbia should follow the design code and duty-of-care style legislative efforts popularized by governments in the U.K., the EU, Australia and others. This would require digital platforms to uphold user safety, as well as consumer protection and care, while government regulators are responsible for identifying non-compliance with the code and holding platforms accountable. Non-compliant platforms are responsible for amending their platform design to become compliant again. Platforms that refuse to comply and defy requests from regulators are subject to large fines, usually based on a percentage of global revenue.

Since 2021, through our SAMbot project, the Samara Centre has monitored tweets sent to political candidates and parties during election. We use machine learning to evaluate how likely these tweets are to be toxic or abusive. We’ve monitored over four million tweets across 12 Canadian elections, including federal, provincial and municipal elections throughout the country.

Our finding is that online abuse is common, pervasive and unavoidable, no matter if you’re running to be a local school board trustee, a city councillor, a member of a provincial parliament or the Prime Minister of Canada. Across these positions, online abuse is everywhere. We found that in addition to being a problem across levels of government, it is also a problem for political newcomers, as well as incumbents or political figures with lots of public attention.

The volumes of abuse detected with SAMbot illuminate the challenging working conditions experienced by candidates on the campaign trail. These working conditions, facilitated by digital technologies, threaten to reduce participation and representation in our democracy. As political newcomers, first-time candidates are the most vulnerable to abuse, as they have the least support and experience to help them navigate online and offline abuse.

Political parties can play a key role in providing first-time candidates with support, as can non-partisan mentorship schemes. Adding protections and expectations of conduct within our public institutions could also help limit online and offline abuse.

We have two specific recommendations to make on the topic of technology’s influence on our democratic culture. The first is to support legislation that requires digital platforms to act with a duty of care, establishing clear duties to protect users and ensure their safety in respect to data privacy, platform design and content policy.

[9:40 a.m.]

Equally critical is legislation that requires digital platforms to provide data access for civil society–led research purposes and requires digital platforms to provide information and evidence to an independent expert evaluator to determine the effectiveness of various safety measures and to identify new risks and mitigation strategies for future work, as described in the online safety action table progress report.

I should acknowledge here that online harms regulation is largely under federal jurisdiction. Our recommendation is that the B.C. government can and should play a vital role in communicating to Ottawa, clearly and frequently, about your regulatory needs.

At the same time, some technology companies that took part in the online safety action table expressed a preference for the province to legislate in areas related to its declaration, and the progress report stated that the province could explore legislation to regulate the products and behaviour of technology companies that make their products and services available in B.C. So there does remain some jurisdictional role for the province, and we really encourage the province to explore this.

Our second recommendation is to offer support to first-time candidates who may become particular targets of abuse, through mentorship and robust workplace safety protections.

Now I would like to turn from the topic of technology to focus on strengthening the relationship between legislators and their constituents. Since 2008, the Samara Centre has conducted the first-ever systematic collection of interviews with former parliamentarians in Canada. Today the project features interviews with over 160 former Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum.

Common themes have emerged over time. For example, as highlighted in our 2018 report, Beyond the Barbecue, many MPs describe some long-standing structural challenges within parliamentary life. Of constituency work in particular, they shared — and these are direct quotations — that “it’s easy to get burnt out” and “if you want to do everything well, it’s overwhelming.”

The common observation is that constituents do not distinguish between levels of government in their search for help. One ex-MP recalled feeling like a city councillor when doing constituency work. There is evidence of a gap between the types of services that citizens are demanding and what the government currently provides, and constituency offices are increasingly filling that void.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that accessing public services is often the only direct contact citizens will have with their MLAs. Getting public service delivery right plays a really crucial role in strengthening and repairing citizens’ trust of government, and this will, in turn, allow MLAs and their staff to refocus on stronger democratic engagement.

Constituency offices, therefore, ought to be centrally managed from the non-partisan Legislative Assembly rather than leaving MLAs to fend for themselves. If MLAs and staff are relieved of some of their casework responsibilities, the resulting new capacity can be committed to placing constituency offices at the centre of more sophisticated democratic engagement through public learning, consultation and sophisticated participatory processes. This is where representatives can learn what issues matter most to their constituents and also bring home provincewide debates.

Former politicians described convening issues-based committees to examine evidence, discuss priorities and consider how legislative action could support their goals. Such groups could provide opportunities for substantive community-informed discussion, and that can support tangible action by the MLA.

The Legislature itself can help the MLAs, training them to use new tools. Specifically, the Legislative Library of British Columbia could, in collaboration with experts, develop non-partisan local engagement, public learning and consultation supports for MLAs. The Legislature supplies MLAs with funds to communicate with constituents through householders and advertisements, and this would allow MLAs to really take the next step with community engagement.

To summarize, our recommendations to increase trust and communication between legislators and constituents are as follows: clearing casework from constituency offices by transforming these offices into civic hubs and outposts for the Legislative Assembly, which involves establishing permanent offices centrally managed by the Legislative Assembly; including participation from Service B.C. to enable cross-collaboration and seamless service to residents; integrating municipal representatives to ensure access to support across levels of government; and developing systemwide solutions to address common public service issues raised by constituents.

[9:45 a.m.]

Out of this flows our second recommendation: focus MLAs and their staff on democratic engagement by establishing a centre of excellence for democratic engagement housed within the Legislative Library of British Columbia and accessible to all MLAs; enable the library, in collaboration with experts, to develop resources that support local engagement, public learning and consultation, specifically including tools for citizen reference panels, participatory policy-making, youth councils and technology-enhanced town halls.

Our final set of recommendations relate to the topic of youth civic engagement, a major focus of Samara Centre research and resource creation. Young people are less likely than older generations to vote or to join a political party, but this does not mean they are politically disengaged. According to research from Elections Canada, young people raise and donate money more, they volunteer more, they boycott more, and they march more. British Columbia has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revitalize democracy by solidifying youth civic engagement as a democratic competency.

Our 2022 report, Learning Loss as Civic Loss, outlines the centrality of civic literacy to supporting youth civic engagement. Our report emphasizes the importance of focusing on what education researchers call civic intentionality, which is bringing people together to find solutions to social problems and creating spaces for dialogue and meaningful, sustained engagement. Strong civic literacy involves understanding policies and knowing how government functions, but it also entails being socialized into our political environment.

Soft skills that support civility and build confidence to participate in decision-making processes — these are key. This approach is aimed at enabling a healthy democratic culture, one in which people understand how to disagree in a respectful manner, how to respond to conflict and to communicate in an effective way, and how to work together to find solutions to society’s pressing problems. Experiential and project-based learning are really critical to achieving this goal, and they should be a central pillar of a civic education curriculum.

The province’s existing focus on digital literacy, critical thinking and democratic competency in school provides a strong foundation for an expanded role of youth in democratic engagement and decision-making. In line with this objective, a growing number of municipal councils, including Vancouver, Saanich, Vernon, Invermere, Victoria and Penticton, along with the Union of B.C. Municipalities, have called on the provincial government to extend voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds.

The Northwest Territories Chief Electoral Officer recently recommended this change, concluding that in jurisdictions where they have lowered the voting age, what they found is that 16- and 17-year-olds vote at a higher rate than 18- to 24-year-olds, but they’re also more likely to vote in the next election and the one after that. Evidence from Austria and Scotland confirms that extending the voting age substantially aids young people in establishing lifelong voting habits.

Neuroscientific and social science research demonstrates that 16-year-olds match adults in the quality of their vote choice. Canadian scholars have found that 16- and 17-year-olds are not less politically developed than adults, and depending on the topic being addressed, they are more knowledgeable or as knowledgeable as adults. And 16- and 17-year-olds are just as interested, if not more, in participating in various forms of political activity, including voting and non-electoral civic activities. Introducing the vote at 16 would enable meaningful participation while students are still supported by educational institutions and would ensure that their voices are represented in shaping the future they will inherit.

Our recommendation is to strengthen civic education across the K-to-12 system by embedding it in cross-curricular learning, ensuring dedicated support from the Ministry of Education and Child Care in developing robust, age-appropriate content and experiential and project-based learning that equips students with the knowledge and skills, including soft skills, needed for democratic engagement. We also recommend, along with investing in robust civic education, extending voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds.

This was a quick snapshot of the Samarra Centre’s recommendations. I’ll add that we are willing to partner to support enhanced voter participation in democratic engagement, should the committee see a role for us. Thank you for your time. Happy to address any questions that you may have.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Wonderful. Thank you, Beatrice, for your presentation, and for raising a lot of new ideas for the committee as well.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you, Beatrice. There were very interesting topics you covered there, some of which we hadn’t heard much before.

I had a couple of questions. One of them is about your interest in research and data access for civil society on some of the materials. What aspects of privacy are covered in this? Digital privacy is a huge concern with a lot of people. We often see people hacking information, taking advantage of materials.

In fact, I was a casualty of this just recently, getting some of my information grabbed from me. I’ve been seeing this from various companies and organizations, where information has been collected illicitly or was subject to abuse when it has been collected.

What is your point on that? Then I have one other question.

[9:50 a.m.]

Beatrice Wayne: That’s a great point, and that’s a huge concern. That’s precisely why duty-of-care legislation is so critical, I think. Right now there are very few consumer protections for Canadians based on what happens on these social media platforms, including scams that are particularly directed at particular segments of the Canadian population. There is very, very little accountability, and that’s why this precise form of legislation that has duty of care is so critical.

In terms of access for researchers and how to protect data privacy, in most cases, data researchers are not looking to identify individual users in any way, shape or form. Disaggregated data would be very, very useful to us, and we still don’t have access to that. It would be, I think, great to work with tech companies to find ways to access data that really works on protecting the privacy of individual users.

Now there’s wonderful, really robust pro-social design research that shows ways that you can protect data privacy while still engaging in robust research. We just aren’t enacting it in any way, shape or form. So I think it would be really crucial to take the first step with legislation to work towards implementing some of this great research that shows that we can, in fact, do this form of pro-social research while respecting the rights of individuals.

Sheldon Clare: Okay, thank you. My second question has to do with your suggestion about dramatically modifying constituency offices to be offices of the Legislative Assembly.

These offices are already extensive arms of the Legislative Assembly and have significant supports from it, but the people running them are staff of the MLA because they are the representatives in the community of the MLA. These are non-partisan offices, and they function in that way.

Having a finger on the pulse of the casework in the community is an important part of an MLA’s role. I’m not sure I agree with creating a new level of bureaucracy. In fact, I don’t agree with creating a new level of bureaucracy when we already have things like the government agent offices or access centres, as they’re now called, permeated throughout communities, which are supposed to be fulfilling those roles.

I think that trying to take away that access from the MLA to be in touch with the needs of the community where those other systems are failing people is essential. I mean, my office alone has hundreds of files that we’re working on, and I rely very much on my chief of staff and constituency assistants to be clearing house and cleaning up these issues, and I find they do an excellent job, and I’m sure that that’s the case for others.

Just to point to the non-partisan aspect, we had a government minister drop by my office just last week. This was a courtesy call to say hi, and I appreciated that very much, although I wasn’t there to greet the minister. It was an indication to me of the non-partisan role that these offices fulfil. So I just wondered if you were aware that those offices were like that and if you had any comments in that regard.

Beatrice Wayne: Yes, absolutely. To clarify, it’s not a concern that these are partisan offices that are an issue of partisanship. It’s specifically because we have heard that you are overrun with these. You have too much caseload work to really go forward with a lot of deep community…. It is so crucial for your staff, your office, to connect with the community. That’s the role…. We hear time and again that MLAs want to…. They’re most deeply committed to hearing from their constituents, understanding their needs and fulfilling them.

What we understand the issue to be is that being overrun with casework on specific issues, issues that are very into the nitty-gritty, means that they don’t have time to connect on a deeper level with their constituents around policy issues, around really doing deep public engagement, public learning, running tech-facilitated town halls.

There are ways in which…. Your offices could be opened up. Your time could be lessened, by getting some of that casework off your plate, to really engage on a deeper level instead of on sort of these nitty-gritty issues that could be addressed elsewhere.

[9:55 a.m.]

Sheldon Clare: I think we’re doing all of that pretty well, but we do require, in some areas — particularly, we have large geographical centres — additional resources for staff. I think that would be helpful. Would you support that?

Beatrice Wayne: Absolutely. Yeah.

Amna Shah: Thank you so much for your presentation, Beatrice. My question is actually related to that.

I would agree, to some degree, that our constituency offices are quite loaded with casework. Sometimes there’s a capacity issue in the sense that there are certain things that we would love to do within our community but unfortunately aren’t able to because we’re dealing with some of these different types of casework that you talk about.

My question is based on the study that you did with former parliamentarians and whether the issue of funding ever came up, funding to constituency offices. Part of this capacity issue can be related to, for example, how many staff we have in the community office, or for larger regions or larger constituencies, there is no capacity actually to have that extra office, for example.

So I’m wondering if you’ve come across that — how much funding constituency offices actually get. I would like to think we actually stretch that out quite a bit, which is part of the reason why…. I’m sure you’ve heard of, and you mentioned, the burnout that exists, because we’re doing with a little bit less than what we would like to do with.

If you could maybe just comment on that and then, also, if you have any recommendations around constituency budgets that are provided to offices.

Beatrice Wayne: We really hear, time and again, that it’s an issue of resourcing, both in terms of time and financial resourcing for these offices. MPs and MLAs do not feel like they…. That’s why we called the report Beyond The Barbecue. They’re going to so many events that they don’t actually have time to invest in these more robust forms of democratic engagement in connecting with constituents, whether it’s one-on-one or, more largely, as a group.

Again, that also relates to the financial issue, because they do not have the staff they necessarily want to be able to clear their caseloads, in terms of the casework that they have on very specific issues, but then also run these larger and more substantive democratic engagement initiatives.

Part of our recommendation is to invest in, whether through the library or elsewhere, a centre of civic excellence where money then will come down to offices so that they can be supported in learning about different participatory processes they run. I believe you’ve either heard from or you will hear from Robin Prest at the Wosk Centre, who has a maturity model on strengthening democratic engagement.

But we understand that both learning about these processes and enacting them takes resources. It takes time, and it takes funding. We really recommend investing in that. Whatever form you ultimately decide that form should take, that investment, I believe, is crucial.

Amna Shah: Yes, it’s incredible how much a householder costs nowadays. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Ward Stamer: MLA Clare pretty much stole my thunder on a bunch of the constituency stuff, along with MLA Shah.

But the one question I did want to go back to…. You were talking about information for, basically, inspection on our social media platforms. You know, there’s so much proprietary information in the use of algorithms. We’re going to get some significant push-back from these American companies, because we don’t have a first amendment right in this country, meaning we don’t have the ability to lie all the time. That’s basically one of the challenges that we’re having with these social media platforms and the way that they’re being directed to people and being in these silos.

So how do you see us, even at a federal government level, being able to rein in this thing? I mean, we don’t have proper fact-checking. We don’t have…. You know, short of hate, here’s just a wide gamut of whatever you can say and do on social media platforms. How do you suggest we rein this in?

[10:00 a.m.]

Beatrice Wayne: I think that’s precisely why the duty of care on the social media platforms is so key and approaching it from the point of view of consumer protections.

I think we often get focused on the issue of speech rights or freedom of speech, when in fact it’s really a design issue, right? A lot of this is purposefully algorithmically-driven content that is really damaging, particularly to young people. They’re targeted because of their age group, because of a variety of different issues.

We know from research that platforms like Meta have specifically used their algorithm to boost extremist content, anger-inducing content, versus content that gets a like. So a post, say, that gets an anger emoji will be boosted above a post that gets a thumbs-up emoji.

The question is: how can we produce incentives for these companies so that they have a reason to not artificially boost extremist content?

One of those ways is through this duty of care legislation that we have seen in other countries and looked to. There do need to be — you’re absolutely right — enforcement mechanisms there to make it have teeth, to make it tangible. That’s why the percentage of global revenue has been suggested as a part of the enforcement mechanism.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): I appreciate that. Thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Are there any further questions?

Rob Botterell: Thank you for your presentation this morning. I certainly see every day, in my constituency office, my constituency staff having to choose between working on pressing non-partisan individual cases and assisting me to do outreach into the community on more substantive policy issues, whether it’s health care or housing or whatever. It is a real problem from a resourcing point of view.

My question actually goes to your recommendations around strong civil literacy and civic intentionality and, in particular, how that relates to reducing the voting age to 16 and 17 years. One of the points we’ve heard presenters make is that the school curriculum is under the control of teachers who are biased — biased towards a particular political viewpoint — and that maybe some NGOs have a particular political leaning.

What would be your recommendation or advice on how to ensure that that sort of partisanship is left out of this so that we just focus on really making sure students are fully civically educated?

Beatrice Wayne: That’s a great question. I think what’s really wonderful is that we have great resources and great examples of cross-ideological, cross-partisan civic educators coming together to create really robust resources for exactly this.

If you want to look internationally, we have Educating for American Democracy. It’s a wonderful organization that deliberately got together cross-partisan, cross-ideological, excellent educators across the spectrum to create a roadmap for how to really embed civic education in curriculum in a way that starts really early and focuses on civic intentionality, which is really not in any way partisan.

It’s really about creating these soft skills for democracy, which are learning to have a conversation where you disagree with somebody; making sure that conversation is civil; learning to work together with people who you disagree with to come to a solution that works for both parties; learning how to navigate your democratic systems; understanding different levels of government, who you approach for different issues that you have in your community; and working together across the classroom with people who you don’t necessarily agree with, finding an issue that you can all feel passionately about and then working together to enact this.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. There are great resources existing for that. I think a couple of ways of going about it are both to really focus on teacher education — investing in teacher education so that they have the skills to host these non-partisan civic education initiatives in their classrooms — and to start early on.

There are wonderful organizations across Canada, such as the Social Studies Educators Network of Canada, who are producing fantastic non-partisan resources for Canadians and for, particularly, young students.

[10:05 a.m.]

I think finding these groups, giving them resources and finding ways to collaborate with the Ministry of Education would be just wonderful for our next generation of Canadians we want to get civically engaged.

Rob Botterell: Great. Thank you so much.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Beatrice, for your presentation and for taking all of our questions this morning.

Next up we have Jeffrey Nieuwenburg.

Welcome, Jeffrey, and thank you for presenting to our committee this morning. Before you get started, I just want to remind you that you’ll have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes for questions. Please get started when you’re ready.

Jeffrey Nieuwenburg

Jeffrey Nieuwenburg: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jeff Nieuwenburg, and I’m reaching you from North Vancouver, traditional territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ Peoples.

I have been a longtime volunteer with Fair Vote Canada and the local chapters here in Vancouver, but I’m here in my personal capacity today. By day, I’m usually working as a lawyer in the area of personal injury insurance, but — perhaps of interest to you folks — I’m also the counsel for Fair Vote Canada in the constitutional challenge to the federal voting system that’s happening in Ontario right now. But again, I’m here just in my personal capacity today.

I’m sure you folks are hearing a lot about proportional representation at the provincial level. I’m a big supporter. I’m sure all of the supporters of proportional representation tend to have favourite systems that they talk about — single transferable vote, multi-member proportional, all those sorts of things. As far as I’m concerned, adding any level of proportionality to the provincial voting system is a plus. I’m not particularly picky about how that might happen. I think any of those would be an improvement.

I’m not going to talk a whole lot more about proportional representation at the provincial level. I know if any of you folks have questions about that, I’m happy to answer that, but what I’d like to talk a little bit more about is some of the other things that I think this committee can look at.

The provincial NDP and the Greens have both made commitments and had motions passed at their party conventions about lowering the voting age to 16. I think that that’s something the committee should consider. There are lots of young advocates that are a lot shorter in the tooth than I that you could hear from about that, so I won’t talk a whole lot about that, but I think that’s something you folks should consider and look into.

The other big area that I think you folks should think about is different amendments at the municipal level. We’ve had this last referendum about proportional representation at the provincial level. The reality is that it can be more complex moving forward with that at this time perhaps. I think there’s a real opportunity at the municipal level, however, both in terms of issues like lowering the voting age and perhaps amending the voting systems municipally to something that’s more proportional.

Right now the Local Government Act allows…. I guess it’s a little bit debatable among lawyers, but I think the prevailing opinion is that the Local Government Act effectively allows two voting systems for municipalities. I believe the Vancouver Charter is effectively a mirror image of those provisions. It allows at-large voting, and it allows voting in wards.

[10:10 a.m.]

My understanding right now is that the only municipality that does voting in wards is Lake Country, formerly Winfield. Both of those voting systems are majoritarian.

The city of Vancouver, on several occasions, has passed motions asking for the province to amend its legislation to permit more inclusive voting systems to be adopted municipally. I think that there’s a big opportunity for enabling legislation to at least allow cities and towns, municipalities, to adopt more proportional voting systems, more inclusive voting systems, if they desire to do so. It’s rather odd that municipalities can adopt, based on their preference, different majoritarian systems but only majoritarian systems.

Those are things that I think the committee should look at. If you have any questions for me, I’m happy to answer those. I know you guys have a lot of folks to hear from today, so I’ll end my comments there unless there are any questions.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Jeff. Are there any questions? I don’t see any questions, Jeff, so thank you so much for taking the time to present to us this morning and for sharing your thoughts with us.

We’re going to we’re going to take a short recess for a few minutes.

The committee recessed from 10:11 a.m. to 10:23 a.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): All right, welcome back. We are going to continue with presentations this morning.

Next up is Nils Thaysen. Welcome to our committee. Before you get started this morning, just a reminder that you’ll have five minutes for your presentation followed by five minutes for questions, so please feel free to get started when you’re ready.

Max Thaysen

Nils Max Thaysen: Thank you very much, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Max Thaysen. I go by Max Thaysen. I’m a paramedic, farmer and community organizer from rural B.C., and I’ve been listening to some of these hearings. What struck me most was hearing from everyday British Columbians who, like me and my neighbours, feel our current voting system is failing us.

We’re hunters, farmers, tradespeople, front-line workers who solve real problems every day, and we’re tired of an electoral system that forces us to vote against our fears rather than for our hopes. We’re tired of a system that deranges the will of the people, often electing representatives that a majority of voters didn’t actually want. We’re tired of strategic voting, holding our noses at the ballot box instead of voting for who we truly believe in. And we’re tired of watching our trust in democracy erode, especially now when we face so many societal upheavals that demand real solutions, not political games.

Electoral reform won’t cure all cynicism, but an earnest, non-partisan commitment to fairness, to a system where every vote counts, would be a powerful start, and we know it works. The countries with the highest voter turnout in the world use proportional representation. People show up when their voice matters.

[10:25 a.m.]

Some presenters have argued that PR leads to instability, pointing to countries like Italy or Israel. But those examples are outliers with very different political contexts from ours. Italy has deep regional divides. Israel faces existential security threats. The reality is that most PR nations — Germany, New Zealand and Scotland, for example — have stable governments that actually represent their voters.

Some say PR lets extremists in. Well, let’s look at Germany. Yes, the far-right AfD has seats, but every other party refuses to work with them. Compare that to first-past-the-post, where a candidate with divisive views can win a seat with a small plurality and suddenly hold the balance of power in a tight legislature.

Here’s what folks out here understand better than most. When people feel ignored, that’s when radical ideas take root. Just look to the south if you want evidence of how radical ideas can take root in mainstream parties. Yes, PR might give small parties a seat at the table, but that’s better than the alternative, where discontent festers unseen.

At least with PR, we know exactly who stands where, and mainstream parties can set clear boundaries — like Germany’s cordon sanitaire against the AfD. Under first-past-the-post, extreme views often get smuggled into major party platforms, leaving voters with no real alternative.

In my work as a paramedic serving rural communities, I see what happens when regions feel ignored. Under first-past-the-post, parties focus only on swing ridings after the writ drops. With PR, every vote would matter in every election. No more taking rural voters for granted.

Another presenter argued that PR only works in consensus cultures like Scandinavia, but that really gets things backwards. Those countries didn’t start with consensus. They built it through fair voting systems that forced politicians to work together.

