This was a can't-lose election for the citizens of Powell River-Sunshine Coast. After four years of mostly absentee representation by Harold Long, the quintessential backbencher, any result on election night was bound to bring an improvement.
For different reasons, I liked all three of the serious candidates in this riding (I can't comment on Allen McIntyre, a fringe candidate who never bothered to present his ideas to the public.) Green Party leader Adriane Carr has been campaigning non-stop since the 2001 election, and I've always been impressed by her knowledge of the issues, her fresh ideas and her public speaking skills. Maureen Clayton seemed sincere in her desire to turn the Liberal Party in a kinder, gentler direction. And Nicholas Simons, who won the riding for the NDP, showed a genuine passion for some issues that meant a lot to me.
I had some real struggles with myself, not to mention some lively debates with my husband over the breakfast table, as I decided how to cast my vote. In an ideal world, I thought, this vote would not have to be an either/or choice. In an ideal world I wouldn't have to worry about voting strategically or "wasting" my vote.
So I voted "yes" in the referendum on the Single Transferable Vote in an effort to bring that ideal world a little closer to reality.
When I cast my vote, I believed the STV referendum had almost no chance of passing. It was too complex, too poorly publicized, and no major political organizations were promoting it. The "yes" campaign was totally grassroots, consisting of small, earnest groups of citizens meeting in libraries to discuss political science theories. Surely, I thought, most people would opt for the status quo rather than take a chance on switching to a little-understood and little-used voting system.
Was I ever wrong about that! The STV referendum won a resounding majority in almost every riding in the province and came very, very close to the magic 60 per cent it needed to pass. Far more citizens voted for the STV than voted for the Liberals last Tuesday. To me the STV vote is the most exciting, most unexpected and most important result of this election, one that may be remembered as historic long after the names of Gordon Campbell and Carole James have been forgotten.
Like the national referendum on the Charlottetown Accord, the STV referendum gave citizens a voice, and what they had to say shocked the pundits and the backroom boys.
One of the arguments against the STV was the old cliché, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Well, the referendum proved that most B.C. citizens believe the party-dominated, "first past the post" voting system is broken, and we definitely do need to fix it. If the mainstream political parties want to have any credibility to their pretense of representing the people, they had better listen to that message and act on it.
