B.C. voters will answer two big questions in next May's election. One could change the government, the other could change our politics forever.
First could be the election of an NDP government. It is a tight contest between Premier Gordon Campbell's Liberals and Carole James's New Democrats, but Ms. James is the way to bet as of today.
Three late 2008 polls show why. Ipsos Reid shows the Liberals ahead by four points. New competitor Angus Reid Strategies shows the NDP ahead by five points. And the Mustel Group poll shows the parties effectively neck and neck (two points up for the Liberals) but clear momentum to the NDP. The declining Greens are still at 12 points. Will they break toward the left, or the carbon-fighting Mr. Campbell?
Mr. Campbell has been tagged most effectively by his opponents as "arrogant and out of touch." But his supporters say the economy is now at the top-of-the-issue heap, and Ms. James has yet to sell her credentials as a manager for tough times.
One thing markedly diminished is the very real fear of the NDP that prevailed when Mr. Campbell first won in 2001. There is nothing frightening about Ms. James. She is a sensible moderate. But yet to be demonstrated is her ability to control some of the old class warriors still to be found in the NDP backrooms.
Big money will still be on the Liberal side but, if anything, that confirms the arrogance/out-of-touch tag. Big unions will still be with the New Democrats, damaging their attempted message of moderation.
In a way, it is B.C. politics as usual - which, in this conservative province, favours the right. But the old "time for a change" urge always grows with the passing years in power.
Far more important, with apologies to these two estimable contestants, is what B.C. voters do with our referendum on electoral reform. Readers may recall that, in 2004, our Citizens' Assembly strongly recommended a new voting system called the single transferable vote.
STV is essentially what the Irish have used since 1922. This is not the proportional representation scheme rejected recently by Ontario voters. For example, STV is not helpful to fringe groups or party bosses at all. But it does give a better chance to middling parties, increases voter choice, reduces party control of candidate lists and tends to elect quite a few independents.
This latter factor markedly reduces the control of the party whips in the legislature, because any member threatened with discipline for siding with constituency sentiment as opposed to the party line can say - and believably - that if fired from the caucus, then he or she will simply run as an independent, and win.
This is an important change in the balance of power. And since the only person each of us gets to vote for directly is our MLA or MP, increasing their power helps us as well, again at the expense of parties.
Majority governments are less common with the STV system, but Canadians are getting used to that idea. Polls show we seem to like the fact that our traditional majority rule by four-year elected dictators has been replaced by a new reality where the governing party actually has to respect and listen to the opposition.
In the 2005 referendum, the new system was approved in every riding in British Columbia save two, and got almost 58 per cent of the vote. But the threshold set by the legislature was 60 per cent.
To the major credit of Mr. Campbell, he concluded that 58 per cent was too big a number to ignore. He proposed a rerun of the referendum with new information - specific multi-member STV riding boundaries that have now been delineated. The legislature agreed, and so we shall have our vote again.
If British Columbia does reform its electoral system, it could have national consequences. Good ideas can be contagious. Declining voter turnout and quality of people seeking office indicate a need for some kind of change. Our complex society needs ever better government (and less of it, too, though that's another story). Electoral reform is one of the simplest improvements. British Columbia may decide to lead the way.
ggibson@bc-home.com