Look at New Zealand, a Commonwealth country just like us that switched to PR in the 1990s. They had the same Westminster traditions, the same partisan divides. After implementing mixed-member proportional, they saw higher voter turnout and stable governments that last full terms. Their secret? They designed a made-in-New-Zealand system. The lesson isn’t that PR needs perfect conditions. It’s that good design creates better politics. When voters know their ballot matters, they engage.

As for complexity, we trust British Columbians to understand everything from taxes to PharmaCare. We can certainly explain a voting system where what you mark is what you get.

Many presenters emphasized that past referendums were set up to fail with unrealistic thresholds and super confusing ballots. Here’s a better approach. Implement PR with a sunset clause — say, one or two election cycles. Fund neutral public education about the new system. Let voters experience it before making a final judgment.

As someone who works in emergency services, I know that when something isn’t working, you don’t keep doing it the same way while hoping for different results. You adapt. You improve. You find solutions that work better for everyone.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about politics; it’s about trust — that when we cast a ballot, it won’t be thrown away. Trust that our communities won’t be ignored after election day.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Max, and thank you for your presentation.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you, Mr. Thaysen, for your service as a paramedic and as a farmer, both of which are critically important roles in the whole province.

I had one question. You mentioned existential security threats being used as an argument in some countries. Do you think that there are no existential security threats affecting Canada and British Columbia?

Nils Max Thaysen: That’s not correct. I do think there are some existential security threats. But I think that those existential security threats exist everywhere. They are not necessarily comparable to the ones that Israel faces. I would say that the places where PR is working are also facing existential security threats, like Canada is facing, but not like Israel is facing.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks so much, Nils for your presentation. I concur with MLA Clare. I certainly appreciate everything you do as a paramedic. As a small-town mayor, I know how important it is for us to have those front-line people like yourself. Again, thank you very much for being there for us.

[10:30 a.m.]

One of the questions I have is that when you’re comparing us to New Zealand, one of the challenges is that New Zealand is considerably smaller than B.C. — about 3½ times smaller, or we’re 3½ times larger. We’ve had many discussions on how that rural representation could be utilized with a proportional-type voting system. Your suggestion of one or two elections has been brought up as a stepping stone, and then allowing the electorate after, say, two elections to be able to determine whether we move forward with proportional representation of one form or another or not.

How do you think that we would overcome some of these rural challenges when you have such vast areas like MLA Clare has? Mine is somewhat, not quite to the same extent — it’s only 3½ hours, tip to tip. Whereas where we are in Victoria, or in Surrey, you can pretty much see the end of your riding.

How are the MLAs going to be able to adequately service those clients, those constituents, if we end up spreading it out even more with proportional representation?

Nils Max Thaysen: Where I live, it’s about a two-hour trip to the nearest town centre where my MLA would be most accessible — rarely comes over to my community. I have found in recent years, since we’ve had this Zoom tool — it is amazing that we’re able to connect through it here and that I’m able to participate in this process — it has changed the game dramatically. I’m super involved in some local politics, regional politics stuff, and the barriers have just totally changed.

This geographic concern about access to people — I feel like it’s not a thing anymore. Even within a city, people are choosing to connect over Zoom for many of their small engagement activities. I think we have the tools to overcome that concern, for sure.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Great, thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Are there any further questions?

Okay, thank you so much, Max, for your presentation and for taking the time to be a part of this committee this morning. Take care.

Okay, next up we have Marika Veysey. Good morning, Marika. thank you for being here this morning. Just before you begin, a reminder you’ll have five minutes for your presentation followed by five minutes for questions. You can get started when you’re ready.

Marika Veysey

Marika Veysey: My name is Marika Vesey, and I’m a resident of Squamish where I live on the unceded land of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people.

Having listened to some previous submissions to this committee, I’ve been impressed by the intelligence and passion of the presenters as well as the thoughtful and respectful nature of the questions posed. While I may not possess the same depth of expertise as some earlier speakers, I offer my perspective, grounded in personal experience and sincere conviction.

Last year during the provincial election campaign, I had the opportunity to meet many members of my community while canvassing door to door. I was struck by how often I heard the phrase “I don’t vote.” Initially I felt frustrated that so many people chose not to exercise such a vital democratic right, but as I listened further, I began to understand their reasons. Many expressed a sense of futility, believing their vote wouldn’t count, or fear that voting for their preferred candidate might inadvertently help elect someone they opposed.

These conversations led me to conclude that our current electoral system is failing. When a party can secure 100 percent of the power with only 39 percent of the vote, it is clear that something is fundamentally broken.

As a grandparent, I’m concerned about the future of diversity for my grandchildren. I want them to grow up in a society where they can express themselves freely and without fear. However, I worry that if we continue with the current first-past-the-post electoral system, we will see increasing polarization. This, in turn, could create space for more extreme views to gain influence, undermining the inclusive and diverse society I hope future generations will inherit.

[10:35 a.m.]

I may not have the opportunity to vote in many more elections, but if I do, I hope it will be under a system that better reflects the will of the people. The first-past-the-post system distorts representation and often silences large segments of the electorate. I believe it is time to adopt a form of proportional representation, an electoral model that more accurately translates votes into seats, ensures all voices are heard and strengthens the legitimacy and inclusivity of our democracy.

People want to contribute. People want to be heard. People want to be represented. PR, in almost any of its recognized forms, with the exception of winner-take-all ranked ballots, offers citizens a real opportunity to shape a legislature that reflects the diversity of our society. It ensures that every vote matters and that the outcomes more accurately represent the will of the people.

We are facing profound challenges: the accelerating threat of climate change, increasing pressure from powerful neighbours seeking to exploit our natural resources and deepening divisions that threaten the unity of our country. We cannot afford to waste time on partisan games or power struggles rooted in a two-party system that often fails to deliver meaningful solutions.

Just as the human body is a complex collaboration of myriad cells and microbes working in harmony to sustain life, so, too, must our political system embrace the diverse voices that make up our society. It is time we move toward a more inclusive and cooperative form of governance, one that values diversity of thought and works collectively to address the pressing issues we face.

I urge you to be courageous and to recommend the changes necessary to reform our electoral system. Look at the democracies that already use proportional representation, and tailor a system that will serve our unique needs in British Columbia so that we can move forward with confidence, knowing our government reflects and serves all the people.

Thank you for your service on this committee and for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Marika, for your presentation. Really appreciate your time this morning.

Are there any questions?

Okay. I don’t see any questions from the committee, so thank you again for your time.

We will take a recess now until 10:55.

The committee recessed from 10:37 a.m. to 10:59 a.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Okay, welcome back to the committee. As our next presenter, we have Manosij Majumdar.

Welcome to our committee, Manosij. Just a reminder, you’ll have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes for questions.

[11:00 a.m.]

Manosij Majumdar

Manosij Majumdar: Good morning. My name is Mano Majumdar. I am a resident of British Columbia and a change management specialist by profession. I have prepared remarks, and I can send a copy for the committee’s records.

I would like to make three recommendations today: one for our approach and two specific reforms. My first recommendation is to be very aware of the environment in which we are operating. We’re in a time of record-low trust in institutions, including elections, including here in B.C. Whatever system is put into place must be accessible and transparent.

Alternative voting systems tend to be enamoured of their own complexity. Ranked choice systems require voters to change how they vote and have been shown to reduce voter satisfaction. The Webster method, which produces very good results, requires separate calculations for each seat. This is comfortable for those of us who make a living off spreadsheets, but to many, it feels opaque and exclusionary. An overly novel or complicated system will create more distance with the already disaffected and erode the foundations of our democratic consensus further.

We should create the best system within the limits of the political environment we have. Voting must not only be free and fair; it must feel free and fair.

My next recommendation is a better electoral system that is free and fair and that feels free and fair. First, a common reference point, the Gallagher index, is the gold standard for electoral fairness. A lower score is more proportional. A score of zero would be perfectly proportional, with the ratio of seats exactly equal to the ratio of votes for each party. Canada’s 2016 Special Committee on Electoral Reform recommended that we target a Gallagher index of less than 5.0. The recent B.C. election had a score of 6.5. We did not pass.

We can do better with a minimally invasive electoral reform that I call FPTP-plus. Voters vote, exactly as they do now, with one mark against one name of their choice. They can follow along just as easily when the results come in, with the person with the most votes winning the riding by a simple majority. So far, the system is identical to what exists. Only then is a final adjustment made for proportionality. Some parties have a higher seat share than vote share. They are left alone. Other parties have a lower seat share than vote share. They are awarded extra seats to bring their seat share within one percentage point of their vote share.

In the recent B.C. election, this would have meant adding just six seats to the Legislature, bringing the total from 93 to 99. Our Gallagher index would have gone from 6.5, not a pass, to 1.1, among the best in the world, with no changes to how people vote or their ability to check the results.

My final recommendation is that close calls be resolved with more closure. In the recent B.C. election, five seats were won with less than a 1 percentage point margin. Slim victories like this reduce democracy into a spectator sport of scoring technical points and are far from the intent of representing the will of the people. Voters deserve a representative that the majority can support, and MLAs also deserve to know that they do reflect the will of their riding.

I recommend that close calls be followed not by a recount but by a by-election between the two leading candidates, the winner and the runner-up. That is how the President of France is elected. That gives voters a second chance to elect a truly majority candidate and keeps costs under control by only having this in ridings where there are close calls. I should note that if you combine the two ideas, every riding will have a majority, and the seats will be proportional to the votes.

Those are my recommendations. Let’s become much more proportional, while keeping the election mechanics familiar and understandable. Let’s resolve close calls more concretely, and let’s do it all within the reality of the environment in which we operate.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much.

[11:05 a.m.]

Sheldon Clare: Thank you, Mano, for your presentation. I wondered about the close-call points you were making, because you can still have close calls between two individuals with only two people running. What is the point of redoing a close call when you’re very likely to just achieve the same result again, or maybe flip it by a couple of votes? It doesn’t really seem to be anything that makes sense to me. Why not just go with what the judicial recount has, rather than having an expensive by-election?

Manosij Majumdar: What the close call does is the same thing that ranked voting does. It allows people to now vote for their second preference if their first preference wasn’t one of the top two. So it allows for a more balanced representation of the will of the people.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Mano, for the presentation. You’re talking about those top-up seats, and this has been in the discussion we’ve had even last week. Even if you had main MLAs, you had top-ups, and you had more of a proportional representation, where would those six seats be? If you’re going to add extra seats, what are going to be the responsibilities of those MLAs? Are we going to try to set it up in five or six regions, and they get a region? How does that work?

Manosij Majumdar: Well, there are a few ways of doing this. If you had an open list, you would simply select the MLAs who did not win a single riding but may have had the most votes by count across the province. If you had a closed list, the parties would present their own list to the voters ahead of time and just go down the list for as many MLAs as they get. My recommendation would be to have at-large MLAs that represent the interests of the entire province, but I’ll leave the details to the committee.

Amna Shah: Thank you, Mano, for your presentation. You’ve mentioned a few times that elections have to feel fair and transparent. They also have to be representative of people’s wishes. With this close-call election or by-election process that you mentioned, I’m wondering how that would pan out with people feeling the process is fair. If, let’s say, there are two candidates, neither of whom they want, how they would feel represented if those two were their only options.

I mean, one could argue: “Well, neither of these are my top two, and I don’t feel represented.”

Manosij Majumdar: Certainly. What it will do is reduce the number of people who don’t feel represented. Many people may not get their first choice, but they’ll be less unhappy with their second choice than their absolute last choice. It does the same thing ranked voting does. Democracy doesn’t deliver the best government that each person might wish for, but hopefully it delivers the least not-preferred government.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Are there any further questions? No?

Thank you, Mano, for your presentation this morning and for taking the time to be here.

Next up, we have Jane Devonshire, from the South Island Climate Action Network.

Good morning, Jane. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. As you begin, just a reminder that you’ll have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes for questions.

South Island Climate Action Network

Jane Devonshire: Thank you for this opportunity to speak today.

I would like to acknowledge that I’m coming to you from the traditional, unceded territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, who are the Songhees and xʷsepsəm First Nations.

Hope — that is what I hope will come out of these committee hearings: hope that this time we, the people, will truly be heard and that some form of PR will finally be implemented. It matters not what form it takes, so long as it is not a winner-take-all system.

We have a plethora of experts that can be called upon to draw from the many successful PR systems from around the world. Denmark springs to mind as a prime example, and they turn out to be some of the happiest people in the world. I, too, would be ecstatic if every vote counted.

No more referendums, please. They have been extremely confusing for many, especially with having to select one of the three PR options, which many felt were not clearly defined. They’ve also fallen victim to fearmongering tactics, with claims that fringe or extremist parties could win seats.

Please just bring all the parties together to collaborate and just get on with it. For the public’s peace of mind, put in a backstop that allows people to vote on it after two election cycles, if they so choose.

[11:10 a.m.]

People are averse to change and find it scary, but they just might be pleasantly surprised by how well PR might actually work for them.

Frustration is what I’ve been enduring for far too long, where I have had to vote strategically. I channelled this frustration into the 2018 PR referendum. Through our Dogwood club at UVic, and with support from Fair Vote Canada, we set up an information booth to explain to folks what the referendum was all about and why we were advocating for PR. It was quite the revelation for us to discover just how many students and adults there knew very little about the issue, and we are talking about an educated demographic here.

We had the foresight to have an iPad handy to help them register to vote or to get their ballots sent to them if they hadn’t received one. For those that missed the deadline to mail them in, we collected their ballots, and I personally delivered them to the Elections B.C. office.

This whole experience brought home to me the great need to bring mandatory, comprehensive civics and voting education into our schools. If we truly want to strengthen and protect our fragile democracy, we need to have age-appropriate curriculum being taught in our schools from K to 12.

Critical thinking also needs to be a strong component of this curriculum like it is in Finland. Finland begins fostering critical thinking skills in preschool, introducing basic media literacy concepts. Children learn to question information sources and identify potential manipulation, even very young children. This early start helps children develop a foundational understanding of how media works and how to discern truth from falsehood. Sounds like some adults could also do with such a course.

Incidentally, Finland also has a proportional voting system and is ranked as the happiest country in the world for 80 consecutive years.

There’s definitely an appetite for this and for lowering the voting age to 16. At the UBCM convention in 2019, local and provincial politicians voted overwhelmingly in favour of the resolution to ask the B.C. government to lower the voting age to 16. Then Victoria mayor Lisa Helps said: “Millions of young people around the world are demonstrating for climate action and speaking articulately about the kind of future they want and should be allowed to vote in municipal elections.”

Helps said she’s heard the argument that many 16- and 17-year-olds aren’t informed enough about municipal issues to be given the vote. “This is true of all our residents, having nothing to do with age,” she quipped back.

At the NDP fall convention in 2019, delegates voted in favour of the resolution to lower the voting age to 16 for civic and provincial elections. Young NDP’ers fought hard to get this into the top eight resolutions to be voted on. Although there was a significant majority, sadly, the party had no requirements to follow through on any of these resolutions.

Dogwood stepped up to support #Vote16BC. They hosted a summer boot camp to train the young leaders of tomorrow. I attended their “grad ceremony” and was blown away by the passion of these amazing young people and how articulate they were. #Vote16BC now has endorsements from 19 unions, labour councils and non-profits, including the B.C. Teachers Federation, the BCGEU and Sustainabiliteens.

This is the 21st century. It’s time that we embrace PR and lower the voting age to 16 so we, too, can ratchet up our happiness. Thank you for your kind attention.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Jane, for your presentation.

Are there any questions?

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Jane, for the presentation. One of the things that came to mind…. We’ve been talking about some of the ills of social media. Sorry, I didn’t know that Denmark actually has those critical thinking courses, teaching….

Jane Devonshire: Finland.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Yeah. Thank you for that.

I’m just trying to navigate through our curriculum that we have currently in British Columbia. I think it’s been brought up a couple of times, even this morning, about…. Do we specifically target engagement when it comes to election information, when it talks about how our legislation system works federally, provincially, municipally, and then all the steps that go through it?

One of the things that was brought up was: do we have a duplicatable, transferable type curriculum, or do we just allow the teachers to have free rein all the way through the process?

What would you like us to see in this province moving forward?

[11:15 a.m.]

Jane Devonshire: I would like to see the experts brought in — teachers, of course — and I would like to see it clear across the board, because it can vary so much if teachers can take control of their own class and decide what they want to present. I think there should be strong guidelines.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Okay. How soon would you…? Thank you for that. I’ve also heard that it takes ages for this to happen. I just looked online. It was a recommendation to the Minister of Education back in 2014 to specifically have this in our schools, and we still don’t have it. It seems like it takes an awful long time to get somebody’s notice in this. Any comment on that fact that it was recognized ten years ago and we still don’t have it?

Jane Devonshire: Well, I have a question. How do we make it happen faster?

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): That’s a really good question. We’ve asked specifically for the committee to receive documentation on the curriculum, specifically on this, to see exactly what we are being taught or trying to be taught in our schools, because we’d like to be able to bring that to the public.

Jane Devonshire: Can we not create a survey for teachers themselves to fill in on what they would like to see?

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): That’s a really good idea. Yeah. Thanks for that.

Jane Devonshire: Okay. Thank you for your question.

Amna Shah: Thank you for your presentation, Jane. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say if the committee was to recommend to lower the voting age to 16, do you think that this should be a timed process, meaning to make civic studies mandatory, for example, in schools and have that a part of the curriculum prior to, so that all students have the ability to be informed, maybe even with a media literacy component, so that they feel well equipped to be able to make that decision?

Jane Devonshire: I always feel that delay is denial. Look how long it’s taken for that recommendation in 2014 to have any action on it. I think we need to do it now. The government has the capability to do that. I think we have to trust…. They will step up. They will be so exhilarated to know that they have the vote. They’ve been fighting for this for a long time.

I think the provincial government wanted to do it staged, like to have the students register starting at ages 16 and 17 so that they’re ready to vote by age 18. I think everybody’s frustration is that everything takes too long. Let’s just do it. I know in Scotland, it was a huge success. The youth turned out in droves, and they made the big difference in the Scotland referendum.

Rob Botterell: Thank you for your presentation. One of the earlier presenters suggested that there are a number of non-partisan, well-respected community organizations and non-government organizations that work in this area of civic education. The Samara Centre for Democracy was speaking to this. I guess the question I have is: would you support collaborating with organizations like that to build the civics curriculum more quickly?

Jane Devonshire: Absolutely. Why reinvent the wheel if there are wonderful models out there? I think we should reach out to Finland to start with and see how they’re doing things.

Rob Botterell: Great. Thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Jane, for your presentation. That’s all the questions that we have, so thanks again for being here this morning.

Jane Devonshire: Thank you so much for your time, everyone, and for what you’re doing.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Next we have Coady Webb.

Thank you so much for being here with the committee this morning. Just a reminder before you get started that you’ll have five minutes to present followed by five minutes for questions. Please get started when you’re ready.

[11:20 a.m.]

Coady Webb

Coady Webb: I’m joining this morning from Nova Scotia. I’m on vacation with my family. Thank you for taking my submission. I live on Quadra Island, actually, in the town of Heriot Bay, in the North Island riding of B.C.

I would like to just begin by saying that I and many people that I know feel quite unrepresented and powerless to engage in politics or affect political decisions. There is a strong sense of apathy that can set in and that I notice among many people. You know about that; that’s why you’re having the committee.

I have joined both provincial and federal EDAs in my area. I’ve worked and volunteered for non-profits and community advocacy groups. I was part of a group of people that started a community co-op. I work for DFO, indirectly, in two of B.C.’s most lucrative fisheries, as an at-sea observer. I’ve been doing that for ten years. That’s the prawn and crab fishery.

In almost all those roles that I just described, despite being white, male, housed, employed and relatively competent in my speaking abilities, my advocacy for what I and my community have needed has been very disappointing. This includes engagement in elections, but it is definitely not limited to engagement in elections.

I do support electoral reform. For many of the reasons that you have already heard, I think it’s really important to choose an alternate form, beyond first-past-the-post, that is widely accepted. What I would like to say is that I think it’s very important that the process of deciding, if there are any changes, what kind of change is required — that that occurs with deep public engagement. This committee is a great start, but it’s very much a start.

There need to be processes for meaningful discussion, for resolutions to be created and for bringing a whole range of stakeholders from the public, in different spheres and different areas, together in a meaningful consultation process. Perhaps most importantly, it needs to be transparent. In the advocacy that I’ve attempted in my various roles in life, it is very frustrating when decisions are made and you don’t understand why they were made or who made them. That seriously erodes any confidence in people’s feelings of being represented or of being able to engage in an effective way.

I know there have been other presentations on forms of meaningful public engagement, and I just would like to put some support towards spending that. Probably the most important thing that I would like to stress is that the process for deciding, if there is electoral reform, what type of system we go towards — that the process include a lot of consultation.

In my area, which is traditionally resource extraction–based, the North Island, I think it’s very important that multiple groups from different areas and backgrounds within that area are given opportunities to be involved, not just forestry, fisheries, mining and tourism. There is a tendency for the power structures that exist around those industries to dominate conversations. I think it’s important that they’re represented, but it’s important that more than just those main industries are represented.

It tends to be what people think about when they think about rural areas, but I think it’s very important that Indigenous groups and NGOs are meaningfully involved. There are a lot of NGOs in the north Island area. There are political groups.

[11:25 a.m.]

There are also people that are part of, and could be representatives for, marginalized communities that are not necessarily organized and haven’t necessarily already created the pathways and organizations to be involved in these kinds of discussions. Decisions need to include those groups as well.

That’s my presentation.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Great. Thank you so much, Coady. Before we go to questions, I just want to say thank you for joining us on your vacation. We know that you’re passionate about this in order to take that time. So thank you again.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Coady. I hope the weather is good there. A couple of questions that come to mind quickly. It sounds like….

Your last part of your presentation sounded like some of the things that you were disenfranchised about. Can you give me a specific one? Is it specifically around the natural resource extraction and the process that we go through in doing that, or was it something else that you mentioned earlier in your conversation about feeling disenfranchised? What isn’t happening? What do you feel that you’re misrepresented or unrepresented on? What’s one of your main topics?

Coady Webb: Well, I feel that there tends to be, in the process of consultation in rural areas…. The processes of decision-making and consultation tend to, in my experience, give a greater voice to groups that are already in more or less powerful positions. In resource extraction areas like mine, that tends to be members, people within, advocates for industry.

I think it’s really important to reach beyond industry and to find groups that are there and that are working to create a better society and are working to represent their needs and the needs of their communities that are not necessarily included in conversations.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Can I ask you a question? Are you familiar with the new land use management plans that are currently occurring in our province right now?

Coady Webb: Is that through the…? Can you tell me a bit more of what you’re describing?

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Well, I mean, you’re talking about not having fair engagement. At the same time, we’re having land use management plans, and really, the initial part of the planning is only between the provincial government and First Nations. There hasn’t been a lot of public consultation. There hasn’t been a bunch of user groups. There certainly hasn’t been industry in these negotiations.

So I would suggest that there are things that are happening, also, that are encompassing some of the things that you’re asking for, and there are some concerns on both sides on not having an opportunity where everyone gets a chance to sit at the table.

Coady Webb: Well, that sounds great. In terms of land use, I hope that continues.

Specifically, we’re talking about electoral reform and the process of how the decisions around electoral reform are made. That’s more what I’m just talking about — being involved when that decision-making process is developed. That’s what I’m describing and where I think it’s really important for those user groups to be included.

Amna Shah: Thank you, Coady, for being here. I can tell from your dedication to be here on your vacation…. My question is about your point that people and voters and the general public should not be left out of the conversation when it comes to determining which electoral system we choose to recommend.

We have heard from a lot of presenters saying that we don’t want, for example, another referendum; that we should leave it up to experts to decide which type of electoral system is best based on the specific characteristics of British Columbia; and that, really, what is for certain is that there needs to be change in the electoral system.

