The Liberals are scared they will never govern again under Pro Rep. They’ve grown accustomed to the anointing they receive under the current system. They feel that even though a majority of people don’t want them they are the natural governing party. It doesn’t occur to them to try to appeal to the majority. The unwashed are beneath them.
You can hear the nail-biting from the No side. The province will be ruled by some small right-wing extremist party. If the result was the right being eternally in power they would be in favour of it. The tail wagging the dog scenario hasn’t come to pass. The Greens have been unable to block either Site C or the LNG projects. Mr. Weaver may have had some moderating influence but he is clearly not in control. In truth the government will change, and change again. Even under Pro Rep.
This issue is democracy. The Liberals seem to see elections as an inconvenient ritual they have to go through to be re-anointed as the true and proper rulers of this province. In their last turn at government they gerrymandered the ridings in BC by “protecting” three regions of this province. By staggering coincidence these are BC Liberal strongholds. I’ve heard the justification that the interior ridings require only 10% fewer voters to elect an MLA. If the interior ridings required 10% more voters to elect an MLA imagine the tears of injustice that would be shed by the Liberal MLA’s. Amazingly the referendum process locks this gerrymandering in place. That doesn’t stop the No Side from proclaiming that the interior would lose power under Pro Rep.
The No Side behaves like a sleazy defense lawyer. They know their client is guilty. They just don’t care. All they have to do is try to cause reasonable doubt by whatever means necessary.
If you want honesty former MLA Kevin Kruger had it spades. He was genuinely sorry for those ridings that were foolish enough to not elect a Liberal MLA. It meant that the government wouldn’t spend money in their ridings because the government wouldn’t want any credit to go to an opposition MLA.
In another conversation I had with Mr. Kruger he explained that you couldn’t expect the government to do something for an opposition MLA because that MLA was just moments before criticizing the government on the floor. For some reason we can’t expect MLA’s to behave with professionalism.
Mr. Kruger was never held to account. Our MLA’s have never represented our concerns to the government. If you ask them to help you with something they don’t agree with they will tell you why you are wrong. IIf we had more than one MLA we would have our concerns raised in the house, not filtered out by the party representatives.
Grant Fraser
Kamloops, BC
