Oldest Living Blogger asks: "What do you think of the STV?"
By Ray on May 9, 2005 - 12:37am
Experts, like Norman Spector, say "Don't do it. Don't fix what isn't broken". The Vancouver Sun's Editorial staff, on the other hand, have come out in favour of it. So there's two schools of thought here.
Norman figures our present system is stable and showing some signs of moderation, suggesting we should stick with our present system. He knows a lot more about government and its "modus operandi" than I do, so I tend to respect his opinion, even while being mindful of the fact his experiences in the rarified air of Parliament Hill in Ottawa might make him prejudiced towards the "status quo", so to speak.
The Vancouver Sun's Editorial Staff, with whom I usually agree, seem to think a change is as good as a rest, and tell us in Saturday's paper that we ought to vote in favour of this new voting system, because it may bring us more representative government with people more attuned to our individual needs or desires or preferences.
Weighing it all up, I'm thinking something like this: The system we've got works, but not well. Our present system promotes the well-known situation we've all become too familiar with here in B.C. of polarization, sometimes rather extreme, and always seemingly excessive. But it delivers majority government with which we get results.
I know very little about this STV stuff, except that a committee of our peers numbering about 160 laboured hard & long to firstly learn about it themselves, and then secondly, choose a new system they felt met our needs. But as I understand it, this new STV system can easily result in any given riding ending up with from two to as many as several elected MLAs, and so I have to ask myself "Is that good?" And then Myself promptly answers back with another question: " Why pay two or three or four or five guys to do the job that one of them does now?" Myself also asks: "If the Legislature as it is right now can often get tied up in knots by bickering and shouting and name-calling Members, how much worse might that be if there were even more of them in more different parties, all getting their own two-bits worth in there?"
So, Oldest Living Blogger asks you "What do you think?" Do we stick with the familiar which breeds contempt, or jump into the Great Unknown and learn by trial & error? Is this the best time to be re-inventing the wheel ? Let's hear from you, Folks.