They often do point to the referendum which occurred in 2018 and how there was a low turnout. Part of the reasons being cited for it was that the systems were too complicated for people to understand or maybe the communication of the different systems that were on that ballot was too complicated.

But what you’re saying is that it would cause much more disenfranchisement if people are left out. Could you maybe expand about your conversations with others or maybe your experience around why you feel so strongly around that?

[11:30 a.m.]

Coady Webb: Yeah, sure. I would say that I agree that another referendum…. I would not recommend having just another referendum. That is a form of consultation, in a sense, but it’s not a very good one, and it’s not deep or meaningful, because people probably don’t understand what they’re getting into.

What I would suggest is really putting a lot of energy — it will take energy and some time — into discussion. It would be probably really good for some experts to get together and get some information together to present to groups but to have people be involved in that process so they understand, if there was any kind of decision-making process, that it’s not just a referendum, that it’s discussions, that it’s resolutions where people are able to say, groups are able to say, “Well, this works for me; this does not,” and for that information to be taken back to whatever committee or whatever body is organizing it from different groups around with some informed….

It would be great to have experts. I agree, basically, with what you said. The reason I feel that it’s really important is because I think that in this time period that we have right now, it’s very difficult for people to understand what is happening in decision-making circles.

I think that because people don’t understand that, and decisions are made, and they feel this affects them — or it does affect them — that really breeds anger and apathy and tends to make people have more extreme kinds of belief patterns. I think that’s really damaging for everyone, and I think we’re seeing the result of that in the United States.

I think it’s really important for people to actually feel like they (a) are somewhat involved or have some capacity to be involved and (b) understand, to some degree, what they are being involved in. I think that’s the role of the experts, and that’s the role of the deep consultation process or deep engagement process that I know some people have described to you.

Rob Botterell: Thank you for your presentation. A number of presenters have suggested implementing a form of proportional representation before the next election and then after one or two election cycles, having a referendum to see if British Columbians want to carry on with proportional representation.

In trying to square the circle of the desire to move ahead with proportional representation but also to achieve deep public engagement, a couple of presenters have talked about having a truly citizen-driven citizen assembly as one of the steps. So talk to the experts, develop a system, and then make sure, whether through a citizen assembly or something like that, you actually involve the public. But get it done before the next election.

I just wanted to give you that context. Do you have any thoughts on those ideas?

Coady Webb: Yeah, I mean, it sounds fairly reasonable to me. If it doesn’t happen before the next election, it might not be the end of the world. I think it’s probably more important to make sure the process of deciding that is not rushed and is done thoroughly and well. I think it would probably be good to have some paid positions, not to leave it fully up to volunteer community organizations to organize that themselves.

It can be challenging. It’s probably good to have some staff of some organization or government staff providing the venues and platforms, at least the structure, of that engagement or at least facilitating it so that it occurs. It can be just very challenging. And things not getting more challenging. I don’t think people are having more and more free time, even if they wish to volunteer. It can be a challenge. That would be my one thought. Some guidance and support would be helpful.

[11:35 a.m.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Coady, for the time this morning and for giving up part of your vacation to speak with us this morning. Enjoy the rest of your vacation out east.

Coady Webb: You’re welcome, and thank you again for the work you’re putting in and for talking to me.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Next up, we have Colin Robinson from the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust.

Good morning, Colin. Welcome.

Colin Robinson: Morning.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Just a reminder, as you get started, that you’ll have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes for questions. Please go ahead.

Colin Robinson

Colin Robinson: All right. I think it’s about five minutes and 20 seconds, but let’s go.

So I’m Colin. I’m a 33-year-old dad of two. I live in Ucluelet, Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ traditional territory, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. I work at the Clayoquot Biosphere Trust, which is a community convener organization.

I come from a conservative background, actually. I work on a lot of socioeconomic and environmental projects, which give me perspectives that a lot of my peers don’t actually have. It makes things really hard for me at the ballot box, especially in recent elections.

My home is rural and remote. We’ve got a lot of Indigenous and settler culture here. Our post-industrial resource economy has largely transitioned to tourism but also, increasingly, professional services as white collar work becomes more remote, and this boundary between urban liberal core and sort of rural periphery is blurred.

One of my biggest fears is that we’re becoming increasingly polarized in these really challenging times. I get this a lot through the algorithmic news and online tribalism, politicians and influencers telling me and my peers to be angry at this invisible other. But ultimately, this anger is so unhelpful and, I think, unfounded.

Thankfully, I have this day job as an apolitical community convener. I get to hear from many people, lots of perspectives, on regional socioeconomic and environmental planning projects. I talk to business owners, philanthropists, First Nations leadership and community members, politicians from local to national, NGOs like the ratepayers association, and I understand how diverse people’s opinions are.

But while we’re diverse, we’re not as polarized as we’re led to think we are by these divisive campaign rhetorics and the doom spiral of the algorithm. I think we need a system that doesn’t further polarize us. But you’ve probably heard lots about polarization. I think, beyond polarization, we need a system that will help us confront the many complex challenges that we’re facing right now: changing international relations, affordability, housing, AI ethics, social justice, climate change. These things are all interconnected.

But as a guy, how do I pick one of these causes to be an activist for? Also, what party is best positioned to solve these? Well, in my opinion, no single party is. That’s what makes it so hard for me to become a party-affiliated activist.

Ultimately, I’ve come to learn about PR and explore research that demonstrates it as a platform for stability and collaboration required to solve these complex challenges. I want to see a group of representatives with more diversity, more points of view, parties working together in a resilient, constructive way over the long term instead of flipping and flopping and fighting every few years.

I just don’t think a single majority government is capable, with the right knowledge and perspectives, to solve the problems of today, even things like foreign interference in elections, trade disputes, that kind of thing.

I think more diverse and accurate representation will also ensure we don’t have large portions of the population — like my peer group, in some cases — feeling disenfranchised when the party they didn’t vote for is in power.

I’ve had a fun time chatting with lots of people as I’ve gotten into this idea — across the political spectrum and people from youth to elder — and here are the commonalities. Everybody seems to like the idea of votes translating proportionally to seats, and two, almost nobody has a clue about how electoral systems actually work.

The conversations have been a fun and positive way to build common ground across these divisive ideologies. We often chat about those pie charts on election night that show the number of votes compared to the number of seats, and people are like: “What? This is blowing my mind. That doesn’t seem fair.”

We’ve discussed things like voter consolidation and strategic voting, and the consensus is, from all across the political spectrum, that this is a real piss-off for people. Strategic voting happened a lot in my riding and beyond in both provincial and federal elections recently. Having a wider spectrum of voters captured by a narrow party, as seen with the federal Liberals or the B.C. Conservatives, leaves even those people who voted for them feeling quite uneasy.

I think it’s also really important to combat apathy and nihilism with proportional representation, and that’s something we need to combat. I work with youth a lot in my job, and that’s definitely something that’s a major issue, I would say.

A close friend in my riding ran, and we have very similar views. He was my preferred candidate. Did I vote for him? Nope. I had to vote strategically, out of fear, for what I didn’t want, and I felt sick about it. I don’t want to be in that situation again.

[11:40 a.m.]

Ultimately, the points I want to hammer home are: I definitely support models of proportional representation like multi-member ridings or top-up seats. I’m not bent on one system. I just want to see the principles of PR.

I also want to make sure that we get this implemented in time for the next election. I hear Carney saying: “We’ll get to this.” I would say this is an urgent priority. We’re living in fast-changing times of crisis. It’s not just a philosophical thing. I believe PR is instrumental in helping us solve the challenges we’re facing today.

I don’t support another referendum. It’s too complicated. I learn about this anytime I talk to anybody. I think there are other ways to do it, like a citizens’ assembly or something like that. I definitely don’t support any kind of winner-take-all, like ranked ballot, that replicates the problems with first-past-the-post.

I guess, ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that there’s this sort of philosophical, moral thing, the polarization, you know, improving the health of our democracy. And then the other side of it is that I think it actually has instrumental value in helping our government combat the complex challenges we have today, because we’d have more stability, more diverse knowledge, and ultimately, we’re going to be better served.

Hopefully, I got through it.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): You did. Thank you so much, Colin, for your presentation.

I have a question for you. You mentioned that you work with youth, and one of the questions that we’ve been asking a lot of presenters, or they’ve been speaking about it, is this idea about lowering the voting age to 16. I’d love to get your thoughts on that.

Then if you could also tie it into a comment that an earlier presenter made about potential further disenfranchisement if, provincially, we were to lower the age to 16, but then federally it was still 18. Then they couldn’t vote federally. If you could just give your thoughts, generally, on both of those topics.

Colin Robinson: Yeah, I think it’s tricky. While I would actually say they should, I think the way people’s political opinions are formed today, largely online, I think youth don’t have a lot of online literacy. I mean, I’m trying to figure out how to actually do this with my own children.

I would be nervous to see what kind of sort of predatory tactics might take place if all of a sudden there was this other, I guess, subset of voters who are eligible to be exploited online. I do think, in theory, I would support it if youth were able to, but I think the risks are really scary with the way online targeting happens right now.

That would be my caveat. In theory, yes, but I’d be nervous.

Rob Botterell: Thanks for your presentation.

I have a couple of questions, but maybe I’m just going to make the first one circling back to what you just mentioned. One of the things that has been discussed by presenters about lowering the voting age to 16 is the need to really work hard on civic education and make sure that young voters have all the tools and knowledge of the system at that age.

On online targeting, yeah, that’s a concern. Are there big concerns? Are there ways to tackle that that would address that concern as opposed to just saying don’t go Vote16?

Colin Robinson: Yeah, it’s tricky. I love the idea of increased civic education. I know that’s so challenging. We live in a rural and remote place, so implementing standards of education in a tiny, remote, low-resource school board is different than in a city, in Vancouver. But I would love to see it also connected to sort of classes about how to be online, how to be safe, how to be aware in the same way you have, you know, the sort of drug prevention programs or sex ed. Yeah, it’s a really tricky one.

What was the second part of the question there?

Rob Botterell: Actually, that was the question, so that’s good.

I had a second question, but I don’t now. You’ve answered both of them. Thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you. Are there any further questions?

Colin Robinson: I’m a passionate parent.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): We appreciate it. We appreciate your time this morning, Colin. There are no further questions, so we’ll let you go, but thank you again for being here this morning.

Colin Robinson: Thanks all. Thanks for being on the committee. It means a lot that you guys are exploring this.

[11:45 a.m.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Okay, next up we have Lynn Husted.

Good morning, Lynn. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. As you get started, just a reminder that you’ll have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes for questions. Please go ahead when you’re ready.

Lynn Husted

Lynn Husted: Okay. Well, thanks for the opportunity to participate today. I jumped at it because it provided me an opportunity to remember and celebrate a wonderful woman and colleague, Wendy Bergerud, who I worked with in 2004. Wendy was a member of the B.C. Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. Over coffee, she made sure I learned all about different electoral reform systems.

For me, it was a real surprise to find that first-past-the-post wasn’t really practised everywhere, that there were other systems and that proportional representation meant that a percentage of votes a party got translated into the number of seats in the Legislature and government. She convinced me — and, I think, a lot of other people — that that would be something worthwhile to try in B.C.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, because the referendum results weren’t strong enough. However, it stayed with me, and I still believe it’s a very good idea. Twenty years later, I remember that she said it doesn’t really matter which proportional representation system is chosen. The important thing is that there is proportional representation.

I now spend my coffee times — I’m a senior, retired — with a lively group of people. The last two elections that my husband and I participated in, provincially and federally, made me think about proportional representation again. In both cases…. We’re quite frank in our coffee group. We talk about who we’re likely to vote for and why we’re likely to vote for them. My husband and I were strongly encouraged not to vote for the parties we were thinking of voting for because they were very unlikely to be the first-past-the-post winners. There was a lot of sense that strategic voting really should be happening on those elections.

We didn’t. We voted for our parties, but we did wonder if that was a good idea. We really did wonder about it, because there was a risk that the first-past-the-post party would have been one that really didn’t align well with our values.

I think that a concern I have currently, right now, is that that strategic voting and the way things are going — maybe more of a two-party system sort of starting to happen — could lead to something that’s more like what’s happening in the United States, which is quite a polarized people — polarized about their political views and not as much choice. I think that even if small parties don’t get to be first-past-the-post, they bring different ideas into government and into the society, which is important.

Our coffee group, actually, does agree that they all like minority governments, because there’s an element in them that people from parties are working together. There’s some compromise, maybe some opportunities to come up with some smarter solutions.

A concern we all have is that in response to the U.S. tariff threats, both B.C. and federally, first-past-the-post governments passed legislation giving themselves more executive powers. Personally, we don’t have problems with the current first-past-the-post parties doing that and what they’ll do, but we do wonder if, in the future, another first-past-the-post party with very different values will use those executive orders, such as is happening as in the States, where it seems to be moving away from more bipartisan governance to an autocracy.

So there are a lot of concerns we have. I think having proportional representation, which I think encourages more parties, is a way for us to have a stronger democracy.

Thanks very much for listening to me, and thanks very much for being politicians.

[11:50 a.m.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Lynn.

Are there any questions?

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much for your presentation and your time, Lynn.

When you talked about your coffee shop group, was there any particular form of proportional representation that seemed to be favoured? Was it a single transferable vote, or was it MMP? What was your thought on that?

Lynn Husted: I’ll have to say that our current group doesn’t talk about a particular type of proportional representation. And 20 years ago, when I had coffee with Wendy, they were very passionate, I think, about one called STV. But I actually couldn’t pick up on which one would be the one I would favour. It’s just that I’m quite happy if I have two MLAs representing me in a larger riding, or one local and one regional.

I think there are different ways of going. I think the most important thing people have talked about currently in the coffee group is, if we’re going to…. Let’s try it for a period of time and see if it works.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Great. Yeah, lots of people have said the same thing. Thanks so much, Lynn.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Are there any further questions?

Okay. I don’t see any, Lynn. Thank you so much for presenting this morning to our committee. I really appreciate you taking the time.

We will take a recess now for ten minutes.

The committee recessed from 11:51 a.m. to 11:59 a.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Welcome back. We are continuing presentations this morning with Thomas Hackney.

[12:00 p.m.]

Good morning, Thomas. Thank you so much for being here. Before you get started, just a reminder that you’ll have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes for questions. Please begin when you’re ready.

Thomas Hackney

Thomas Hackney: Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members. Thank you very much for engaging in this process. I think it’s very important.

I actually have very little to say, but I strongly support the work of constant electoral reform and optimizing. I’m concerned about the low levels of voter participation in elections. I’m concerned about what seems to me like too much whipping of the caucus and, I would say, too much strong control of the elected members by the party line. Those are my main issues of concern.

I would encourage the government to look at more ways to engage young people in understanding and being enthusiastic about the democratic electoral process. I would encourage the government to look at ways to loosen up the tightness of control over elected members when they are in the Legislature.

Those are my submissions, and I stand ready to respond to any questions.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Yes, that’s very refreshing to hear. You and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to more free votes in our Legislature.

PR, proportional representation — what are your thoughts? I mean, most of the submissions that we’ve had have had one form of proportional representation or not. Do you support a proportional representation? If you do, have you got anything in mind that you would favour?

Thomas Hackney: Thank you, sir. I’m not sure about proportional representation. I haven’t looked at it deeply. My mind is not closed on it, but I have not seen a really convincing argument that that would really get at the heart of the problems we’re having.

I notice we’ve had first-past-the-post for a long time. The complaints about first-past-the-post were not strong when I was younger; now they’re getting stronger. Anyway, I’m happy to see the committee consider the issue, but I don’t regard it as a magic bullet.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thank you for that.

Rob Botterell: Thank you for your presentation. You mentioned that concerns for you are the low level of voter participation in elections and more ways to engage young people. Based on your experience and observations, are there some things you’d like to see the government do to address those two?

Thomas Hackney: The best I can think of is that when I was in high school many years ago, we had a mock parliament and sort of mock elections and that kind of thing. I’m not familiar with how the schools educate young people about our democratic process right now, but that would be a very good time to engage young people.

Rob Botterell: Great. Thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): I don’t see any further questions, Thomas. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us this morning.

Thomas Hackney: Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members. Good luck with your work. It’s very important work.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much. We will now break until 1.15.

The committee recessed from 12:05 p.m. to 1:17 p.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Welcome back, everyone, to the committee. This afternoon our first presenter is Sarah Wiebe, from the University of Victoria.

Welcome, Sarah. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Before you get started, just a reminder that you’ll have 15 minutes for your presentation, followed by ten minutes for questions.

Sarah Wiebe

Sarah Wiebe: Good afternoon, everyone. I’m so delighted to be here on unceded Coast Salish and lək̓ʷəŋən territory, and it’s really inspiring and invigorating.

As a professor in the School of Public Administration here, locally based at the University of Victoria, I care very deeply about democracy and pathways to deepen democratic practices and to engage in processes related to what the OECD refers to as the deliberative wave — meaning that it can enhance a sense of public engagement and democratic engagement by collaborating with citizens and members of the public on matters of public policy that affect our well-being and everyday lives.

This is a really important conversation. To prepare, like any good student, I’ve been doing my homework — reading every book I can get my hands on, going to the library late at night, grabbing the best literature on civic engagement and electoral reform, speaking with my colleagues who are experts in voting policy and electoral reform, and also listening into the debate. I listened into the webcast on Friday and caught some of the stories that were really powerful and moving.

I heard a really moving story that I wanted to bring to our attention again, which you’re probably very familiar with. There was someone from Surrey talking about how democratic and electoral reform is a matter of life and death. Indeed, I want to emphasize that this is a vital and urgent topic. The speaker urged the committee to consider electoral reform to address polarization before it becomes an issue of violence, as it has in places like the U.S. I do feel that sense of urgency with this topic.

Today and through the topic of democratic liberation and participation generally, I’d like us to collectively think about the values that guide us, like respect for ideas even when we disagree, inclusivity, diverse representation, fairness, enriched engagement and collaboration.

My story: I’m a resident here of Saanich. I’ll be honest; I had complicated feelings when voting recently, both federally and provincially.

[1:20 p.m.]

Something I kept thinking was that we have a few excellent candidates. I really admire those who dedicate their lives to public service and to serving our communities to enhance public good, like all of yourselves are doing. I wish that I could have expressed a preference for multiple candidates. I would have liked to rank candidates, rather than feel pressured to vote strategically. I think that’s really at the core of the issue here.

Some things that I’m concerned about are adversarial politics and polarization. That’s a huge motivating factor to think about this really seriously. I’m also concerned about gender representation. I care deeply about environmental politics and policy, enriched democratic deliberation and, also, public education about electoral reform. I think we also need to think carefully about civic awareness and building trust as well.

The current first-past-the-post or winner-takes-all system can do better, I think, to meet the values that I’ve described — that I care about, that I think we probably all care about — in terms of diversity, deliberative politics and policy, prosperity, community well-being, collaboration and connection, fairness, inclusiveness and engagement.

Moving away from a first-past-the-post system towards a more proportional system — PR, proportional representation to be clear — I think, does have the potential to enhance diversity of representation, and it can also enhance pathways for more consensual politics and policy-making.

As noted in a 2016 Broadbent Institute report, when engagement decreases, public policy bends towards the influence of political and economic elites. As someone that cares really deeply about democracy and inclusion, I think that’s a really important consideration, so I wanted to emphasize that report.

To be really, really clear, every vote should count, and we can count votes differently. There’s an excellent body of knowledge out there with research and good models. I can draw attention to some of those models here today, which are probably already very familiar to this committee, one being the B.C. citizens’ assembly. Their slogan was “Making Every Vote Count,” which is a simple slogan, and I think it’s still relevant decades later. They advocated for the B.C. STV model, which I think is a good model. It’s still relevant.

Another model we can also look to is the Yukon citizens’ assembly where they advocated for the alternative vote model. Another great model to look at.

Then we have many international models. We have New Zealand, Denmark, Scotland, to name a few that I think are excellent. I think New Zealand is a really helpful comparison example. In New Zealand, the threshold for voting for a new system was closer to 50 percent, whereas in B.C., we had a much higher threshold of 60 percent, and so we’ve seen a few failures when it comes to that public referendum. So maybe we need to think about those thresholds a bit differently.

Voters can vote for a local candidate and a party, so there are sometimes two sections on the ballot, which would be different. I also want to emphasize how after its adoption of the mixed-member proportional system in 1996, the percentage of Indigenous Māori increased, so there’s also the capacity here to think about Indigenous representation and how they might benefit from different models, as well, to enhance that diversity aspect.

I want to spend a few moments now talking about trust in democratic systems, because I think, again, that’s something that we all probably share in common here today. I’m really worried about eroding trust in public institutions and democracy, and that also includes where I work in the post-secondary sector as well. I think we really need to carefully consider how the public can be made aware of the importance of the work that we do. So it is so wonderful that this committee is doing this work.

Fellow political scientist Dennis Pilon notes in his 2013 book, Wrestling with Democracy…. I think you’ll hear from him tomorrow. He emphasizes how voting systems are not well known by the public or even some political scientists. I myself had to do a lot of research to brush up and prepare and look at all the different models. This is not something that the average citizen really knows a lot about, let alone the experts.

Just a reminder that this is a collective opportunity to deepen democracy. We really need to work together as educators and as legislators to make the public understand how our systems function and how they can function better.

As democratic theorist and political commentator David Moscrop, another expert, remarks: “When conditions are favourable for education, citizens demonstrate a remarkable capacity to learn about all kinds of complicated issues.”

I share that belief that that kind of public education is part of our work here today. As a professor of public administration and public policy, I take public education really seriously when it comes to deliberative democracy and awareness of how institutions can function and how they can function better to reflect the diversity of citizens and residents of B.C.

[1:25 p.m.]

We can do better to make everyone’s voices heard and have more of an opportunity to articulate preferences — I think that would be a positive direction — and look towards more variety in our representatives. I often bring an intersectional lens to the work that I do. There is research out there about how list-based systems and more proportional systems can enhance diversity across gender and racialized lines. There’s lots of literature out there, and I will provide some written remarks with citations and resources afterwards for the committee, if you’re interested.

I also think a lot about working conditions. I know that we’re here to talk mostly about electoral reform, but I have a few other linked thoughts about democracy in general that I did want to articulate.

I often ask myself, as a feminist political scientist: what would our institutions look like if they were designed by women or other groups? How would that lead to changes in late night votes and the spaces we have for breastfeeding and chestfeeding? What might it look like to make our democratic institutions more welcoming? I just wanted to put that out there that I think it’s really important to think about — to make sure that we are making these spaces as accessible and as inviting as possible.

I think we have a really meaningful opportunity here for redesign or co-design of our democratic systems, including voting and electoral reform — absolutely — but I think more broadly as well. A scholar who has really inspired me is Dr. Sasha Costanza-Chock, who has written a book about design justice. That kind of approach could be helpful in thinking about implementation of electoral reform amongst other democratic reforms.

To go back, then, to my underlying point, polarization is a concern, so why not consider other values like community, collaboration, coalition-building and working together as we’re thinking about that redesign? Unfortunately, there’s evidence of polarization in family settings, in classrooms, in the media, in social media.

We’re now in this sort of post-truth environment where there’s disputed evidence. We have to really think about that deeply as legislators and educators. We need to make changes to ensure that systems are built upon trust, accountability, evidence, respect, reciprocity, reduction of polarization and consensus-building.

In terms of the really practical aspects of electoral systems, because I know that’s kind of the focus of this committee and this work, good electoral systems are transparent. Every vote matters. Every vote counts. Proportional representation, I think, does move us in that direction. It will make politics more inclusive.

There’s a really kind of excellent explainer that is apparent in a report by the Broadbent Institute from 2016, with authors David Moscrop, Megan Dias and Chuka Ejeckam, and they articulate how this is thinking of politics more like a pie to be divided rather than a horse race. I find that metaphor really helpful and useful as we’re thinking about communication.

There are multiple systems, and system designers should be an informed public. If we’re taking that co-design approach further, I think a citizens’ assembly can be a really valuable way to look at models. I know that we have done this in B.C. That was quite some time ago, in 2004, when the report came out, so it might be time for another sort of assembly or mini-assembly, however we want to reimagine that.

I think that there’s an opportunity to bring together experts like some of those I’ve cited — Dennis Pilon, David Moscrop, legislators like yourselves who are becoming experts in electoral reform. I think that would be really wonderful.

As we think about the more technical aspects — thresholds and all of these really technical aspects — those experts are key but also members of the public and having that space of deliberation to come together and really talk through the pros and cons. I think it’s what would need to happen next in terms of the implementation.

Of course, we need to think carefully about ranking systems, different models for ranking, what multiparty constituencies might look like, coalitions. Again, we have many models like alternative vote, STV, MMP. Those are three that I think are kind of frontrunners. The models exist out there. There’s lots of research. There’s lots of expertise. I’ve gathered so much, so I’m confident there is that.

I really think it’s almost like a political communication problem now. We need to ensure that the media is on board, that educators are on board, that the public is aware of these models and of the pros and cons. I think that’s a huge piece of this. I really, really do.

In terms of, in brief here, democracy around the world, the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network…. Their electoral systems map shows that about 52 percent of countries use some form of proportional representation or mixed proportional representation. About 85 percent of OECD countries do as well.

Canada is a bit of an outlier. We’ve inherited our system from Britain, obviously. Again, those examples I mentioned earlier — New Zealand, Scotland, Denmark — are not perfect, but they’re definitely worth a closer look. In B.C., PR is more representative. Every vote counts.

[1:30 p.m.]

To be really clear, I support proportional representation. I’m not too particular about which model. I think that’s something that experts and citizens could advocate more specifically in a kind of technical committee. I think all of those models have their pros and cons, and they’re very good.

We all know there have been three referendums now in B.C., so we really need that enhanced public education. That’s why I care about this so much. We need a multi-pronged democratic reform and public engagement strategy. There’s a clear role for educators like myself, but also at the secondary level, you know, students doing simulations, engaging in these models. I think that would really create an embodied sense of what’s possible in terms of electoral reform.

The media. We need to engage traditional and new forms of social media, and there’s a strong role for government communications here.

Implications moving forward. I think there are avenues and opportunities for change through different policy directions. The time is now. This is urgent to safeguard democracy. I really do feel that urgently.

Electoral reform is an important avenue to deepen deliberative democracy, and B.C. could be a world leader in creating a rich, prosperous, vibrant culture of deliberation. I would love to see that happen.

Then there are other ways too, like citizens’ assemblies, public assemblies, policy design labs, for example, on complex topics.

As noted by the recent Yukon citizens’ assembly…. In their report, they said: “We undertook an incredible amount of learning in a short time. We deliberated intensely. We listened deeply to each other. Many of us changed our minds several times. We thoughtfully built consensus.” That is a really strong foundation for doing this kind of work.

In my one minute remaining, I also want to make a plug for other examples of citizens’ assemblies. There’s a really great example in Ireland, a citizens’ assembly on biodiversity loss, responding to an emergency declaration about biodiversity loss. I think there is an opportunity to touch on other policy issues with deliberative democracy and reform, as well, for human and more-than-human life. I’ll put some of their resources like podcasts and literature and reports in my written remarks as well.

To wrap up here, citizens’ assemblies and other forums of public, deliberative democracy and engagement can respond to urgent, pressing and emergency situations we face for human and more-than-human life. In sum, yes, we need democratic change. PR is a great alternative. We also need public education. We need civic education, maybe reducing the voter age, need for an engaged media….

I really think the work we’re here to do together and in this committee is part of a larger agenda to deepen and enhance democracy. So as educators and legislators, I hope that we can work together. I want to thank you sincerely for doing this study. It’s so heartwarming. I really appreciate being here. Thank you for inviting me to speak with you. Thank you for listening.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Sarah. I have a question. One of the things that you spoke about was redesign of elections. You gave a little bit of examples with the late-night elections and breastfeeding and all of that.

Do you have any other suggestions and things for the actual design of elections and how we can increase voter engagement in that way?

Sarah Wiebe: That’s great. I think it would be wonderful to include this committee, of course, doing this work but also some more of the experts, those that maybe have put forward their names to contribute to the committee, asking them to again be involved. I think there are over 500 people that put in expressions of interest, right? So there’s an engaged public there.

I wonder if there’s a way to reactivate that animated body and encourage people to express interest, maybe to be part of some kind of committee. Then look for some kind of…. Again, I think of that intersectional approach, that diversity of representation, having diverse backgrounds of people involved in coming together for that kind of implementation and design.

I know that the model we talk a lot about is a citizens’ assembly, which is a good one. They can be kind of expensive, and they can involve a lot of resources, so I’m wondering if there’s something like a mini public or something that is not quite as elaborate and broad in scope. Obviously, it would need to have a B.C.-wide scope to it. It would need to have that diversity.

I think some of the challenges with even citizens’ assemblies is time, right? People often have to give their whole Saturday or a whole weekend, and that’s quite a bit for people. So thinking of hybrid participation is probably really important, some flexible opportunities to engage.

I would want to see the legislators together with educators and with members of the public in that co-design.

[1:35 p.m.]

George Anderson: Thank you very much for your presentation. I really appreciate the fact that you also highlighted the people who might be underrepresented in our democratic system.

One of the things that I noticed you mentioned is that this committee is focused mostly on electoral reform. I would slightly argue that we’re focused on both, based off it being in the title.

I was just curious. Outside of the citizen assemblies and considering the timing of our meetings and so on, do you have any other suggestions as to how we might be able to create a better democratic system here in British Columbia?

I noticed, in passing, close towards the end of your time, you had mentioned reducing the voter age, for example. I’m wondering if you have a few other examples, because it seemed like you might.

Sarah Wiebe: Totally. Thank you for the opportunity.

I do think lowering the voting age is good. I think it has to coincide with that education piece. I know for myself, because I can use myself as an example, I would’ve had certain political values as a young person that have changed over time with education. So I think having that public education, access to different ideologies and perspectives is really important.

Lowering the voting age, for sure. I think young people are activated. They want to participate. But I think our school systems also need to kind of catch up. I know it really varies depending on who’s teaching courses and that sort of thing, but if there’s any way we can encourage more civic education and engagement, I think that needs to go side by side with the voting age.

In terms of kind of institutions and habits, I think of what it’s like to work in a place where you have to work late into the night and early in the morning and travelling, and that’s a lot to ask. I really admire and respect people who, like yourselves, are sacrificing that kind of personal life, to an extent, to do that.

What would it look like to make, you know, meetings as hybrid as possible? Accommodating for child care, that’s really important. I know for me, drop-off is at a certain time, and pickup is like a hard stop. At four o’clock, I’ve got to run to…. So thinking about the different considerations in terms of accessing our spaces is really important.

One other thing I want to mention — this is kind of like a democratic dream, so thanks for allowing me to dream — is that I’m based in a school of public administration, and we’re so close to the Legislative Assembly, but we don’t often have that many opportunities to work together. I wish we had a standing policy design lab or something where we could problem-solve these issues and work together and do some joint reports or something like that.

I just feel like there’s such an opportunity. There are experts that are over at UVic, and we could be more engaged. Some of those pathways, I think, could enhance these avenues.

One last thing I’d like to say about citizens’ assemblies is that they’re wonderful. I study them, I think about them, and I use them in my research as well. But the language of citizenship sometimes can be a barrier as well. I think policy issues do affect residents and newcomers, and so we want to ensure that these spaces of democracy are also inclusive to those residents as well.

George Anderson: Just a very quick follow-up is on the education piece. I’ve heard throughout this process of how we need to increase civic education for young people so that they understand these institutions. But one thing that has become clearer to me through this process is that there needs to also be education for people who are not considered youth, because I would say, with the many different electoral systems that can exist or methods of engaging people through citizens’ assemblies, people don’t actually know what the definitions are.

In your role as an educator, do you have any recommendations on how we can ensure that the entire populace, not just young people, are engaged and understand the different types of systems that exist within our democratic process?

Sarah Wiebe: Yeah, I think working really closely with the media is super important and using non-traditional forms of media, whether that’s video contests or podcasts or different kinds of interactive storytelling mechanisms. I think the opportunity there is trying to work with young people and diverse groups of people, as well, who maybe are less tuned in to our democratic processes or traditional news. I think we need to think creatively about that, whether that’s TikTok or YouTube or whatever the avenues are, but I think that there’s a huge communication piece here.

I also think simulations can be really beneficial. I know myself, way back in early days of university, I participated in the Model UN club, for example, so having more kind of mock parliament or mock assembly gatherings.

I think teachers can create that in the classroom, but if the assembly could have more kind of immersive opportunities, work with high schools around the province to do that — but maybe not just high schools, maybe also members of the public to participate in something — and then create a bit of a buzz.

[1:40 p.m.]

But I think you need media coverage of this, as well, to get the message out. Locally, I think of CHEK News. Of course, we have Global and CTV and CBC. Unfortunately, there are also the non-traditional forms of media as well.

Making sure everything is very public-facing and transparent, I think, is critical. Again, education and communication have to go together on this topic.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much for your presentation. Earlier in your discussion, you mentioned the mainstream parties not having environmental concerns that…. To you personally, it doesn’t seem that they have the same weight that you would like them to have. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what those specific concerns are?

Sarah Wiebe: Hmm. Well, actually, I think the current parties are doing a pretty good job, I will say, in fairness, when it comes to environmental concerns.

Some of the issues that I have been paying attention to and am interested in are around biodiversity loss, for example, a topic I mentioned. In Ireland, there was a citizens assembly. In Ireland, there was a state-level emergency declaration about biodiversity loss, which led to the citizens assembly.

It’s not that I’m particularly critical of a specific direction of government at this time, but when we’re faced with these challenges — whether it’s climate change, climate emergencies, extreme weather or heat events — I think there are opportunities lost sometimes to engage the public because we’re in this crisis response reactive mode.

The research that I’ve been doing most recently is about extreme heat. I became a mother during the 2021 heat dome and found myself in the emergency and just really unclear on how best to care for my infant. It seemed like there was a lack of policy, a lack of information and a lack of awareness about how our personal bodies are experiencing something like climate change.

That’s where I do think we need more spaces of deliberation to talk about these issues together so we’re better prepared and we’re more informed. That’s just a little bit about my background and how I’m coming to this topic.

Rob Botterell: Thank you for your presentation. In your remarks, you pointed out that, from your perspective, the time is now to act on these issues. I just wondered, from your perspective, how you would see a citizens assembly or a policy design lab unfolding in a way that reflects your concern that the time is now to act.

Sarah Wiebe: Totally, those processes take time and thoughtful care. I think it would be a great outcome of this committee to recommend something like that, whether it’s a citizens assembly, a policy design lab, a mini-public or some kind of education activity with students and other groups around the province.

This committee will do its work, write a report and then make recommendations. I think having really clear recommendations and next steps would be soon — that’s a good time frame — and then actioning on it pretty quickly. I know there are experts at UVic and other institutions in the province and elsewhere that would be happy to be involved, for example.

I think having a plan would help a lot of us feel like there’s momentum and like we’re getting somewhere. I know there have been a few referendums, and they maybe haven’t led to the results many British Columbians want to see. Having some plan of action articulated with recommendations and steps in a timeline, I think, would be very constructive. That seems reasonable within a one- to two-year timeline, from my perspective.

Sheldon Clare: What do you say to those voters who voted in those referendums and said: “Well, we voted on this, we don’t want it, and we’re done. We’re fine with the system as it is. We’re not interested in this new incarnation of electoral reform”? How do you address those people? They are out there, and they’re a big number.

Sarah Wiebe: It’s a great point, absolutely. When you think about the people that go to the polls, I also expect them to care about the system as well, and voters have said no in the past.

[1:45 p.m.]

To that, the research that I’ve read on that topic has showed that part of the issue is the lack of public awareness and education about the models, and the data showing that it has been confusing in how these models have been explained to the public. That’s where I think it’s a communication problem.

I trust the average citizen. With good access to information, clearly communicated, they would likely be more favourable. I think it was really a communications problem of the past.

Sheldon Clare: There were pretty significant campaigns in the last referendum with a lot of educational processes. I have heard from people who participated in those, and we have had presenters from those campaigns who felt that they, from both sides — multiple sides, actually — had articulated their message well.

Sarah Wiebe: I guess that’s what’s good about the process of a referendum is it still gives people the opportunity to express themselves in a vote. I would love to be part of the communication redesign team or something. I think if there was a way to make it a little more accessible — like every vote counts, and you can rank — and just make it fun and engaging, I really wonder if that would build momentum and captivate people’s attention.

I know, myself and others, sometimes we vote against things if we don’t understand them. I do wonder if that was part of it. That’s also part of the research that I’ve seen documenting that. That’s where I think, as educators and communicators, we have a big role to play in communicating that.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): All right. Are there any other questions?

Okay, seeing none, thank you so much, Sarah, for your presentation and for taking the time today to be with us.

Sarah Wiebe: Thank you so much. Keep up the great work.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): The next presenter is just a few minutes away. They’re just walking into the building, so we’re going to take a short break.

The committee recessed from 1:46 p.m. to 1:51 p.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Welcome back to the committee.

Next up we have Bob Plecas from the No Proportional Representation B.C. Society.

Welcome, Bob. Thank you for being here today and presenting to our committee. Just a reminder that you’ll have 15 minutes for your presentation, followed by ten minutes for questions. Please get started whenever you’re ready.

No Proportional Representation
B.C. Society

Bob Plecas: Can I say something first? I told my friend Vaughn Palmer, who phoned and said: “I hear you’re here….” He said: “I’ll come. What time?” I said: “At 2:10.” So you’re not going to get any coverage in the Vancouver Sun, because it all should be almost finished. But your time is valuable. I understand. All right, I will begin.

As a former public servant, it’s grand to be back in these legislative buildings. I was hired by the NDP in 1973 as a research officer, and it was hard to believe that at that time Education’s budget was bigger than Health. But everything exploded, because W.A.C. Bennett had kept a tight lid on things. Dave Barrett came in, and services expanded rapidly. I was very lucky. By the ‘80s, I was a deputy minister. In the next decade and a bit, I was responsible for the provincial secretary; government services; lands; parks; forests; environment; energy, mines and petroleum; regional development; intergovernmental affairs; economic development; and Indigenous Affairs. I was Bill Bennett and Vander Zalm’s troubleshooter, negotiator and senior deputy. Matter of fact, I wrote a best-selling book about Bennett.

I moved over in 1996. I left in ’91. In ‘96, Premier Glen Clark asked me back because he was concerned about the biggest reorganization in the history of the province, the creation of the Children’s ministry, which I oversaw. When I finished that, I moved over to Premier Clark to be his deputy minister. In all, I had 12 ministries, 20 ministers and five Premiers. In an unusual career, senior advice to both the left and the right premiers, and the only bureaucrat that I know who had offices in these legislative buildings for eight years. Second floor, just down around the corner.

I got to know many members on both sides of the House because, after the House rose, MLAs occasionally dropped in for a cup of tea or a libation. I realized and learned from that experience that members were there for one reason: service. They were honoured to be elected, determined to provide public service to their constituents and make B.C. a better place. After an election, irrespective of the party they ran for, every constituent was open and given equal services from every corner of this province in the people’s House.

Interestingly, as a sidebar, as deputy provincial secretary, I had the elections branch in my purview, and it was in sort of a shambles. We hired a new director, and that began the process to the independent office of elections.

[1:55 p.m.]

A deputy’s job in a nutshell, I think, is three things. We’re the permanent custodians of the permanent problems, we’re translators to turn political direction into efficient administration, and we speak truth to power.

I will provide a DM’s briefing. First, my bias, my lived experience influenced by leaders. Dave Barrett and Bill Bennett agreed on nothing except they supported FPTP and not pro rep. Glen Clark, Dan Miller, Ujjal Dosanjh supported. As a surprise to me, at a private lunch with Pierre Elliott Trudeau, somehow this topic came up, and I learned that he was an avid first-past-the-post supporter.

I will try to leave my bias at the door, just give data and information and answer this question: what is the impact on current sitting MLAs, caucus and parties? To do that, I plan to overlay Election 2024 with a generic pro rep model: 60 percent of the MLAs elected directly by constituents, 40 from party lists, a minimum of 5 percent of the provincial vote to qualify to use party lists.

First, the impact on constituencies. There are 93 members, and 40 percent now allocated to party lists mean 37 fewer constituencies. If you hold one of these seats, you disappear, unless high on the party list. The province does not get 40 percent smaller. The surviving 56 constituencies get 40 percent larger. Take Skeena, increase the size by 40 percent, then it is larger than Belgium. Belgium has a 60-member Senate and 150-seat House; Skeena, one member.

Geography matters when considering a foreign system of voting where countries are smaller. You could fit these six pro rep countries into British Columbia: Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Greece, Czech Republic and Belgium. They elect between them a total of 1,473 members; we, 93.

Our different electoral model reflects our geography and our constant concern for urban-rural balance of representation. On Vancouver Island, seven constituencies. Under pro rep, four. Which four current incumbents get a larger constituency? Which three, if not high on the party list, get cut?

If you live in Surrey, Fraser Valley or Delta and have a constituency 40 percent larger, with more than 40 percent more constituents, where will you find the time to service their needs? Imagine looking down the aisle in the House: sitting by the leader, a colleague that has no constituents, no obligations to anyone but the leader.

In New Zealand, if you leave your party during the term or get tossed out and you were elected by constituents, there is a by-election. If you were on a party list, the next person on the list takes your seat. In the next election, the constituent-elected person is held accountable by the voters. The person on the list is not. I do not believe there is fairness when there are two tiers of MLAs.

Now the caucus impacts. The Green Party in B.C. received 8.2 percent of the popular vote; did not run candidates in 24 ridings; had support concentrated in Vancouver downtown core, Vancouver Island and Victoria; vacancies in Richmond, Delta, Surrey, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, Fraser Valley, Peace River, Cariboo and the Okanagan Valley.

The 8 percent Green vote applied to 93 seats equals seven members. They elected two from constituencies. This means the NDP and the Conservatives give up five of their elected colleagues to be replaced in the people’s House by people on the Green Party list.

Let’s not stop there. Following the last election, there was a comfort agreement put in place by the government. I call it a comfort agreement because it did not absolutely require to ensure a majority vote on confidence in the Legislature, demonstrated by the Greens voting against the infrastructure bill.

If you look at the party standings with a pro rep lens: first-past-the-post, NDP, 47; Conservatives, 41 plus two plus one; Green, two. Under pro rep: NDP, 44; Conservatives, 39; Green, seven. No more comfort agreement, a survival to form government agreement — the power dynamic shifts.

[2:00 p.m.]

The next time you’re in caucus, look around and pick out three NDP colleagues and Conservatives, too, who’d be willing to give up their seats so the Greens could get five new members.

One thing we have struggled with in this great province is how to get the balance right between high levels of urban growth with population concentration and rural representation. Yet for the fourth time in 20 years, we are discussing a system that transfers power from voters to party-list selection — turned down twice by 61 percent of those same voters — which exacerbates the imbalance between the areas in close proximity to Victoria and Vancouver and the men and women who live outside the beltway.

Third, what is the impact on the big parties, NDP and Conservative parties? The 21st century presented shocks to the European political system that have pushed it past its best-by date, and it’s no longer fit for purpose. Two big shocks. Millions of refugees, one million into Germany alone. Second, income and opportunity inequality, focused in Germany and East Germany but in the eastern European Union places. Finally, a facilitator was available for the first time, the internet, able to link disparate angry groups.

There are four trends in the European pro-rep countries in this century: the decline of major centrist parties, the onward march of the far-right neo-Nazis, the rise of far-left communists, the rise of a plethora of smaller one-issue parties.

For example, in the Netherlands, the percentage of the vote for the centre-right and centre-left major parties has fallen from 80 percent to 40 percent over the last 20 years. In their last election, 28 parties ran and 13 were elected.

Similarly, in Germany, the centre-right and -left parties have seen a decline in support from 77 percent of the vote in 2002 to 53 percent in the last election, a decrease of 24 percent. The number of parties were five in 2002, 12 ten years later and over 20 this year. The hard-right Nazi-based AfD received 20 percent of the vote; directly elected by constituents, 42 seats; lists, 110 added; total, 152 neo-Nazis sit in the Bundestag. The Greens, 12 constituency elected, 73 from party lists, for a total of 85.

In Sweden, the Social Democrats in 2002 received 40 percent of the vote; in 2014, 31 percent; in 2022, 28 percent. The trend is clear. Carl Bildt, former Swedish Prime Minister, said: “The bottom line is that Sweden is just another European country, a fractured political landscape with the extremes doing better, including the populist party to the right.”

In Austria, in 2002: Social Democrats, 37 percent; the People’s Party, a centre-right party, 42 percent; the far-right Freedom Party, 10 percent. Twenty years later, in ’22, the Social Democrats’ support fell 16 points to 21 percent. The People’s Party also fell 16 points to 26 percent. The far-right Freedom Party rose 19 points to 29 percent and topped the polls.

The right- and left-wing radical parties, special interest groups, get their niche votes from the former big-tent, centre-right and centre-left parties. Today at least ten EU members — Sweden, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, France, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Slovakia — have far-right parties within their legislatures.

Executive director of the Berlin-based Civil Liberties Union for Europe: “The steady increase of these parties will eventually have consequences on the rule of law and on human rights and on fundamental freedoms.”

[2:05 p.m.]

The International Bar Association last September noted: “It’s fast becoming clear that established democracies are facing significant efforts to shrink civic space and erode legal, judicial and democratic checks and balances, with significant implications for the rule of law.”

On the evidence from Europe, it is realistic to postulate that three elections after pro rep is in place in B.C., the NDP and Conservative percent of the provincial vote will decline by 10 to 15 percent. And 12 years later, that provincial total for both parties will likely be down 10 percent more, with the number of parties tripling.

Just concluding, Canada is in the midst of the most significant shock ever to our political system. The strain and conflicts in Canada caused by President Trump have forced us to consider changes that will inherently breed conflict as we diversify and restructure. Industrial and productivity growth, energy development, Indigenous reconciliation, climate change, taxation policy will place immense stress and hopefully only civil conflict.

There is no logical reason to think B.C. will be immune. Big-tent parties lose voter share. Radical interest base gains support.

Just for your information, I also looked at other issues — the complications inherent in pro rep systems, do pro rep votes really count more, and citizens assembly — but time says move on.

My last thoughts. Legitimacy and public acceptance of recommendations will be improved if they have bipartisan majority support. However, like Canadian constitutional change, unanimity is hoped for but not necessary. But similarly, proposed amendments require supermajorities to pass; therefore, on this type of issue, a free vote here and in the Legislature, requiring a 60 percent majority to proceed.

Second, the Legislature should not unilaterally end this relationship with the voters who today directly elect their MLA, especially after 61 percent of them have just recently rejected the idea of pro rep. While I feel the exercise unnecessary, if it proceeds, it would be essential, if you have to go to a referendum, to go to a referendum including a supermajority in both vote and constituency.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation, Bob. We will go to the committee for questions.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you, Mr. Plecas, for your significant service to the people of British Columbia over many years. I appreciate the amount of work you’ve put in for both sides of the House — all sides of the House, for that matter.

The question I have is…. We’ve been hearing some presentations and arguments in favour of pro rep because of the benefits of coalition-building. They say you get better results from a coalition, you’ll have minority governments, and people will be forced to work together to come to a better result.

Now, as a historian, one of the objections that I have — or concerns I have, probably more accurately — is I look at the 1919 Weimar Republic’s constitution, which was based on pro rep. It was based on a party-list system, which is one you’ve described with great concern. We know that there was a lot of instability, system shocks, economic shocks, difficulties from the 1920s to the ’30s. We saw the results of coalition-building and the failure to build coalitions and what that led to after. So I take your point quite well on that.

Do you see that the system shocks we are having nowadays have the potential to cause problematic coalitions in Canada were a pro rep system to be adopted?

Bob Plecas: I think it causes problems anywhere that wants some dynamic kind of leadership. And you know, this is an interesting idea, because for most of our past and for all of our past, the coalitions got made inside the big-tent parties. These people came in, and your idea was, certainly…. I even think today, you tell your kids: “Get involved in something and change it. Don’t go off and say ‘I’m taking my ball and going home’ and going to try another model.”

[2:10 p.m.]

What we’ve seen in Europe in this century, and perhaps some years in the last one — the first few years of the last one — is that these coalitions get together, and they’re very difficult to come together. You’ve probably heard the horror stories. I don’t need to dwell on them. I don’t need to dwell on them, because it’s a bit atypical, but 700 days in Belgium to put its coalition together. Imagine if the last federal election had been hung, and we had 700 days to wait, while Donald Trump was in power, in Ottawa. I mean, that’s just….

You go to the Netherlands. They were a bit better. They were just over 500. That’s a year and a half. The documents that they put together are huge — like, 149 pages in one in Germany. Ours was nine.

If you go and look at the campaign material and the platform of the Green Party and the NDP before the Horgan government made a deal with Weaver and the Greens, those documents had well over a hundred positions. In Europe, you would negotiate all of that.

The document that came out was nine pages long. It had only six out of those issues. Two of the top ones were “stop Site C” and “stop the tankers going past here.”

I’ve never understood why that coalition didn’t break up. If you’re in the Green Party and those are your key principles, and in the coalition, suddenly the day after you were there, we lost on the tanker traffic…. Within three months, a hard decision had to be made on Site C. Mr. Weaver commented on that by saying that it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s irrelevant what people voted for because there’s a great aphrodisiac about being in power.

I can’t understand why we would want to move from forming our coalitions in the big-tent parties to keep them intact rather than opening it up for 20 little parties trying to find a niche and stealing votes away. I don’t think it’s a fine way to govern.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you very much, Bob. I appreciate your answer.

Amna Shah: Thank you, Mr. Plecas. I appreciate you….

Bob Plecas: No, Mr. Plecas is my father. I’ve always just been Bob.

Amna Shah: Thank you, Bob, for being here today and continuing to contribute to some very important conversations. I’m curious about the part that you weren’t able to get into because of time constraints, when you said you wanted to talk about whether a vote really counts in a pro rep system. I was hoping you could tell us a bit about that.

Bob Plecas: I think it’s fair to say that it’s like it’s an exclusive statement. It’s like: pro rep, the votes count; first-past-the-post, they don’t. First-past-the-post, they count as one, so that seems to me that they count. But when you start to take apart the idea, you have to start looking at how the systems actually work.

Maybe I’ve got something here. I didn’t bring much, but I might have brought something. This will do the complication one too.

When you look at the number of places that have each form of voting…. There’s an excellent website I can tell you. It’s sort of like Fair Vote, only in the U.K. It’s the Electoral Reform Society. I think it’s Electoral Reform U.K. You go into it, and it’s there, but you have to really go below it. I mean you really have to dive in, page after page. They have the little coloured things, and you click on that and go to the next one. Click on that, and you go….

You get down to looking at it and trying to find what’s proportional and why they’re not all counted…. It’s because when the actual models work, to try and count the votes of proportionality skews the system so badly.

In Germany, in…. Not this election. I’ll tell you what happened in this election. But the election before, in the German Bundestag, there are 299 members elected and 299 elected through lists. You take all the findings, and you put them into the logarithm inside the machine….

[2:15 p.m.]

What they had to do to get proportionality was increase the size of the House from 598 to 711. All those extra seats, those 113 seats, went to the lists. It was so badly skewed that it just couldn’t work. They tried to fix it in the last few years. They fixed it now by putting a cap on it at 630.

But where you get to the percentage, to come back — just tell me to get to the point here — you look at some of these things. The latest way to do this….

As you know, if you vote in one of these, you establish a quota. The modern way that they now are trying — they just got it in Scotland and a bit in Northern Ireland — is that it’s not the Droop quota. It’s not the Hare quota. It’s now not the Sainte-Laguë quota. It’s the fractional transfers.

Let me just read you the fractional transfers:

“If 1,000 votes have been cast for a winning candidate on a quota of 750, rather than transfer a quarter of the votes at full value, like count every vote as one, you transfer all the votes at 0.25. These fractions will then be transferred to their voters’ next preference and will hold this value until they are used up or become part of another surplus and are split into smaller fractions.”

So you go smaller.

“The main advantage of the random method is that it’s significantly easier and quicker if you’re counting by hand, but as with anything random, it is subject to risks of unrepresentativeness.”

“Under the fractional method, this wouldn’t happen, as every candidate’s A voter would get to see their surplus go to the next choice, just as a fractional value. With enough elastic bands and Post-It Notes to record the strength of each bundle of voters, you can do it by hand.”

You start to find technical reasons that it falls apart, and you start to find reasons that suggest that…. Does your vote really matter if you were in the Green Party in British Columbia and a coalition was formed with nine pages, with six items and the top two were traded away so you could stay in the agreement rather than resign on a state of principle?

I don’t think those votes counted. If you were in that vote, if you voted for the tankers to be stopped and Site C to be stopped, your vote wasn’t counted in the end.

Rob Botterell: Thank you, Bob. It’s great to have a presentation that’s full of vim and vigor. I’d note just for the record that the cooperation and responsible government agreement that the Green caucus has with the NDP…. We haven’t traded away anything so far. We’re actually quite happy with how it’s working. We learned from the experience in 2017-18, that whole era. I don’t think that…. That’s an example, but I think there are other examples.

The question I had was that you have clearly identified weaknesses — from your perspective, fatal weaknesses — associated with pro rep. I guess the question I have for you is…. We all go to examples. We’ve had a presentation from Fair Vote B.C. on a model that they would say addresses the concerns that you’ve identified.

I’m just wondering: have you had a chance to look at that submission, which was made, I think, late last week?

Bob Plecas: No.

Rob Botterell: I’d certainly suggest you do, because from my perspective…. It’s like saying: “Oh my god, it’s going to take 700 days or 500 days to put together a government under pro rep.” Is that always the case?

Bob Plecas: No, but they’re usually about four to six months.

Rob Botterell: Yeah, and what was the case last fall?

Bob Plecas: Well, let’s just go to this. Just tell me this about the fair vote: where is it used? Which country is it used in — the model that they’ve proposed — so I could probably know what was going on with what they’re proposing?

[2:20 p.m.]

Rob Botterell: The presentation…. I haven’t compared it to the other models, so you’d have to ask them.

Bob Plecas: No, no, which country is it now used in?

Rob Botterell: I’m not going to debate you. What I’m saying is that you should contact Fair Voting B.C. We received the presentation last week. They said it addressed all the concerns, and if you’ve got a series of questions for them, I’d be happy to put those to them.

One of questions you’re asking is: what country do they model it on? We’ll find that out.

Bob Plecas: Yeah, I would expect, at least, in the history of Fair Vote, that some academics have given them advice and tried to design a system. You heard the Chief Electoral Officer describe one that’s out of Edmonton and that isn’t being used in any country. You’ve got to remember that the number of places that are using this form is, out of the 130….

That’s quite a common claim, that more countries in the world are using this than any other model. What they don’t say is, of course, that if you base it on population, more people are living under first-past-the-post than are under this other model. That’s neither here nor there, but when you get down to things like STV, which we used before and was recommended by Fair Vote, two countries are using that. Eight are using mixed-member proportional representation. Parallel voting is used now by 33. Seventy-three countries use just complete lists.

You end up, in parallel voting, with places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Russia and Zimbabwe, places that you don’t want to use them. But just to sit here, if you can’t tell me which one of these it’s in, then what are they presenting you? They’re presenting you something that doesn’t exist, and they want you to experiment with it. Why would you experiment when you live in the best country in the world, which has a system that has worked successfully for all these years?

What’s the point of an experiment? This isn’t a social experiment, especially at this time in our life.

Rob Botterell: I hear you. I’ll ask them what countries they’re modelling it on, and I’m sure the committee will look at that closely.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Bob, I have a question for you as well. Something that others have raised in their presentations are that under a pro rep model, if there are extreme views, whether on the left or the right, if that’s what someone elects, that would give them a space in the Legislature so that they’re not outside spewing their views; instead, they’re inside.

I know you talked a bit about it, but I’d love your thoughts on that analogy or the version that’s been told to us.

Bob Plecas: I guess it has two sides to the sword. The one side is that to get those smaller parties in, the bigger parties get less and less effective. And the Social Democrats and the right-of-centre, whatever they’re called, lose members because it’s easy to break away. Everyone has one goal, which is to get to that magic number that allows you to get to lists. So you try and build up support around that issue.

Those little parties…. When the little party becomes a party sitting in your parliament that has 110 members, and they’re neo-Nazis, I just have a problem with that. I’d rather have the neo-Nazis either forced to try and convince a right-side party that they’re right, which they wouldn’t, or to march in the streets, but I don’t want them in parliament. And I don’t really want Communist parties led by nothing but left-wing ideology.

There’s room for civil debate, but there’s not room to turn our parliament, which is a decision-making body, into a free-for-all, and that’s what you’re finding is happening in Europe in this century. I just don’t think that’s a model that leads to constructive government or progress or the security that we need to build amongst ourselves, going forward, in the next ten, 20, 30 years. It has to be us all working together within a system that we trust.

[2:25 p.m.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Bob. Thank you so much for your presentation today and for answering all of our questions. It was wonderful to have you today.

Next up we have Aaron Clausen.

Welcome, Aaron. Thank you for joining us this afternoon, and thank you for coming so early so that we were able to get you in a little earlier. Just a reminder that, Aaron, you’ll have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes for questions.

Aaron Clausen

Aaron Clausen: I don’t think I have anything quite as incendiary as that, but I’ll do my best to make it exciting. My name is Aaron Clausen. I’d like to start by thanking the Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform for the opportunity to speak today.

Over the last quarter century, encompassing seven general elections, voter turnout in British Columbia has dropped from over 70 percent of registered voters to an average of just 58 percent. The 2009 and 2020 elections did even worse than that, with barely half of voters turning out to cast a ballot.

I would hardly be the first person to suggest there is a growing crisis of faith in our democratic institutions, but allow me to be the latest to reiterate it.

The first-past-the-post plurality voting system is a centuries-old relic from a time when voting was the privilege of the wealthy and the well-connected, a system meant to disenfranchise as much as to empower. It has evolved over the centuries, until now in the 21st century, it is a system whereby elections are won or lost by the statistical analysis of strategic vote splits and targeted campaigning to peel off useful demographic cohorts in key electoral districts and, ultimately, to apply a mathematical scalpel to the voters.

While the system at times crudely represents the popular will, it just as often seeks to frustrate it. As much as this is a question of representative government, it is also a question of simple fairness.

The 2018 referendum, the latest of three attempts to achieve electoral reform, appeared to give the current first-past-the-post system the resounding support of British Columbians, but as the Chief Electoral Officer’s report stated, this was with just 42 percent of eligible voters participating. External polls from that period suggested there was majority support for electoral reform. It is probable that low voter turnout and a confusing ballot plagued this referendum, rendering its conclusions unreliable.

We certainly can continue with the current voting system, with its low turnouts, apathy and eroding confidence in our institutions. If I were in a similar position to many political strategists, that would be my preference as well. To be able to form even a slim majority from a combination of low turnout and favourable spoilers holds a powerful allure in most jurisdictions that use plurality voting.

Rather than sleepwalking into a performative democracy, where at best three in five voters choose to participate in elections, what if we instead had a Legislative Assembly that was a reasonable reflection of the voter intentions? Yes, it would mean the political parties would have to adapt, but the last nine months of provincial politics suggests we are already capable of such adaptations.

As to the specific electoral system, British Columbia presents something of a challenge, with a large geographical area but much of the population concentrated in a few heavily populated urban regions. Systems such as mixed-member proportional and rural-urban proportional either require boundary changes, which would effectively reduce rural representation, or would lead to complex hybrids, effectively creating multiple types of ballots, depending on where the voter lived.

The system I propose is a hybrid of the single transferable vote and ranked ballot systems, which I call rural-urban ranked voting. In cities and high-density areas, multi-member electoral districts of four to six members would be created and elections tabulated using the single transferable vote system.

[2:30 p.m.]

Rural ridings would retain their current boundaries and remain single-member electoral districts. In these single-member districts, the instant runoff voting system would be used to determine the successful candidate.

While the results of rural-urban ranked elections would not be perfectly proportional, it would maintain a uniform ballot design across the province and preserve the unique voices of rural and small-town British Columbia. It would also maintain a strong link between elected members and the communities they serve.

As the committee prepares its report for the Legislature, I would close my submission by asking you to consider the old Westminster adage: “The voters choose the Legislature, and the Legislature chooses the government.” Let’s give the people of British Columbia a Legislature with the democratic legitimacy to choose the people’s government.

Thank you for your time and thank you for your service to the citizens of British Columbia.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Aaron.

Are there any questions for Aaron?

Amna Shah: Thank you, Aaron, for your presentation. I was hoping you could run us through, again, the hybrid model of STV and ranked ballot.

Aaron Clausen: Okay. I mean, essentially, it’s to try to solve the problem. When you look at the other models that were proposed in the referendum, I think all of the proportional representation models either required…. I think all of them, actually, required that larger rural ridings would basically have to be carved off to create the top-up seats or anything like that. No matter which way you try to cut proportional representation, whether it’s MMPR or dual-member or whatever it is, in the end you have to get those top-up seats from somewhere.

The idea here is to admit that that’s probably not feasible, the way British Columbia’s populations are dispersed throughout the province, with the southwest of the province being very heavily populated and then everywhere else. So the idea is to create a level of proportionality where it’s possible to do so.

STV was the one that was decided on by the citizens’ assembly, I think, in 2005. It’s certainly the most workable one that retains that notion of MLAs that are attached to a geographical community — so no party lists, open or closed.

In the rural ridings, I think, depending on how you slice that, that’s 25 or 30 ridings, depending on…. Obviously, the definition of rural and urban gets complicated — but all things being equal. So you have the same ballot between the two, a ranked ballot.

You rank your candidates from most preferred to least preferred in the higher-density ridings. I use the example, I think, in my submission of Richmond, which I believe now is four or five — I can’t remember — ridings. You’d weld those together into, say, a single, large electoral district of four or five members. You’d apply STV, so that would be a relatively proportional result.

In some of the very, very rural ridings, you would leave them as single-member ridings — basically the same as they are now. Then you would use the same ballot, but rather than using STV, you would use IRV, the instant-runoff voting system, to determine the winner of that electoral district. Same ballot. Just depending on whether it’s deemed a multi-member district or a single-member district, the counting would be different.

Amna Shah: Can I just ask a follow-up? Thank you, Chair.

If we were to sort of weld the urban ridings together, have mixed-member or multiple members in those areas, what would you say to the thought that that’s a very large population for four to five members, given that they are responsible for that entire area?

How would you sort of separate the responsibilities or kind of avoid that MLA-shopping sort of situation that I’ve heard MLA Clare talk about in the past, which I do agree with? Even in the current system, that can be a tendency.

I’m just wondering about…. It’s all fine and great if the model works prior to election day and on election day, but after that, what happens in terms of representation between elections?

[2:35 p.m.]

Aaron Clausen: Do you mean so far as I, as a constituent, want to go with Bob instead of Jane, because Bob….” That’s not really any different than what happens now. I mean, I know a great many people who make submissions to government like me. I’m not going to my local MLA to make that. I’m in this room right now.

Democracy is a messy business, and I don’t think we should try to un-mess it. This is about trying to move towards a more proportional, admittedly not completely proportional, system. I mean, the other messy side of that, I guess, is the formation of governments. I’m sure you’ll hear extreme examples like Belgium, which went whatever it was, 18 months. But that’s pretty extreme by any electoral system. In this case, I don’t see that as necessarily happening. Yes, it will be more proportional.

I think if you look at the last three elections, of the last three, one has had a majority — not a huge majority, but workable. The other two, including this one, have had technical majorities, but one where I know that when you go to Committee of the Whole, all of a sudden, the governing party is leaning upon its Green partner to make sure that confidence is held. You’re basically one heart attack, to put it grimly, away from a frozen legislature.

I would argue, in the context of Canada as a whole, we’re seeing much more frequency of minority governments, so I think the situation is already moving in that direction. It would be wiser to get ahead of it, use the lessons we’ve learned from how we’ve had to form governments two out of the last three times.

It will fall out. There will be casualties of various kinds, parties that will see new parties calve off of them. That’s kind of happening already in some cases, so I’m not going to minimize it. It’s a huge change. But I think we’re already dipping our toes in that well.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you for your presentation, Aaron.

My question has to do with the administration of the actual election, in your instant runoff voting system that you mentioned, with it being the same ballot and how they would be counted differently. Now, Elections B.C. makes use of short-term employees who undergo a training course to enable them to do their jobs. The training materials are fairly thorough. They’re simple. They’re put to a wide breadth of people. Some might be quite young. Some are retired. It’s a cross-section of British Columbia society.

How would adding in complicated styles of counting ballots aid a good democratic process by which you get a clear result in a timely fashion?

Aaron Clausen: Well, I would say with IRV, instant-runoff voting, it’s not that much harder than plurality voting. With IRV, at least, it’s basically that if you have three candidates, you take the lowest one, move it up to the next.

It obviously adds a step, but it’s still counting the ballots. It’s just taking those votes and assigning them to the next one up. You know, IRV has other issues which make it not that much different than plurality voting, to be perfectly honest with you, non-moneticity and things like that.

STV is a bit more complicated, there’s no doubt about it. It’s a formula. It still requires election workers to count ballots. I think it’s the returning officer that ultimately makes the report, so I think it would fall upon them. They get a list of, say, six candidates in an electoral district or maybe 12 or 13. In this case, it would be higher. You’re going to have your workers following the same procedures to count those ballots to do the tallies. Then it’s going to be off to the returning officer to actually apply the formula, as it were.

Sheldon Clare: Would that applying of the formula be scrutinized as well? I mean, the idea of it being sent off somewhere, and the magic happens, and all of a sudden you have a result sounds a bit of an anathema to many people.

Aaron Clausen: Well, I don’t see why it would occur any differently than it does, no. It’s just an extra step. So once the ballots have been counted, then, I mean, it’s a calculator formula.

[2:40 p.m.]

IRV is simpler. It’s just popping up a ladder until you get somebody who’s crossed the 50 percent threshold.

STV is a formula, yes. It will have to be applied, but we’re using tallying machines right now. I wouldn’t suggest that at all. I say that you can do STV on a calculator. Don’t ask me to do it, because I don’t have a calculator with me right now.

Sheldon Clare: If you have a cell phone, you have a calculator.

Aaron Clauson: Yeah, I have a cell phone. I don’t have the formula memorized, off the top.

Yeah, it’s modestly more complicated. I don’t think it’s anything that a grade 9 or grade 10 student couldn’t calculate. It’s not going to be that different with mixed-member, with party lists, where you’re applying percentages. In those cases, you’re doing your threshold. “Oh, they didn’t meet 4 percent, so out you go.” Those sorts of things.

This still means counting every ballot. It still means an election worker counting the ballots: Bob got eight; Jane got ten; and so on and so forth. It gets applied once the results are there.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Aaron, for coming and presenting to our committee this afternoon. I really appreciate it.

Next up, we have Jeremy Caradonna.

Welcome, Jeremy. Thank you for being here this afternoon. As you begin, just a reminder that you’ll have 15 minutes for your presentation, followed by ten minutes for questions. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Caradonna

Jeremy Caradonna: Thanks very much for having me, and thanks for putting together this committee and for listening to diverse voices across the province. I really appreciate it. I will take up much less of your time. I won’t speak for 15 minutes.

I wanted to speak a bit about local government. I am a city councillor here in Victoria, and I’m a capital regional district director, so I serve on two local governments. My life revolves around local government, and I think about things from the point of view of a local government.

I wanted to come and speak to the committee today on two related topics. The first is to consider how any changes in electoral reform, especially if we are considering moving towards proportional representation, might impact local governments. I would like to see a little bit more of an analysis on what we might expect at a local government level, what it would mean to regional districts, how it might affect jurisdiction, how it might affect taxation. A lot of those are unknowns to me and, I think, other local government leaders.

As we all know, local governments are creatures of the province, so whatever direction you move in, we’re along with you, and there are almost 200 of us across the province. So No. 1 is to think about the impacts on local government.

Second is also to take some inspiration from local governments as you move forward on this journey. To my mind, a lot is going well at the local government level in this province. I think one of the reasons that local governments are pretty functional…. Obviously, there are the extreme examples that make it into the news, and we don’t need to talk about those here. But for the most part, local governments are effective in British Columbia because they’ve figured out a way, I think, to largely keep politics minimized at the local government level.

I’m not going to say that we’ve completely depoliticized politics, but I think that the structure of government at the local government level does lend itself to compromise and collaboration. I mean, if I think about my own council, we have no parties in the city of Victoria. There are only a couple of jurisdictions in this province that have municipal parties. Vancouver is an example; Surrey is an example. They sometimes…. Well, I won’t go into them.

I’ll talk about the ones that don’t have political parties, which are most of the local governments across B.C. They have figured out ways of working together, reaching across the aisle, so to speak, and collaborating and compromising in ways that more politicized systems struggle with.

I would hope that one of the objectives of electoral reform is to figure out ways of trying to depoliticize politics. I’m not so naive as to think that politics is never going to leave, but I think at the local government level, we’ve figured out ways of minimizing it.

When I think about the CRD, there are diverse voices across that board. There are 24 directors, but none of us are in a political party, so there are no barriers. There’s nothing at risk if we want to collaborate with people of different points of view.

If I think about the work I’ve done there on biosolids, on transportation service, on scaling up our regional arts performing facilities service, various things we’ve worked on this term at the CRD….

If you actually look at the voting patterns, they’re very hard to predict, and people are able to work collaboratively with folks who, on topic X, might have big disagreements but on topic Y are completely aligned.

[2:45 p.m.]

We don’t have to go back to a party system or any other kind of structure like that and be worried about repercussions. In fact, what we hear overwhelmingly at the local government level is that our voters want us to be collaborating and compromising and moving forward in doing what is best in the public interest.

I think that as you move forward with this process, there are opportunities to look at local governments and see what they’re doing that is working well.

I’ll also note that one of the advantages of a less politicized electoral system is that I think it does create more stability, and it decreases the likelihood of extremism. This is something that I think we should all be greatly worried about.

I, myself, am a dual citizen. I was born in the U.S., immigrated to Canada and worked my way up from a work permit to a permanent residency to citizenship, and I now serve my democracy. But I look across the border at the U.S. in horror about what’s going on down there.

I think that if there was something like proportional representation in the United States, it would greatly minimize the likelihood that you would have a more authoritarian government coming into office.

I know the previous speaker gave some extreme examples from Europe where proportional representation does create gridlock or deadlock and periods of instability. But for the most part, it does work very well. I think back to the recent election in Germany, where the far-right AfD was essentially blocked from power through proportional representation in a system that allowed for and enabled the centre right and the centre left to work together to form government.

I see these sorts of things taking place, to a certain extent, at the local government level. Again, it’s a little bit different, because we’re not talking about smaller parties compromising. We’re talking about individuals who are beholden to the public interest and not beholden to a party. I do think that that creates a system of government that lends itself to more democracy, to stability and to thinking about the needs and interests of voters and residents over the needs of a political party.

I’ll close by saying that I think that as you move forward in this process, valuing compromise and collaboration should be prioritized. Whatever that means and wherever the committee lands, I’ll be really interested to see. I hope that there’s an opportunity to think about impacts on local government and also maybe take some inspiration from what’s working well at the local government level. I’ll leave it there.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Jeremy. I appreciate that.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Jeremy. As a past councillor, mayor and director on the TNRD, I totally appreciate everything you had to say about that. And it’s interesting that we’ve got that canoe paddle on the side of the wall in this room, because it’s kind of symbolic in as much as that in most cases, like you said, if you’re not on a slate…. Most of, say…. At the TNRD, we had 27 directors. We’re pretty much all rowing in the same direction.

A couple of distinctive differences between our levels…. One, municipally, we have to balance a budget. That is a significant difference between a provincial government, a federal government and a municipal government. That’s through our charter.

The second thing is — you’ve alluded to it, and we’ve talked about it at length in the last week and change — more free votes. I’ve offered up that instead of just having people believe that they aren’t proportionally represented with their ideas and their thoughts and what is really important to them…. If we had more free votes in this Legislature, I believe that that would help achieve what we’re trying to get through.

Similarly, as I brought up, we have committees that don’t even sit in the Legislature. I’m pretty sure they were formed years and years ago for us to actually do our job. And we’re not able to do that because of the way it’s set up and not allowing public engagement. We don’t get an opportunity, other than petitioning through our constituents, to have that conversation.

Do you think that we should have less whipped votes, making it harder to have confidence votes in this Legislature that would force us to work together? Especially knowing that we sort of are in a minority situation…. I mean, the governing party has won, but one is not a lot. We’re getting the Speaker to break a tie, when really, that’s not what the Speaker’s supposed to be doing.

So what do you think about having more free votes in this Legislature to try to overcome some of those challenges?

Jeremy Caradonna: I like the idea. I mean, when I think about my job as a local government leader, in a sense, all votes are free votes. I’m not beholden to any party. I’m not beholden to anyone other than the body of voters. If I make a bad decision, I hear about it through email. And if I run for re-election, I’m sure I’ll hear about it at the ballot box.

But yeah, we want a system in which your first obligation is towards the people.

[2:50 p.m.]

Let’s not be naive here, folks, all of us sitting around the table from different parties, different points of view. When you minimize the impact of parties, you enable people to work together in ways that maybe we haven’t seen before at the Legislature. I think that’s something that residents really value, especially in this moment when our democracy is under attack and under assault in ways that we haven’t really seen in our lifetimes.

It’s really, really an important moment in which we minimize our differences and really strengthen what unites us. Anything that works in that direction I’d be supportive of.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): I have a couple questions, just because a lot of the presentations have brought up what kind of change…. Maybe we test change at the municipal level before we go — those kinds of questions. So it’s really great to have you from the municipal level to get your thoughts.

The first question I have, coming, myself, from a city where there are slates, and there are big parties and things like that that go their way…. Do you have thoughts on the idea of a ward system at a municipal level, so you’re actually choosing from specific areas? I guess that’s my first question.

Jeremy Caradonna: Yeah, thanks. I’m happy to answer that question. It has actually come up recently in the city of Victoria.

By the way, behind me is a district of Saanich councillor, who I should acknowledge is also in the room, Teale Phelps Bondaroff. If folks have been looking at the news, a citizens assembly was put together to look at amalgamation between Victoria and Saanich. That citizens assembly has recommended that it go to referendum next year. On our respective ballots next year will be the question of amalgamation.

So the question of ward systems has come up. I think that it depends on how big your jurisdiction is. I think, for me, in Victoria, which is 19.5 square kilometres, I don’t really see the rationale for it. I think it’s small enough. There are only 100,000 folks. I feel like I can represent people without needing to be confined to a specific geographical area. I think maybe if Victoria and Saanich amalgamate, and all of a sudden you have this massive entity that no individual could realistically canvas to even in the course of a campaign, it’s maybe worth thinking about.

I know in some locations, it does create these little fiefdoms, where now, all of a sudden, you’re trying to reflect the needs of your greater neighbourhood, and it pits you against the other neighbourhoods rather than thinking about what’s best for the city as a whole. On the whole, I’m a bit skeptical of it, but I’d like to see an analysis of it. Is it working in Toronto? Is it working in other places? Does it needlessly pit one neighbourhood against another? I think it’s something that we should be mindful of.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you. The other question I had was…. It also came up with the idea of a ranked ballot at that provincial level, and it was kind of a conversation of: “What if we were to do that at a municipal level?” Do you have one ballot where it’s more like the top person becomes mayor? That way if you have three candidates — they’re great candidates — one becomes mayor and two are just lost. They’re not lost. They stay in the system.

That was a bit of a conversation, if you had any thoughts on that.

Jeremy Caradonna: I’m certainly open to that. I’m open to that idea. I’m open to whatever makes residents feel more represented, so I’d be open to testing this out at the local government level.

George Anderson: Thank you for your presentation. As a former city councillor and regional district director, I have a lot of time and space for local government officials. So thank you for the work that you’re doing.

As you’ll know, depending on what level of government you are looking at…. The federal government tends to have the highest turnout, usually around 70 percent; provincial government is around 60 percent; and local governments can range significantly, from as low as 10 percent to sometimes 40 percent.

I’m just curious if you have any recommendations from your experience in local government as to how we can increase voter participation. Are there things that we can do outside of electoral reform to see people participating in the democratic process?

One of the things that I proposed back in 2012, which was a big thing then, was using social media so that people could ask questions online — use web forums and so on — because, for example, a student who is at class at seven o’clock couldn’t come to a council meeting, or people who were parents. Again, coming to a council meeting in person would be a challenging thing.

I’m just curious if you have any suggestions as to ways that we can ensure that more people are part of the overall discourse.

Jeremy Caradonna: Thank you for the question. I’d say there are a number of things that come to mind. The first is thinking…. I think it’s worthwhile to have a conversation about the age of voting.

[2:55 p.m.]

My daughter is 16 and recently started working, and she’s paying taxes. She asked me the other day: “How come I can’t vote yet?” I thought: “That’s a great question.” You’re out there. You’re in the employment world. You’re paying taxes. Why can’t a 16-year-old vote? I think it’s worth thinking about that.

I think the first thing that springs to mind, really, though, is that there are barriers to entering local government. I think people are turned off by some of the toxicity that they see at the local government level. I mean, I don’t want to speak for my colleague behind me, but we face a lot of harassment. We get doxed. We get harassed online. I know all of you do, too, but we’re in a sense closer to the people. People see me walking down the street every day. Most people are nice, but some people scream at me.

We hear, especially from women and especially from young women, that they don’t want to get involved in the process. It’s not worth it. The pay is not great. You face massive toxicity online and elsewhere. I think there’s probably more that can be done to create a safer space at the local government level, because it has gotten a bit hot down here at the local government level.

Then, I would also say education, greater education for voters. There’s just mass confusion, frankly, about what each level of government does. I find I spend a lot of my time simply trying to educate voters about what is local government jurisdiction versus provincial versus federal, almost that civics 101 type thing. I think if folks understood that, they would understand the value of local government. I think there are a lot of voters that just think, this is not worth my time. But if you actually look at what we do, we control land use, for instance. We control parks and rec. We control local roads. There’s actually a lot that local governments can do. But maybe…. I suspect that a lot of folks just don’t value it, because they don’t understand what it is that we’re doing.

George Anderson: Just a very quick follow-up. Again, it’s commendable what local governments are doing, because you’re the ones who are on the street. As political theorist Benjamin Barber said: “Local governments are the homeboys or homegirls, because they’re right in your community.” Sorry, he did also say “homies.” But anyway….

Interestingly, the data also shows that people have the highest level of satisfaction with their local governments, and it goes down as you look at provincial and federal governments, because I think often those issues are too obscure.

That being said, you talked about education for voters. Do you have suggestions on how we reach a wide breadth of voters? It can’t just be focused on people in high school and elementary school. There are people who are in their 50s who don’t understand the differences between local government and the federal government and provincial.

Jeremy Caradonna: I’m not sure about that. I mean, I think that there is opportunity to just get out into community, get to farmers markets, get to football games, get to events that people actually attend. It would have to be done in a non-partisan way as kind of civics education.

I think we’re in this moment right now in the country where people are excited to support their country. It’s a patriotic moment. I think this is a moment, if you want to capture it, where people are interested in learning more about what government does and how we’re protecting people’s rights and protecting sovereignty. So if there ever was a moment to get a kind of non-partisan civics movement going, I think it’s right now.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you, Jeremy, for your comments and presentations. It’s refreshing to hear something from the municipal level in this area.

One of the things I’ve been hearing occasionally is this talk of having all of the ballots in a civic election put together, and so the person who’s the most popular councillor becomes the mayor, but I know many councillors who have absolutely no intention of becoming mayor ever. They’re not interested, and I know many who would top that ballot. Yeah, I know quite a few who would be in that situation.

I think the job of mayor is substantively different than that of a city council. That it’s not just one of the crew. They’re the person who chairs the meeting, they’re the face of the city on a number of occasions. Certainly, there are acting mayors and so on for different events just to share the work out. But what do you say to that, if you’ve got councillors who aren’t interested in being mayor or haven’t even put in their minds, but they just want to be a good, solid workhorse for the city and the community, get in there and get it done?

I know you were saying you’d be open to the idea of this kind of a ranking of the ballot thing. What do you say in that context?

Jeremy Caradonna: Yeah, I think in the abstract of more of an analysis, I still do think it would be worthwhile to think of the mayor as a separate role.

In my own jurisdiction, I was fortunate enough to top the ballot, so I came in first in my own election. But I didn’t want to be mayor. I’m not running for mayor.

[3:00 p.m.]

I think there are other considerations too. Do you have a part-time job, for instance? We had a vexed debate at the city of Victoria about whether or not being a councillor is a full-time job. We hired a third-party consultant, and even they couldn’t decide. It was ambiguous. I think it’s a full-time job, but there’s really no argument that being a mayor is a full-time job. In fact, it’s more than a full-time job.

You can be a councillor and have a part-time job. I am also a CRD director, so I don’t have time for a part-time job. But if you’re only a councillor, there is time for that. We also have to think about if you’re a single parent. If you’ve got a four-year-old at home, maybe it’s not the right time for you to be a mayor. Maybe you want to work as a councillor for a few terms.

I think what’s most important is that people have the opportunity to hear their voice around the table. When you have eight choices for a councillor…. I talk to voters, and the voting logic is different at the local level. When you have one vote for an MLA or one vote for an MP, it’s a very strategic vote. When it’s at the local level, and you have eight votes….

I know all sorts of folks who vote for people across the spectrum. They want different points of view. They want younger folks. They want older folks. They want renters. They want homeowners. They value that diversity of perspective around the table. We don’t really get a chance to see that at the provincial or federal level, but we do get to see that at the municipal level.

To the previous MLA’s comments, I think that might be part of the reason why you have higher levels of satisfaction at the local government level. Even if your exact world view is not the dominant one in the city of Victoria, at least you know that there are a couple of people around the table who reflect my point of view.

Sheldon Clare: But those are still first-past-the-post votes. I mean, people have the choice of voting for one or up to however many options they have. I do very much understand what you’re saying about looking for a variety of perspectives on a city council for various reasons, and I thank you for your comments.

Jeremy Caradonna: Thanks, and if there are no other….

Jessie Sunner (Chair): There is.

Deputy Chair.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Yeah, thanks very much. I’ve got another quick one in there, Jeremy. Again, I really appreciate the opportunity, because it’s the first time we’ve really had somebody from a municipal perspective on explaining some of the good things that go on in municipal politics.

One of the things that was floated out there too — and it was maybe just allowing the flexibility, going forward, in our civic election next year — is having basically a rank-based ballot on mayors. The reason I’m saying that is…. I can sort of disagree a little bit with my colleague inasmuch as that if you’re proactive….

Let’s say you’re more of a Green candidate in a predominantly two-party-type town. You can get out there, and you can work your butt off, and you can say: “Okay, I might not be your first pick, or I might not be your second pick, but please make sure I’m on your third or fourth pick.”

You can get out there, and you can push the electorate. Instead of them being…. I’m not going to use the word “lazy,” but only thinking that they’re going to pick two or three. They’ve got up to eight choices. I would suggest that there could be jurisdictions in British Columbia right now that would probably look at maybe an alternative to what happened in the past in the way the mayor was selected.

Again, we’re elected, some of us, with 60 percent of the vote. Some of us are elected with less, but I would offer that nobody in this room is elected at 30 percent. I know there are mayors out there that were.

Would you think that that would be something that we would like to be able to add so that the citizens in that community could have that choice and say, “Okay, next time maybe we’d like to have more of a rank-based ballot,” so that if we had, say, a couple of previous councillors that now wanted to run for mayor, and then we have a white horse over here or whatever, that gives you a little bit more fair representation than just trying to pick one?

Jeremy Caradonna: Yes, absolutely. I think maybe the stakes are a little bit lower at the local government level. If you were to test out some of these ideas, I think doing it at the local government level is probably the place to do it. See what works and see what doesn’t and be open-minded to the notion that it might have to change. Or maybe it works really well.

To your point, we have seen, I would argue…. I don’t want to name names, but some of the more dysfunctional local governments in this province have had situations like that, where the mayor got 30 or 32 percent of the vote. So I do think it’s worthwhile to think about how we might address that situation, moving forward.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Great, thank you very much.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): That was the last question, Jeremy.

Jeremy Caradonna: My final comment is that I’ll just note that I’ve learned a lot about myself since becoming an elected official. This is my first term. Probably the thing that I’ve enjoyed the most is learning how much I value compromise. I went in with strong ideas about housing, active transportation, climate, etc., but I really value at least attempting to reach consensus around the table. I think that our residents and our voters want us to at least make those efforts.

I applaud you for the work you guys are putting in, and I want you to think about, moving forward, the value of collaboration and compromise and what’s in the best interest of British Columbians.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Jeremy. I really appreciate you being here this afternoon.

Next up, we have Teale Phelps Bondaroff.

[3:05 p.m.]

Welcome, Teale. Thank you so much for being here this afternoon. As you get started, just a reminder, you’ll have 15 minutes for your presentation, followed by ten minutes for questions. Please get started when you’re ready.

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: Well, thank you so much for having me. My name is Dr. Teale Phelps Bondaroff. As my colleague from Victoria mentioned, I’m a councillor in the district of Saanich, so you’re getting, I guess, your municipal local government snippet here this afternoon.

My background is that I have a PhD in politics and international studies and BAs in political science and international relations. I’ve been involved in Canadian politics for 20 years. I’ve actually run at every single level except for school board. I ran federally in Calgary West in 2006 and 2008, provincially in Calgary-Bow in 2008, and municipally here in Saanich in 2018 to 2022, and I did a couple of stints doing student politics.

I have lots of different perspectives, and I wanted to offer a bit of compare and contrast with my experiences being involved in those elections at every level. Also incidentally, for full disclosure, I did volunteer on the 2018 electoral reform referendum here in B.C., and in the U.K. when I was doing my PhD in 2011. So I’ve got experience knocking on probably 70,000 doors in two provinces and two countries.

Today I wanted to talk about how our electoral system shapes political discourse, and I’ll be looking at three areas: during elections, in government and how citizens relate to their government. Then a little bit of content around the process for change: so how do we change our electoral system?

Ultimately, I want to start with a bit of a story. This is quite fresh. I’m involved in politics at all levels, as I mentioned, and I was recently involved in the last federal election that we just wrapped up. I knocked on around 600 doors in two local ridings, and one thing that shocked me was only two people asked me what my party’s platform was, out of 600 doors. No one cared.

The conversations were fixated on who was going to get first past that post, and when. We weren’t talking about policy. We weren’t talking about values. We weren’t talking about experience. We were talking about people’s fears and trying to keep someone out of government rather than voting for something they believed in.

There were some really frustrating conversations. There were people who were afraid of — particularly, in this case, locally in Victoria — a Conservative government, and so that’s what we were talking about. We weren’t talking about values. We weren’t talking about people’s experiences or policies. This was shaped directly by our electoral system.

During elections…. I’ll talk a bit about how it works in Saanich. You already heard how it works in Victoria. It’s very similar. Members of the public can vote for up to eight councillors and one mayor, and councillors are elected at large. It is first-past-the-post in that respect, but you are able to vote for eight people.

It’s really interesting how this fundamentally changes how voters and candidates talk on the doorstep. I just want to build on what my colleague was saying a little bit earlier, but effectively, the conversations are about how you build an effective team to manage a city. I’ve actually seen people who are asking you the direct question on the doorstep: “Do you work well with others, and who would you like to work with on council?” So they’re very direct questions.

Effectively, I think people are kind of building a fantasy sports league. We want someone with experience from education, someone who’s got experience working in planning. And you effectively build the team that can manage your city. This is really effective. The discourse is about values. It’s about experience. It’s about vision and policy — less about policy because, obviously, you need four other colleagues to get anything done on council. So it really is about your values, and people are basically setting up a little team.

What’s fascinating about that is the people I work best with on our council are people who are furthest from me on the political spectrum, because we can get together and work on issues that we care about. In this case, often, it’s housing or the environment or transportation, and those issues transcend the political spectrum.

I would contrast that with the provincial and federal politics, which are often typified by aggressive, vitriolic attack ads, fearmongering and sloganeering. When people are polled, they consistently say that they hate attack ads, and yet, why do parties use them?

Interjection.

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: It’s because they work. Exactly. Spot on. You’re voting against someone rather than voting for something.

[3:10 p.m.]

I don’t know if some of you remember it. My favourite — and I use this in heavy air quotes — attack ad in Canada was the 2006 Conservative attack ad against Paul Martin. It was the “They’ll go negative,” right? Here’s an attack ad criticizing another party for potentially running negative attack ads. It was the most multi-layered negative campaign you’ve ever seen. It was up there with Daisy and the Jesse Helms “hands” ad.

Effectively, why this happens is that it’s part of the first-past-the-post system. It encourages big-tent parties and two-party systems, and these parties tend to group left and right, right in the centre.

One of the biggest challenges you get is that parties field mostly the most broadly acceptable candidates in order to appeal to the most voters possible. As a result, you actually have lots of demographics excluded. This excludes folks of visible minorities and women and marginalized people, and it leads to less diverse legislatures and less diverse decision-making.

There are challenges faced by third parties. There are two major challenges. One is that they may have broad support, but it’s distributed. There may be thousands of people who believe in voting for the animal party, like in the Netherlands, but they don’t live in one spot, and as a result, that party will never win. So people who perhaps share their values won’t vote for them because they have no chance of winning, and so they vote for their least objectionable party or for whoever they can put up with.

That leads to a lot of alienated voters. They’re electing people who don’t reflect their values but are marginally acceptable, like the shrug emoji of voting, rather than voting for something they actually believe in. As a result, these minority views are not reflected in legislatures. But not only that, they’re not reflected in the big tents, because those voices are still overweighed in the big-tent parties. As a result, they’re completely marginalized.

The alternative is that you have concentrated support in a regional area. This leads to regional fiefdoms, which include minority voices in those areas, and they create grievance politics and regionalism.

I got my start in Alberta politics. I can tell you something about regionalism and grievance politics. This is a system where the political system is a battleground defined on where you are rather than what you believe in. This becomes very tribal, very nasty politics. It’s divisive. It’s attack-based.

A lot of voices in this process are ignored. When voters vote for the least objectionable party or against a party, parties pander to a wide base of possible options and a lot of ideas are lost in this conversation. The discourse suffers. We get these elections that are fought around one or two issues, and you as decision-makers don’t get the wealth of ideas and perspectives to know what’s actually going on out there.

Politics becomes deeply tribal. We can look at the fascist MAGA cult that’s emerging in the United States, which is fundamentally showing how vicious tribal politics can get.

Now, once you’re in government, the electoral system also shapes the discourse and how it takes place in government. The animus and the conflict that arises in these first-past-the-post elections carries its way on into our Legislative Assemblies. Fuelled by the electoral system, you have conflict and division, false majorities and these widely swinging pendulums, where governments work to spend time and money undoing the work of the previous government.

You basically slide back and forth, and politics becomes more of a conversation around scoring points rather than passing policies that effectively benefit our communities. Other parties are vilified and denigrated — or, in the United States, dehumanized. This leads to toxic politics and lawfare. It’s so much easier to slag off an opponent or to sling mud rather than encourage collaborative decision-making and discussion and work.

Under a proportional representation system, you still have rigorous debate on policy and you still have contrasting values, but the discourse shifts. Just like in the municipal system, you have to work with these people. You have to be more collegiate. You have to be more amicable, more collaborative. It’s more focused around coalition-building, because you have more perspectives at the table. You can’t build a coalition on vitriol. You can’t foster collaborative relations using caustic attack ads.

In this way, our electoral system fundamentally shapes how we talk about politics, both during elections and in our Legislative Assemblies.

When you increase representation from people from marginalized communities, minority viewpoints or people who are geographically dispersed, you improve the decisions that we make. We all know that more diverse boards make better decisions. The same thing holds true for Legislative Assemblies.

These changes in the electoral system also shape how people engage with government. At the local government…. My colleague was talking earlier about how people trust local governments, but they are trusting them less and less. We’re seeing an erosion in trust, and while there are many factors explaining this, our electoral system is one of the explanations.

False majorities created by first-past-the-post lead to governments with a plurality rather than a majority and lots of perspectives left behind. An absence of third parties leads to a situation where people who maybe voted against a more objectionable party still don’t see their views reflected in the Legislature, so they continue to be alienated and have their views not heard.

One of the things I was just reflecting on last night in preparation here is the way that people criticize the government changes. Under the current model, the opposition is encouraged to contrast and to oppose the government. This is important, but the challenge is that when it’s done in an excessive, vitriolic way, this combative nature shifts criticism from the policies of the government to government itself.

[3:15 p.m.]

What you see is that people aren’t just critiquing policy. They’re critiquing government. This undermines people’s trust in the concept of government, in the institution of government, and as a result, you see less trust.

Okay. So there are also more options for voters, as well, right? This is another thing that’s great about local government. If you are a resident in Saanich and you want to talk to someone who really cares about road safety, you’re coming to me. Especially noise pollution — I get all the noise pollution emails.

If you want to talk about business development, one of my colleagues who has a longer track record and experience in that area, you’re going to want to talk to him. Similarly, if you want to talk to someone about older adults, we’ve got a couple of folks on council who literally wrote our policy on that.

Residents can reach out to someone they feel most comfortable with, someone they feel can most champion their views. This is something that you get when you have multi-member ridings, which can be promoted through PR. This strengthens the relationship that voters have with their government. It makes them feel heard. It also makes sure that they can find the right champion in the Legislative Assembly to help champion the views that they have. As a result, you have a greater connection.

The nature of our electoral system shifts this. If you have one MLA who is from a party who you do not support and you don’t feel will listen to you effectively, then what do you do as a resident, particularly if you’re in a very large riding? I’m thinking of some of our large, rural, northern ridings. You’re going to have to drive 1,000 kilometres to do coffee with an MLA in Vancouver just to have someone who cares about the same issue as you. That might be a bit of a problem.

The current system fosters animus, conflict and discord, and it leads to alienated voters who have loathsome options at the polls. People vote against rather than for. This entire system is fuelled on conflict, and the electoral system itself shapes that. I think we’ve already heard this — actually, my colleague from Victoria mentioned this already — but in these particularly challenging times, we desperately need collaboration and constructive and productive dialogues, rather than this conflict that we’re seeing.

How do we change the system? There are a couple aspects here. The first thing. You all know that we’ve had multiple referenda here in British Columbia, and I wanted to share a bit of my experience from working on both one of the most recent referendums here in British Columbia and in the U.K.

One of the challenges you get is asymmetric roles of the actors involved. The burden on the yes campaign, the campaign proposing or supporting a change in electoral system, is twofold. They must educate people about how the new system works and persuade people to support that system; whereas the no campaign has the advantage of a long-established status quo with which people are familiar, and they can muddy the waters with disinformation and misinformation. They have no incentive to explain the proposed system in a clear or compelling way.

My experience in the U.K. was very much like this. We had this leaflet that went around, and it was trying to explain how the new electoral system was. It was an AV ranked ballot system. This is from the no campaign.

I have three degrees in political science, and I couldn’t understand the centrefold. It opened up. It was this huge ballot with complicated diagrams, and that was the intent. It was a master class in muddying the waters, simply by the way the information was presented. So the yes campaigns always have an uphill battle, and that’s a huge challenge.

There are better ways of consulting citizens. As my colleague just mentioned and as I was reading just before I came here, we had a citizens assembly here in Saanich and Victoria around amalgamation — 48 residents spending eight weekends together exploring an issue in depth. That’s the kind of rich discussion we need to inform an electoral system, rather than a referendum, a single moment in time.

These decisions take time, study and discussion, and things like citizens assemblies are a fantastic way of doing that. It also avoids the echo chambers and slogan-based communications in favour of rich, meaningful conversations.

One of the things I’d like to see, perhaps, is a check-in referendum. So you adopt an electoral reform change, and then two elections later, once folks have had a chance to experiment with both types, you do another referendum that says: “Hey, which system did you prefer? You’ve had first-past-the-post. You’ve had PR. Which one do you like?” That gives people that direct experience with the electoral system, and then you can check in with them.

Finally, there’s lots of precedence for this. We’ve changed electoral systems in the past without having to go to a referendum. For example, we expanded the franchise to include a wide range of people, and we did that without a referendum. Similarly, electoral finance reform. These are all adequate options. The electoral mandate that you all have as MLAs is sufficient to reform our electoral system.

In closing, I hope this committee will recommend changes to our electoral system. My preference would be to establish a citizens assembly to select the best form of proportional representation and that this is then adopted for at least two elections, after which, if folks wanted, we could have a referendum based on evaluating the two different systems and selecting which one we preferred.

Ultimately, we need a voting system that fundamentally changes how our discourse takes place. Our current system is one that’s set up around hostility and conflict, and I think we need an electoral system that favours collaboration and constructive dialogue. Electoral reform leading to systems like proportional representation is a much better system and one where we can all collaborate together on improving the province that we all love.

Thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Teale.

First question from the Deputy Chair.

[3:20 p.m.]

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Doctor, for your presentation. You’ve covered a lot of ground in a short period of time. A couple of questions, or one of the questions, to give everybody enough chance to ask, because we’re kind of tight here….

You mentioned trust, and it’s been brought up before. It’s one of the reasons why people feel like they’re disengaged in the process.

Do you see that if the provincial government is not seeming like they’re listening at the provincial level, inasmuch as that they’re changing policies, regulations, now legislation and taking powers away from municipal governments…? Do you think that local citizens will start feeling more disenfranchised with the system as a whole, when there are things that are set up — whether it’s bylaws and land use and official community plans that can basically get thrown out the window…?

Then there could be negative impacts to those taxpayers because of those changes without actually any consultation with those people. Do you think that that’s going to also push us to that point of looking for alternative ways of governing, when people don’t trust what’s actually going on at a provincial level?

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: Thank you very much for the question.

As municipalities, we’re ultimately children of the province. I think there’s definitely a strong role for the province to play in guiding municipalities. I mean, we’re talking particularly about, say, housing and SSMUH housing.

One of the challenges that we face is that sometimes we need a nudge from the province to move things through some of those impasses. The rich conversations we have at the municipal level have their own challenges, I think. They’re also influenced by the quality of the discourse, and the discourse permeates from higher levels of government.

I think, ultimately, the more connected you can be with residents is very important. We do sometimes need the province to step in when we simply can’t get past a particular barrier or when short-term interests supersede long-term interests. But I think there’s definitely a conversation to be had about what constitutes listening and how you best engage with the public. It’s one we’re having right now.

We have a town hall on September 9, where we’re going to be engaging with residents. One of the things that residents will sometimes say is: “You’re listening to us, but you’re not hearing us.” I always try to unpack that as this challenging balancing act as municipal government of: we have lots of conflicting perspectives. We have to balance those out. We listen to them, and then we ultimately have to do what’s in the best interest of the municipality using that information as an input. So it’s a complicated process, as I’m sure you’ve all kind of been part of experiencing.

Yeah, there’s that interplay between the province and municipalities, which is kind of a process that’s constantly in flux. You’re going to see a bunch of UBCM resolutions that I helped draft, hopefully, in a few months. That’s all part of that process as well. I think I wrote nine of them this time around, so watch your inboxes.

Ward Stamer: Look forward to that. Thank you.

Amna Shah: Thank you so much for your presentation.

You mentioned briefly about the erosion of trust and some of the possible reasons for it. While I understand much of that, I’m wondering what your thoughts are in a PR system, to have some of the type of rhetoric that you referred to. Like, for example, opposing in a vitriolic way and hyper-partisanship being a barrier towards collaboration or compromise to reach important decisions that affect people in our province.

I’m wondering if you think whether the culture of our province, where we are right now and our current state, is conducive to collaboration and could sort of withstand some of that vitriolic behaviour that actually does exist in our system currently.

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: Fantastic question. One thing, I think, is worth noting is that at the municipal level — and this is kind of, again, translating my experience — the way that you talk about your colleagues on the doorstep and potential other candidates changes because the voter can vote for eight people, I wouldn’t want to say things negative about potential other candidates on the doorstep, because I might be working with them in a few months, right?

On the doorstep — I have seven colleagues at the table; eight, of course, if you include the mayor — people wouldn’t just ask me who I’d vote for, but they would also ask me who I shouldn’t vote for. I always avoided answering that question, because I knew that there are lots of people who I could be sharing the next four years with. So I think that is kind of fundamental.

With PR, what happens is the parties that take this to the process…. You’re always going to get a bit of people doing vitriol and fringe parties that aren’t there to play nice with others and are there to get a specific issue out there. That’s going to exist in any political system.

[3:25 p.m.]

But in PR, the parties that are serious about making change and serious about collaborating with others will tone down that rhetoric, because they recognize that they have to meet with the person afterwards.

It’s literally, like, the election happens, and the next day you might be negotiating next steps for government. You need to treat the way that you engage those people differently during the election. Otherwise, that negotiation process is going to be very toxic.

So I think parties that are serious about governing in a respectful and constructive way tone down their rhetoric in PR systems simply because they want to work with others and they know they’re going to have to work with others. I hope that answers your question.

I think, ultimately, there are always going to be some extremes, and those will exist in any system. But in a PR system, those extremes are marginalized insofar as those people are clearly…. You know, they’re making a mess at the kids’ table while adults are trying to make constructive, collaborative decisions based on respect and good dialogue.

Amna Shah: Just a follow-up, Chair, if I may. Thank you.

Do you think that candidates — and you’ve been a candidate at the doors as well — would be met with less skepticism, whether they belong to a party or not, if people knew that they had more than one choice on a ballot?

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: Absolutely. I think often what we see in the political science world is people vote for the leader, then the party and the local candidate. That often means that they don’t even know who their local candidate is. We’re all political folks, so we could probably name our MLAs, MPs, city councillors, maybe our school trustees. Maybe not, depending on who you asked. Yeah, I think most folks, if they were given multiple options, would create a balanced approach, right?

I think some of the parties in British Columbia have really solid positions on a specific narrow area of policy; other ones have better policies in other areas. I can vote accordingly, and I think that’s really a valuable thing.

It also means that…. Let’s say I’m really passionate. The animal party is the best example I can have, because I know some deputies in the Netherlands. The animal party. Okay, so someone really cares about animals. They’re going to vote for the animal party. The top person in the animal party might get one seat. But the next 30 people aren’t in PR. But that person then knows that their second choice — for example, for another party — is also going to have representation in the Legislature. So they can effectively rank their priorities.

Then, as political scientists, one of the things you struggle most with is voter intent. If someone doesn’t vote, we have no idea why they didn’t vote. Were they not home that day? Are they disenfranchised? Did they get lost on the way to the polls?

A single vote gives us one piece of information. But if they can rank their ballots or select multiple people, that allows us more information. So as decision-makers, we can better understand the intent of voters and then better reflect those intents in our decisions that we make.

So yeah, more information is always better. It’s always a challenge when we’re trying to determine what voters want from just a single piece of evidence and data, i.e., one vote.

Rob Botterell: Thank you for your presentation. I don’t know if you were here, but early this afternoon we had a presenter who raised very passionate and articulate concerns about the rise of extremist parties in Europe under proportional representation systems.

You’ve made the point that our politics is shaped by the electoral system, and you’ve made a very clear argument and case that PR will generate collaboration.

From your background as a political scientist, how would you respond to the concern that, well, that’s great, but then we’re going to invite the rise of extremist parties in this province?

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: Great question. Thank you. I think what we see…. There are some outliers, of course, but the general trend in PR systems is parties working together and collaborating. There are, obviously, other explanations sometimes for the rise of extremism.

I think the term is cordon sanitaire. So one of the things that…. Parties that are well-meaning and mature, thoughtful parties will simply agree not to work with the extremists. Of course, when that breaks down — we’ve seen that break down a little bit in Europe these days in a couple places — that’s a choice that politicians make. I think it’s a very bad choice. It’s often short term. It’s often a short-term choice. But there has been a longstanding practice of simply not working with the extremists.

It’s kind of like that…. If a Nazi shows up to a bar, it’s a Nazi bar. If your coalition is willing to let an extremist into your coalition, then that reflects poorly on you. I think a lot of times, parties don’t do that. If we see that breaking down, there are maybe other explanations.

But I think in more cases than not, in PR, you tend to have a more balanced system where extremists get less voice, simply because you have a multiplicity of views. You also get less extremism, because people aren’t marginalized as much.

[3:30 p.m.]

Sheldon Clare: One of the things you said, Doctor, was about how you like to set up teams and work collaboratively with teams to try resolving issues. I suppose these teams are really like mini, temporary political parties in some respects, because they are coming together on a common issue and advocating for that issue or working to resolve the commonalities or differences between problems to achieve a result. Maybe there’s a need for a new sewer system, or there’s a bridge that needs replacing or something like that. So you work together on that project, then you move, and you may be on different sides for other issues. That would be the case, I imagine.

When you’re doing that building up of teams, would you include people who have extremist views sometimes?

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: Great question. I’m watching our time, but I’ll take a few seconds here.

At the municipal level in Saanich, we often have sort of shifting coalitions based on what the issue of the day is. We have a group of folks that are really focused on housing. When it shifts to the environment, the composition might change. When it shifts to road safety, the composition might change. Each issue is richly discussed, and you don’t have that kind of partisanship that happens.

When it comes to those kinds of coalitions, that’s a decision that you’d make on an individual basis, and it can be a risky decision. We don’t have, I don’t think, anyone who’s an extremist on our council. But if you are…. I guess this is talking about the long-term implications of making a decision.

If you have a short-term decision, and you think it’s more important to pass that vote, and you’re going to invite an extremist into your coalition, that’s a decision you have to make, but it has long-term implications and consequences. I think that’s something that we would negotiate, and every single decision is then discussed and explored.

Is there a situation…? The hypotheticals are a bit complicated, but yeah, there’s a situation where you have to make that decision about the short term versus the long term. My thought is that when you have a collaborative structure where people are working together, those long-term benefits are often prioritized.

When you have a more hostile, combative system, people make short-term decisions, because if you don’t get a decision now, the next government’s going to undo it, whereas when you have these stable kinds of governments created by PR, you don’t get that kind of pendulum switch as well, which I think is beneficial.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you for your answer.

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: Thanks for the great question. That’s a 30-minute answer, I think. We could get into that….

Sheldon Clare: I grinned at the Chair when I asked it.

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: People have written theses on that.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Teale, for sharing your afternoon with us and answering all of our questions.

Teale Phelps Bondaroff: Thank you all so much, and good luck with the process. I hope it’s an enjoyable one.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): We’ll take a short recess until 3.45.

The committee recessed from 3:32 p.m. to 3:47 p.m.

[Jessie Sunner in the chair.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): All right. Welcome back, everyone. We’ll get started after this break now with Katherine Gower.

Welcome, Katherine. Thank you so much for being here this afternoon. We look forward to hearing from you. Just a reminder as you get started that you’ll have five minutes to present, followed by five minutes for questions.

Katherine Gower

Katherine Gower: Members, I honour your work, and I thank you for this opportunity to speak.

My name is Katherine Gower. I’ve lived in B.C. all my life. I care deeply about our province. I have actively participated in door-knocking and other public engagement events for most elections and for referendums on electoral reform. I have talked to many people about the changes to our electoral system, particularly changing to one based on proportional representation or PR.

I know this committee is interested in facts. An important fact, one that I think previous governments have underconsidered, is that people’s emotions matter. Emotions affect the beliefs and actions of voters, and they can’t be ignored when considering electoral reform.

A strong emotion is desire for change. At least 11 polls conducted since 2001 show Canadians — including, specifically, B.C. voters — between 59 percent and 78 percent in favour of moving to a PR system. That’s a clear majority over a long period. Also, ten commissions across the country, including our B.C. citizens’ assembly in 2004, all recommended a switch to PR.

So if most people want PR, why hasn’t it passed in the referendums? Part of the issue is fear of change. People worry they will make a wrong decision with disastrous results. This fear of change is amplified by confusion. Sure, there are wonks who want to know every detail, but complex options are too much for many people.

There appeared to be little attempt in the last referendum to give common analogies to lessen confusion.

[3:50 p.m.]

For example, everybody knows how to order pizza for a large group of people. Fifteen omnivores, ten for extra meat, nine vegetarians, three people who can’t eat hot peppers — no problem. People get that, both the method and the fairness.

Distrust is another barrier to change. If a party in power initiates the change, people worry it will benefit that party and be detrimental to their own.

That is why I am so delighted that this committee has members from multiple parties and diverse backgrounds. I’m very hopeful that it will recommend a change to a PR system that will be seen as fair and inclusive, because people are very frustrated with our first-past-the-post system and its fruits: acrimony, a focus on blocking the opposition instead of finding common ground, the narrowing of choices and a failure to represent multiple views.

Over and over, I hear people’s concerns that their vote will not count, that they have to vote to prevent what they don’t want instead of in favour of what they do want, that we are becoming polarized.

At its worst, this frustration leads to apathy. I had a heartbreaking talk with a young man who has never voted and never intends to vote because he does not feel that his vote would affect the world in any way. With our latest voter turnout at a depressingly low 58.45 percent, it appears many voters feel the same way.

But it isn’t too late to create some hope. We are less polarized by region than we appear. Election result maps that show big blocks of colour are deceiving. Out of the 93 ridings, 78 of them were won by less than 60 percent, and 34 were won by less than 50 percent. With my very limited tech skills, I was able to roughly change the colours to match the proportion of the vote in each riding. What a different picture of our province emerges.

By implementing a PR system, we can make that picture a reality. By dispensing with another referendum and proceeding on the recommendation of this committee, we avoid fear of change, confusion and distrust.

Personally, I would be content with any PR system, but I would be delighted with a system where two or three current ridings are grouped together into a district that returns two or three MLAs. Voters would vote for their preferred candidate, and those with the highest number of votes would be elected.

But also, districts would be grouped into regions. Each region would elect two runners-up from the district elections, in such a way that each party would end up with a number of seats that closely matches their proportion of the provincial vote.

This would satisfy the strong desire for change in a way that is simple, fair and cost-effective. Voters would feel empowerment as they helped to elect an MLA to represent their views. Politicians and voters would feel freer to be positive and proactive. Collaboration and support within regions would become logical. More voters would become engaged. Everybody’s happy.

So I am asking this committee to recommend a direct change from first-past-the-post to a proportional representation system.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you so much, Katherine.

Are there any questions for Katherine?

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much for your presentation. One of the concerns that has been raised with our system that we have now is that voter engagement is dropping and participation is dropping when really the numbers suggest that we’re on the uptick again.

We also were chatting about lowering the voting age to 16. What’s your position on that?

Katherine Gower: I think it’s a good idea because I think that high school students have a lot of passion, and they like to become engaged in the world and feel that they can make a difference in the world. Many of them, certainly as many as adult voters, consider their choices very carefully, and I think it would set up a pattern of engagement in the voting process. So I think it’s a good idea.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): To further that, if I may, do you think that we should be putting more emphasis in our curriculum, knowing that there are bits and pieces throughout K to 12, where we talk about our legislative process and different levels of government? Do you think that we should put more of an emphasis in our curriculum from an early age all the way through, to get the youth more involved?

[3:55 p.m.]

Katherine Gower: I think it would be great if we made practical examples to them, as much as possible, and I know that that does happen in a lot of classrooms. I’ve been a teacher in the past, and teachers do use opportunities to have their kids explore decision-making in various forms. I think that that’s certainly important as well as a more formal talk about different kinds of systems as the kids get older.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Katherine, the question in the type of model that you’ve suggested would be your preferred model of proportional representation…. This is a model that we’ve heard about from some folks in our hearings, and some of the questions were raised about that are….

Some of the regions, like MLA Clare’s, are already larger than the size of Switzerland. When you amalgamate the three ridings into one, just the feasibility of actually being able to meet the constituents in your riding and attend events and connect with them one-on-one — what would that look like?

Then also, the answer may be, like you said, that you elect three, so maybe they take a certain area. But if you have one MLA and then two top-up MLAs, how do you envision the riding being broken up? Right now, we have constituency offices, so I’m the representative for one certain area. If there are three in one area, how do you envision that they would divvy up the region to provide service?

Katherine Gower: I think that those are two separate issues, actually, but I do recognize that there is an issue with the size of ridings. The reason I would recommend the kind of system that I do recommend is because I think it makes an easy transition for people. I wouldn’t necessarily see that as the end point of our proportional system, but I think that once a proportional system was in place, it would be easier to fine-tune it and address issues that we find with it as we go along.

I was appalled to find that in the last referendum, a friend of mine who held a university degree, a reasonably intelligent woman…. Nothing that myself or her lawyer husband could say to her could persuade her that the person with the most votes would still get in. She just kept saying: “Well, none of them are fair, because why shouldn’t the person with the most votes get in?”

So I think that the more that can be done to make this simple for people to understand and yet still proportional and fair is the best way to have it implemented to start with. Then, change is made later.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Okay. Thank you, Katherine. I really appreciate your time this afternoon.

Next up is Greg Holloway.

Greg Holloway

Greg Holloway: Well, thank you. I’m so glad that I could be here today. As I understand, and I’ve just looked a little bit at some of your transcripts, you’re looking at such a broad range of issues. I’ll try to mention one very specific item.

Interestingly enough, the reason I’m here today is probably a lot the reason that Katherine is here today. That is to say, there have been some very lively, animated community discussions about electoral change, most recently when there was a referendum that included some PR options.

But at that time, what happened with me was that we found more and more people saying: “Can’t we think outside this box?” I think that the answer is: “Yes, we really can.” If I can do anything at all today, it’ll be to try to put in one little piece outside the box.

What I mean by outside the box is that rather than trying to find different ways of making the number of seats in the House proportional to different party votes by some means or another, suppose we really have very simple ballots in very local ridings. You probably know the candidates. You can certainly attend a meeting of them.

Maybe there are four or five names on a ballot. Maybe it’s Fred and Nancy and Mary and Scott. I’ve kind of got to know them, and I’ve decided that Mary, by gosh, is the one that best represents my views. I simply choose my representative. It’s Mary. Mark the ballot. In it goes. I have exercised my citizens’ activity by saying that Mary represents me.

[4:00 p.m.]

Now, one of two things can happen. Mary might get elected, in which case she’ll be sitting here like yourselves. I believe I’ve learned about her views, and my guess is we’re aligned. But then she’ll go off and be her own person.

When she is elected…. Now, here’s the one item that we think is different and needs to be put on the floor. In committees such as this, if Mary was on the…. Oh gosh, words escape me. Everything works the same. But when legislation finally comes to the floor and we count the legislators who stand, Mary stands. But when Mary stands, what the computer adds is not that one person stood but the number of votes that Mary received. We instantly recognize the proportion of the voting population that’s on one side or the other of whatever is an act of legislation, and we haven’t had to move around the seats in the Legislature at all.

People back in 2018 kind of got excited about that. Since then I, like Katherine, knock on a lot of doors. I like to do that solo because I like to follow up when people can still…. People sometimes want to stay and chat. This other way of doing things really resonates.

Now, I should…. I don’t know what the green light means. It means I’m running close to out of time. Is that right? Okay.

But now we have to add part 2 of this. Suppose Mary doesn’t get elected. Well, one of two things happens if Mary doesn’t get elected. Either she was running on behalf of one of the parties, in which case those people who voted for Mary, knowing that she’s on behalf of a party — those votes will go to that party and be redistributed according to rules the party decides upon to the legislators who will now stand. So if I’m voting for the Purple Party, and Mary is Purple, I am sure my vote will be Purple even if Mary didn’t get elected. Moreover, even if I’m only one of a few Purples in my whole riding, I’m sure my vote will be out there on the floor as a Purple vote.

I’m sure I didn’t make this clear enough. I’m afraid I got a little bit off track. This is probably clear in my written submission, I hope, and possibly will be clarified a little bit with your questions. So perhaps I should try to stop, because I’d love to hear what you may have in mind. Thank you so very, very much.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Greg.

Does anyone have any questions for Greg?

Amna Shah: Thank you, Greg, for your presentation. I’m just wondering if we could go back. In your example, Mary gets up to vote for a particular bill, per se, and what goes up is actually the number of votes that Mary got. What do you see happen after that? That’s happening with every other member, right? So is it a tally of all of the votes? Then, based on that, the….

Greg Holloway: Yes, I think so.

Amna Shah: Oh, okay. Interesting concept.

Greg Holloway: First, thank you so much for asking. Yes, I would say that the answer is yes. That way, when an act of legislation passes, it passes by 1,974,000 in favour to 1,605,000 against, which I….

We’re really trying to bring out what we mean by democracy and keeping those citizens who went and marked the ballot as the unit, as the measure of how things are of the final passage of a bill. Now, I hope I answered you.

Amna Shah: No, you certainly did. If I may, just a quick follow-up. If Mary, for example, stood up against the wishes of those who…. Then I suppose that is what it is. Thank you.

Greg Holloway: Again, you’re exactly right. It is what it is. I chose Mary. After that, Mary….

Amna Shah: It’s on Mary.

Greg Holloway: Mary is Mary.

[4:05 p.m.]

Jessie Sunner (Chair): I just have a follow-up question on this. Let’s say we chose Mary because she stood with the Purple Party and then got into the Legislature. Then Mary said: “I don’t want to be a part of the Purple Party anymore. I want to be a part of my own party or the Yellow Party.” Then what happens?

Greg Holloway: I can’t tell you how many wonderful discussions there have been about just questions like that. The way at least we believe it would go is if Mary crosses the floor to another party, well, there are people who voted for Mary, and we don’t know if they were actually voting for Purple or if they were voting for Mary.

But anyway, Mary had their votes, and so she went over there. If Mary also carries Purple votes from other Purple candidates who were defeated but have been pooled so that the aggregate Purple vote in the Legislature represents the population, well, those votes, as far as we know, are Purple. So they return to the party and are redistributed to the remaining members of the Purple Party.

I probably wasn’t completely….

Jessie Sunner (Chair): No, you were. I think it’s just interesting, because I do think there are folks that are voting specifically for an individual. But more often than not, I would venture to say they’re voting for the party that they’re standing for. That’s where it gets a little complicated, in my mind, but I appreciate your….

Greg Holloway: You haven’t asked me: “What about if Mary is an independent?” But maybe we’re out of time.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): No. I’ll let the others ask questions, though.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you for your presentation, Greg. My question is about regional representation in such a model, given that ridings vary considerably with numbers of votes. Urban ridings tend to have more concentrated votes in smaller areas. Rural ridings, such as the one I represent…. I think I have some 43,000 voters spread over an area the size of Switzerland.

How do you parse out the votes of those people who have a particular region and that regional representation voting in such a system when they, effectively, would be smothered by a large urban centre? I think this would be, once more, urban ridings crushing rural ridings and would contribute to that divide. What do you say to that?

Greg Holloway: I think that’s a really challenging question, what we mean by democracy. I would hope, of course, that the urban voters are enlightened and appreciate the values of the rural voters.

Sheldon Clare: So would I.

Greg Holloway: It’s a matter of…. Partly, that’s an education.

I guess, and this may be a hard pill to swallow…. I kind of think that where we start with democracy is majority. Something wants to protect a minority, but if a majority is urban and doesn’t give a hoot about those rural whoever they are, it could be difficult. I mean, I do believe we’re better than that. We’ll take each other into account. But again, I’m really trying to focus on one citizen is one vote, and that’s the unit that we count.

Sheldon Clare: Okay. Just to follow up, Madam Chair, if you please.

What about a bicameral system, if there was an Upper House to provide regional representation, such as is in the federal power? It potentially exists in, I believe, two provinces, where they have the ability to do that, although I don’t believe they have taken advantage. That way, you have the regional balance, along with the rep by population, which has been a Canadian staple. What do you think about that?

Greg Holloway: Well, I think that certainly has merit, and it obviously has to be thought about, yes.

Then how to balance these things? My gosh, that’s the line of work you folks are in. Yes, you would look to other ways to be sure that…. Other than the tyranny of the majority as your democratic system, you would try to find ways to check and balance that. I think, just as you mentioned, yes.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you for your response, Greg. I appreciate it.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Greg. When you’re talking about getting the information to the citizens, to the constituents, on Mary voting, as the hypothesis would occur, how you propose we get that information to her in a timely fashion and a truthful fashion? When you start…. We’ve already had discussions about some of the disinformation, whether it’s social media, legacy media, all the different echo chambers that people have. Wouldn’t you suggest…?

[4:10 p.m.]

Couldn’t I suggest that having the representative, say MLA Clare, who has a fairly strong platform regardless of whatever it is…? Let’s just say, for example, that somebody comes along and wants to build something in his constituency, the vast majority of the people say no, and we allow more free votes in our Legislature to be able to allow that process. So there’s less opportunity for non-confidence votes, less opportunity for leadership just to be able to pull the pin and say: “Either you do it my way or the highway, and we’ll take our chances in an election. Oh, by the way, I control whether you get your re-ups papers to run in the next election.”

Do you think that that would solve some of those issues if we had more free votes here?

Greg Holloway: I think you’re over my head, I’m afraid to say. I don’t have the experience that you folks have around the table.

I certainly do not want to suggest that the individual citizens are somehow trying to reach out and control their legislator. I mean, they can write a letter and say: “Dear Mary, please support such and such.” But no. I mean, I’m believing in the sanctity of the legislators once they’ve been elected. Then the further procedures, whether it’s a recall mechanism or other ways to balance things out…. But I don’t have nearly the background to answer your question more thoroughly.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): All right. Well, thank you for that.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): We appreciate your time today, Greg. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today.

Next, we have William Johnstone.

William Johnstone

William Johnstone: Bill Johnstone. I just live the other side of the park, Beacon Hill Park there, and I’m acquainted with this place. I edited your Hansard here for nine years. In my submission, I wrote about the democratic engagement and voter participation. But it all comes down to the ballot box. So in this five minutes, I’ll share my thoughts about electoral reform.

In our B.C. elections, winner-take-all has hurt our main parties, not just the small ones. Away back in 1916, the Conservatives ran. They had 9/10ths of the seats back then. They fell to just 2/10ths of the seats. They did recover, but in 1933, they sank again, from 7/10ths of the seats to under 1/10th.

Then in the ’50s, after the Socreds burst out, it was the social democrats who got whacked. In 1956, their share was cut in half. Then the Socreds collapsed in 1991, falling from two-thirds of the seats to just 1/10th. But the right came back, and ten years later, the NDP took two seats.

These wild swings in seat counts have hurt B.C. Plus, our Legislature deliberately chose not to be truly representative. As Mr. Clare was saying, right now a vote up north has three times the weight of my vote down south. There are five of those low-population ridings up there that deviate that much, because the remote folks have needed help contacting their MLA.

As our population grows, we keep adding seats. If we keep it up at this rate, you MLAs are going to end up with…. You’re not going to have any desks in the main chamber. You’ll be sitting shoulder to shoulder, like in the U.K., right?

I want a simple, more fair system that would give us better, more proportional representation. Specifically, I’d like two-member ridings. I’d like to go back to two-member ridings, with a few top-up seats.

[4:15 p.m.]

Here’s why. First, we need not more but fewer provincial ridings. Let’s say B.C. has 43 ridings. That’s actually how many federal ridings we have, and who objects to that? B.C. is okay with fewer but bigger ridings. It would alleviate that remote problem too.

Second, we’ve had ridings with two or more members through almost all our history. The whole province wasn’t forced into first-past-the-post until 1991. Let’s say that not only you won but also whoever came second in your riding. They got a seat too — gold medals and silver medals too.

I’ll steal a line from a basketball book I’m reading right now that says: “Your opponent is not your enemy.” Your party could run two candidates here and there to snag both the gold and silver medals. Conservatives could do it in Peace River and up in Nechako; New Democrats might in Vancouver East. Your gold and silver medalists would take 43 plus 43 — 86 seats in the House — and right there, over four-fifths of our voters would be fairly represented.

What about the people who didn’t vote for you and didn’t vote for who came second? Well, we do have 93 seats in our Leg., seven more seats to fill. So a third idea: bronze medals, to make seat shares match, or at least come closer to, the popular vote.

If your party doesn’t win enough firsts and seconds for your seat share, you top up. Those seats would go to your third-place candidates with the most votes or even members that your party leaders nominated. If there are more seats left, they’d go to the other third-placers with the most votes, the independents or small parties.

This is my main point: popular vote is the essence of democracy. It is the will of the people, and this matters more than getting a majority.

If popular vote had mattered back in 1991, the Socreds would have had 18 seats, instead of the seven they got. Their history might have been different. If popular vote had counted in 2001, the NDP would have had 17 seats, instead of just Jenny Kwan and Joy MacPhail.

Like now, in last fall’s election, a two-member system might have left the NDP and the Conservatives tied at 46 votes each, but the NDP would still have the most first-place winners in that case and would have the highest popular vote, so they’d still have first crack at forming government. It’s pretty much like what happened, but crucially, everyone’s vote would’ve counted.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Bill.

William Johnstone: Can I go for just a little bit more, just to wind up?

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Sure.

William Johnstone: Okay. I think this two-member system is easy to understand. With ridings and ballots like we use now and no big changes, there’d be no fussing over what threshold deserves representation, no fretting about fringe parties or extremists grabbing power. Our system would just get more democratic. If we ran elections with these simple changes, we’d never get lopsided majorities.

Sadly, though, while some party leaders have objected to such a system in the past, even if your committee recommends electoral reform, your party leaders may still crave a majority. Nevertheless, this would be one easy way to make our elections more fair. Our government would be less flip-floppy and more accountable, and your parties would be more stable. Anything with two or more members per riding would be better than the warped winner-take-all system we have now.

[4:20 p.m.]

B.C. voters don’t need or want another referendum. But to make it fail-safe, whatever you do, call it a trial run, and after two elections, we’d have a referendum to decide whether to keep it.

Looking outside, most places that wanted more fair electoral systems got them when the main parties agreed to it. B.C. needs, and can have, more fair representation. We can even make it happen for our next election. But it’s up to you, committee members, to take it back and convince your caucus to recommend some more fair system and make it happen.

Otherwise, why are you and I even here?

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Bill.

Sheldon Clare: We’re here because of an accord made between the Green Party and the NDP to have this committee. But I would just ask a couple of questions of you, Bill. I thank you for your service to Hansard.

One of the things in rep by pop that’s great, that is indeed the essence of the system…. What about, again, regional representation? Regional representation is hurt by representation by population because of the large geographic areas.

I know that when I was teaching my history classes, I would ask for a definition of what a Canadian is. The definition usually had to include some aspect of our complex geography. Without that, it wasn’t much of a definition.

I note that you wanted to make fewer ridings but with double the members. I think there is a different workload for federal MPs and provincial MLAs. This is all laid out in section 91 and section 92 of the Constitution Act.

We’re a little more in the weeds on a lot of things. They deal with things like defence and ferries that are outside of a province and that kind of thing.

Anyway, I wonder, again, about how you deal with base thresholds. Suppose you had an election where a member gets, say, 75 or 80 percent of the vote. We’ll go with 80 percent for easy figuring. That sounds dramatic.

William Johnstone: Has that ever happened?

Sheldon Clare: We’ve gone up to 70.

The remaining candidates, say there are two, split 15 equally. How do you determine who is the next choice? Do you have a runoff? Do you have to have another complicated…?

William Johnstone: I can’t imagine they would. Well, I guess it could happen. It would not be very frequent, that’s for sure.

Sheldon Clare: Well, in my election….

William Johnstone: I mean, that situation would be….

Sheldon Clare: In the election I won….

William Johnstone: They would be at least a few votes apart, no? In the second and third….

Sheldon Clare: Well, they were. They often are.

William Johnstone: So wouldn’t you use those? I mean, they have more votes.

Sheldon Clare: That’s the point, isn’t it? They had more votes. But I just wondered what you thought about that complexity between the federal and provincial powers and the representation by population as two separate things.

William Johnstone: If we went with the federal ridings, you’re looking at 116,000-ish people — not exactly — in every riding. I don’t understand quite why it would be that hard.

Sheldon Clare: Well, because I think what that does is it dramatically increases the complexity of the ridings on a provincial basis, based on the provincial division of powers in section 92 of the Constitution Act.

For example, the riding I represent right now has particular economic assets, resources and so on that make it fairly focused around those things. I deal a lot with complaints about highways. One of the most common complaints I have is roads and bridges.

William Johnstone: Transportation, yeah.

Sheldon Clare: Yes. Health care is up there, housing, some of the other things. Rural ridings tend to have quite different aspects, and I think that’s a thing. But when you’re dealing with the provincial system, and you’re looking at how you parse out your geography, how is it that that…?

[4:25 p.m.]

Say you combined the three ridings that have Prince George as an anchor point into…. They include Prince George–Mackenzie, Prince George–Valemount, Prince George–North Cariboo. They’re very different ridings with people with very different needs. Even within them, we have some significant differences.

How do you deal with the concerns of, say, people living in Hixon who don’t want to be overshadowed by College Heights in Prince George, or by Quesnel or those areas? How do you parse all that out?

I’ve put a lot of Ks on my truck the last two years, meeting just about everybody I could. I’m just not sure how that would improve things.

William Johnstone: Essentially that’s an argument for more and more ridings, because there are not going to be fewer people up there. They’re going to keep coming too. It actually kind of equalizes with the urban ridings. If you think about…. It wasn’t that long ago that Victoria had four members. Victoria was a single riding. Vancouver had six, all in one riding, almost like a ward system.

When you expand it that way, those same kinds of considerations happen in the urban environment. They’re different specific concerns, yes, but when you broaden it out, it’s more of an equalizer, I think.

Sheldon Clare: I don’t think it is, but we could probably talk about it for a while.

William Johnstone: I know Prince George south, Prince George north. I know the difference, but they’re not…. What I’m saying is that the urban differences would be there too, so it would be less of an issue overall. I don’t know. That’s my take.

Sheldon Clare: Thank you for your answer.

Rob Botterell: Thank you for your presentation. One of the presenters that we asked a similar question to, or MLA Clare asked a similar question to, responded with suggesting that one of the ways to tackle larger ridings would be to provide more resources to the MLA and the constituency office to facilitate engagement over a larger area. Would you support that: more resources to help deal with the larger area?

William Johnstone: My gut feel is probably not, but I’d like to see the specifics on it. I mean, it would be…. Maybe it’s something you could argue. Unlikely.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Great, thank you so much, Bill, for your presentation and for speaking with our committee this afternoon.

Next up we have Mark Jeffers.

Welcome, Mark. Thank you for being here this afternoon.

Mark Jeffers

Mark Jeffers: You do have my written submission. I’m going to depart from that a bit here.

I do appreciate the opportunity to speak here on electoral reform in particular. I am a political refugee from the conservative heartland of Alberta where I was an ABC voter my entire life until I moved here in 2011.

ABC is Anything But Conservative. No offence, but I’m never voting for you guys. I should have representation. So in Alberta, I didn’t. Simple as that. I lived in Redmonton for a time. Sometimes NDP or Liberal get in there, but….

I think we live in an increasingly polarized and divisive world here, and we’re seeing failing democracies. That includes here in Canada and even here in B.C. We’ve just had two scary elections — the federal election here, which had me voting strategically, and likewise a provincial election, where I was voting to stop an undesirable outcome, rather than have a representative of my choice.

Look at the failings of first-past-the-post, which is my main thesis here, that first-past-the-post was designed for a two-party world. We’ve never had that in my lifetime, in any jurisdiction that I’ve lived in here. Basically, by design, first-past-the-post leaves 50 percent or more of the voters without representation. If they didn’t go to the polls that day, it wouldn’t change one thing in the outcome. That’s not a democracy. That’s it, full stop.

I think that it also actively penalizes the smaller parties here. I’m a B.C. Green Party supporter, and I appreciate Rob being here. I want to have a voice. I want to be able to have that represented in the discussions. We don’t make the decisions, but we have influence, and that’s how democracy works.

[4:30 p.m.]

Some of the bizarre results that first-past-the-post…. I won’t give you a whole bunch of numbers here, but in B.C., in 1996, the NDP finished in second place in the popular vote. They supposedly won that election, though, and they even formed a so-called majority government, which is one absurdity here. The same year in New Brunswick, 60 percent of the vote went to the Liberals, but they got 100 percent of the seats — not democracy.

Federally, in the 1993 Canada election, Progressive Conservatives went from however many seats down to two seats. They had more votes than the Bloc Québécois, which finished in fourth place. As a separatist party, the Bloc got 54 seats and became official opposition. If that isn’t crazy, then I don’t know anything about politics.

Again, 2025, still voting strategically, so we need to fix things here. We need to reduce the polarization and increase engagement with voters, not discourage them from voting. Most of our elections are decided by swing ridings. We know that. Most of them have voted the same way for decades, if not longer, and they’re not likely to change, so the parties focus on those few seats.

The really partisan, hyper-partisan divisive politics rewards them in those situations. Just a matter of thousands of votes can shift a majority government from one party to another. We’ve seen that in the 2011 Harper election. I’m not sure now. I haven’t looked at the numbers for a long time. But it just isn’t that way when you get a small change like that. You get what we call policy lurch, where policies are created by a government that’s not broadly representative but has a false majority, and then the next government comes in a different party and undoes it all.

So why PR? Well, with PR, first of all, we really would have a representative democracy. So 90 percent-plus of the votes would elect a representative of my choice with PR. There are no safe seats, so the politicians are going to have to appeal to a broader base than they do. You know, it leads to a more collaborative cooperative type of government, and I think most of you probably would look to see that happen here. Although, you watch question period and sometimes you wonder.

I think our best policies, medicare and CPP, came out of the minority governments of the ’60s in Canada here. PR would have higher voter turnout; stronger economies; better policies, including environment; and most importantly, it would give more women representation in legislatures and minorities as well.

What kind of PR? I’m not going to get into that. That would take me giving you one of my presentations and a bunch of graphs and pictures and stuff. I think there are a lot of myths and false equivalencies and deliberate gaslighting going on. There are vested interests that want to keep first-past-the-post. It rewards the top two parties, so they have a vested interest in keeping it in place here.

As far as our referendum goes, do we need referendum to decide who should or shouldn’t get the vote? We didn’t do that with women’s votes when it finally happened in the early part of the 20th century. We could do like New Zealand and bring in a PR government here, have a couple elections, and let people decide after that. It can get complicated, but fair voting is not complicated here.

Last thing I’d talk about is the young voters here, that they should get the vote at age 16. They can go to jail. They should have a say. They’re passionate. They are often better informed and engaged.

The real barrier to change here is party self-interest, so I would ask all of you to set that aside. This has been going on a long time here. They did say yes — 58 percent in the first referendum — and then a lot of smoke screens have happened since then.

In summary, first-past-the-post is outdated, unfair, divisive and disengages voters. We don’t need a referendum to do the right thing. We need to educate, engage and empower voters. Please, let’s help fix our democracy here and protect it. As my wife said at the ERRE hearings in 2016, let’s get it done. Thank you.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Mark. I will go to MLA Anderson.

George Anderson: Thank you for your presentation. One of the things you just mentioned was that often, young people are more informed on some of these issues. I’m just curious if you have any suggestions or recommendations out. We can make the other side of the population more informed about various different issues that are occurring, whether it’s proportional representation, whether it’s infrastructure that needs to be built, and so on and so forth.

Mark Jeffers: I think it speaks to one of the key problems we have — the misinformation and critical thinking and things like that. I think this is where government can take a really active role. I think one of the things that would be called on is to stop the partisan pseudo-information that happens just before an election is dropped and just continually inform voters of all ages what’s going on.

[4:35 p.m.]

We need to really step that up, because there’s so much information out there. There needs to be verifiable portals of solid information, much like we do with banking systems. Maybe someday it’ll be secure enough to do online voting. I don’t know, but that would be one of the things to do it.

I was a teacher. They took out the government unit in grade 6 before I got to teach grade 6. That would have been a great way to engage kids, because they’re so passionate and fair-minded at that age. Get them started early and give them a solid grounding in civics.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much for your presentation. What is your take on…? We’re talking about information. I think there’s a lot of worry about some of the things that are leaking in from the States, because we don’t have a First Amendment in Canada. Quite frankly, I think the First Amendment is just allowing so many people to be able to lie. It’s not just disinformation; it’s basically out-and-out lies. So how are we going to be able to…?

Going through this process, we’ve had some really good engagement with people like yourselves being very honest on how they feel and how they would like us to be able to have some form of representation from a PV system, so that if 10 percent of the voters — particularly, let’s say they were Green — have 10 percent representation in the Legislature.

But how would we be able to move forward with this process if we don’t have a system in place for information that we’re comfortable with? We’ve had conversations with people about some jurisdictions in Europe where they have more fact-checking, they have more emphasis on Meta and the big platforms to not have these algorithms to be able to continue to feed the fire on this disinformation.

How do you think that we should be able to try to turn the ship around on that and be able to have people make an informed decision and not just stay in those echo chambers?

Mark Jeffers: Well, we’d fix the world’s problems if we could really do that. I mean, you mentioned lies and stuff, and Facebook’s one of the worst sources of that. I use it to keep touch with family and put pictures of nature up and stuff.

I think that’s one of the first things — to look at where people are getting information.

We don’t have the First Amendment here.

We have the digital services tax thing going on right now. Maybe we could expand that to look at what’s coming across the border from Facebook and things like that. We need alternatives to that.

But it comes back to my earlier question. If we have government-supported, public-education-based portals that would call out lies — fact-checking, as you say, like some of the European jurisdictions are doing — that would certainly go a long way toward that.

That’s my short answer from a tired brain.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Great, appreciate that.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Are there any further questions?

Thank you so much, Mark, and thank you for spending a tiny bit of your anniversary with us here today. Happy anniversary.

All right. Finally we have Sara Plumpton.

Welcome, Sara. As you get settled in, I’ll just remind you that you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes for questions. You can get started when you’re ready.

Sara Plumpton

Sara Plumpton: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Madam Chair Jesse Sunner, members of the committee — NDP, Conservative and Green. My name is Sarah Plumpton. I’ve been a secondary humanities teacher for 30 years.

I bring you the cynicism, fears and hopes of my students, especially my students from the second half of my career, when the anxiety epidemic began to sweep through the anxious generation.

Give them proportional representation the next time we go to the polls in B.C. Multi-member ridings, top-up seats or both would allow my students to vote their conscience as dictated by their generational anxiety. No winner-take-all or another referendum required.

The B.C. government’s revamped school curriculum emphasizes teamwork and empathy as life skills. My students want MLAs who work together. They know that compromise and collaboration is the best route to good grades — or legislation that truly reflects all voters, not just those whose votes weren’t thrown away. The B.C. curriculum taught them this.

[4:40 p.m.]

The government-mandated curriculum is also green through and through. Why would you leave our empathetic young people in the horrible situation of having knowledge of human impact on the environment but leave the democratic process the way it is, where their votes count for next to nothing in the face of capitalist forces, or leave them unable to vote at 16, when they can drive, have a SIN number and work?

Years ago, a class conversation about the school mock federal election made a lasting impression on me. After discussing party platforms and what the students hoped for Canada and their futures, two themes emerged: they were scared, and they wanted to know how I was voting. I had always explained to students that Canadians have the right to vote by secret ballot, but that time I perceived an urgency in their questions about how I personally voted. I took a chance, and I told them.

The reaction was instantaneous and uniform, like a wave across my classroom. The students exhaled audibly, and they sat back in their chairs, their stressed posture and tight shoulders gone. In the exhaled breaths, I heard the words “Thank you.” I had told them I had voted Green. One student at the back of the class said to me: “You vote Green for us, don’t you, Ms. Plumpton?” “Yes, I do.”

This led to more students picking up on the thank-yous of the original visceral reaction. My students felt that voters didn’t care enough to prioritize their future. Cynically, they knew that my vote had been thrown away, but I had cast it, and they knew it had been for them. I got the same thank-yous year after year. It hadn’t been a one-off.

Having contacted former students, ages 20 to 40, they had this to say about democratic process and involvement: “My entire education included the devastating knowledge of climate change and its consequences. The tension is inescapable. There’s only one Earth.” “I do not want to vote strategically or against a party. I want to vote my conscience.” And: “I want our representatives to work together for long-term goals, not compete for short-term political gain.” Finally: “It’s an existential dread. I know disaster is inevitable. My whole life will be shaped by climate change.”

They all expressed this core need: “I want my vote to count for something.”

Many of the anxious generation do not vote. Whatever format of PR you recommend will increase voter participation. Please alleviate the anxiety epidemic crippling our cynical young people. The promised voting reform of 2015 got my students excited about the democratic process and the possibilities of PR. You might be surprised by how many people, from the pragmatic to the hopeful, turn out to vote when their vote isn’t thrown away. Their words, not mine.

For one moment, when I revealed my vote, the anxiety that weighs young people down was lifted. I visibly saw and heard the release of tension. I want you to be part of what I experienced in my classroom. Lift that tension from their shoulders. Change our voting system to make their votes count for something. Enact PR.

Thank you very much. I am ready for questions.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Thank you, Sara.

Are there any questions?

Rob Botterell: Thank you for your presentation, Sara.

I want to shift gears a bit and ask for your thoughts around reducing the voting age to 16. I really appreciate your presentation on proportional representation and your personal experience, but you’ve obviously worked with students for many, many years. What are your views on reducing the voting age to 16?

[4:45 p.m.]

Sara Plumpton: Well, I voted in my first federal election when I was in grade 12. My birthday’s in January. I know that my classmates were jealous, because they were definitely engaged. We had current events, etc. I got to vote, and nobody else did, because I was 18.

When I first started teaching, I thought to myself: “There’s no way these teenagers could possibly be responsible enough.” But after having been in the classroom for 30 years, I think that they are just as responsible as the people we call adults.

They are informed because they are in classes, hopefully with responsible teachers who are giving them multiple party platforms, informing them so that they can engage in their own critical thinking and make their own decisions. If we get them involved when they have that guidance from outside the home as well as from the home, and they participate in their first election before they go off to college and everything goes crazy because they’ve changed everything in their lives, we’ve got a better chance of keeping them involved. That’s why I think 16 would be good.

Jessie Sunner (Chair): Are there any further questions?

Okay, I don’t see any further questions, Sara. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here.

Thank you to everyone that came and shared your thoughts with us this afternoon. It’s really helpful for our committee.

Can I get a motion to adjourn?

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 4:46 p.m.