Every time there is a by-election, I hear people saying the same thing: “How much is this going to cost?”. I usually respond: “democracy has a price, and that price is less onerous than a “free” dictatorship”. But that being said, is there a way to mitigate the costs related to an election?

Right now, in BC (and everywhere in Canada) if an elected official resigns (a fairly common event), is expelled from the legislature (a very rare event) or dies (an event that everyone has to go through in life), we have to hold a by-election to replace the departing (or departed) politician. Under our current system, there is no other way of dealing with this issue.

Under BC-STV, it could be a different story. As you may know, under BC-STV, electors rank candidates according to their preferences. Under that system, votes are transferred to your second, third, fourth, etc. choices depending of various situations; see http://stv.ca/how-does-stv-work#transfer for more details regarding this process.

The same principle could be applied if, for example, an MLA resigns during his/her mandate. Instead of holding a by-election, we can simply look back at the results of the previous general election. From those results, we simply transfer the choice made by voters who elected the departing politician. The result is that we get a new elected officials who has, roughly, the same values and ideas has the one who just quit. In other words, a new MLA from the same party.

This is actually what is being done in Australia and Malta. And not only does it save a by-election, but the voters’ will gets very well transferred under this principle and the new politician is almost always of the same party of the departing politician. Therefore, balance between parties remains. In fact, since 1985, in Tasmania, if the “new” guy is not from the same party as the “old” one, a by-election must be organized. And this has yet to happen.

Under the current FPTP system, by-elections must be held to replace politicians. Under BC-STV, by-elections can be avoided, without compromising the people’s will.

You can read more about this issue in here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issues_affecting_the_Single_Transferable_Vote#Vacancies

Frédéric Van Caenegem

Published in the latest edition of Common Ground:

“Under BC-STV, each person gets to rank candidates in order of preference 1, 2, 3, etc. If your favourite candidate is eliminated, your vote is not wasted; it is simply transferred to your second choice, and so on. No need to vote strategically for the “lesser of two evils” as we do currently. I truly believe that BC-STV is a tool to get our democracy to work better, to get governments more responsive to the people and to improve the “government of the people, by the people, for the people” as per Abraham Lincoln’s famous saying.”

Frédéric Van Caenegem

More “BC-STV: In 100 words or less”: http://www.commonground.ca/iss/213/cg213_stv.shtml

The following is an email I’ve sent to friends and contacts earlier today!

Title: BC-STV

This message is in English only, so no need to look further down!

Pas de français??? Non, pas cette fois!!!

Hello friends!

I am writing about politics. If not interested, you can just delete, I will never know and therefore not feel offended!

As you may know, there is an important referendum coming on May 12, here in BC. The referendum will ask people whether or not they want to change the way we elect our MLAs (Member of the Legislative Assembly) in Victoria. There are two propositions:
- FPTP (First Pass The Post) – the current system
- BC-STV (Single Transferable Vote) – the alternative

I personally clearly favour the BC-STV alternative.

In our current system, we vote for one candidate. This simple idea creates in reality hugely distorted results. For example, a Party getting a minority of the vote forms the government, or ever worst, the Party coming in second place can form a majority government! Also in our system, some parties can get a significant percentage of the vote and get no seats! All of this cannot be good for democracy!

In 2003, the provincial government created the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. Ordinary citizens were picked by random throughout BC and had for mandate to look at the different electoral systems used all over the world. After careful consideration, they proposed that BC-STV would be the best system for BC. I was a bit surprised by their choice at the beginning, but after looking at it more closely, I really came to realise that STV is clearly the best option for BC.

Under BC-STV, each person gets to rank candidates in order of preference 1, 2, 3, etc. If your favourite candidate gets little popular support and is eliminated, your vote is not wasted; it is simply transferred to your second choice, and so on… No need to vote strategically for the “lesser of two evil” as we do currently. You just vote according to your conscience. You rank candidates according to your preference in different parties, or all in the same Party if you want, it’s up to you. And if you want to vote for just one candidate, that’s fine too!

STV is already being used in Ireland, New Zealand, Malta and Australia. These countries have amongst the highest electoral participation in the world! The reason is simple: your vote makes a difference! Experience in those countries also shows that STV creates legislature where the numbers of MLA in the assembly is very close to the popular vote. If a Party gets 40% of the vote, it will get about 40% (±2%) of the seats! That makes sense!

BC-STV will not fix all the problems in the world; it will not eliminate poverty in our province, fix our troubled economy or retrofit our schools for earthquake resistance (no one talks about this issue!). Some people don’t like that STV tends to create minority government. Experience elsewhere shows it makes coalition government where parties tend to work together (most of the time, it is still politics after all!). BC-STV will not fix everything, but I truly believe it is a tool to get our democracy to work better, to get governments more responsive to the people, to improve the “government of the people, by the people and for the people” as per Abraham Lincoln’s famous saying.

As you guessed, I am involved with the “Yes for BC-STV” campaign. Not sure exactly how to best utilize my talents (the story of my life!) but I’m trying to get involved with the reach out to cultural communities, where I feel I can best utilize my natural aptitudes.

If you are interested in helping out for the referendum, you can register on the “Yes for STV” website (http://www.stv.ca/) or contact me directly. If you know a friend or relative that might be interested, please spread the news. If you have questions about STV, this electoral process or whatever is on your mind, you can always email or phone me and I will try my best to answer neutrally (yes, I can do that!) your questions.

Please find below additional sites if you want to learn more:
BC government information website: http://www.bcreferendum2009.ca/
Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform: http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/
Yes for BC-STV: http://www.stv.ca/
No for BC-STV: http://www.nostv.org/

Thank you for reading,
Frédéric
http://www.vancf.net/

My comment to this post:
http://challengingthecommonplace.blogspot.com/2009/02/bc-ndp-and-electoral-reform-p4.html

By this non-response, Carole James want the referendum to fail. She seem to say that if the yes for BC-STV is under 60%, then an other form of Proportional Representation (like MMP) will be proposed to British Columbians. But, by being vague, she makes no commitments toward this. In other words, she wants the referendum to fail and the current electoral system to continue as is.

To those who like MMP (and it is your right to prefer that system) don’t be tempted to vote No for STV in the hope of a theoretically better system in the future. The referendum is between STV and FPTP, people are asked to make a decision on these two options (I prefer STV personally). If you like a third alternative, I am afraid you are left to make up your mind on the systems proposed and continue promoting whatever electoral system you prefer in the future.

Frédéric Van Caenegem

A few days ago, I sent an email to the City of Vancouver Engineering Department to advise them that the “pedestrian detector” (not sure how to call it) at an intersection near my workplace was not working.  My hopes that this would be looked at were very slim.  I was, firstly, quite surprised to receive an email the following day saying they will look into the issue.  I was even more surprised three days later when, coming at this intersection as I usually do, the detector was actually fixed and working properly!

Someone has established good internal communications inside the Engineering  Department of the City of Vancouver.  Bravo!  Please find below the email exchange.

Frédéric Van Caenegem

________________________________________

From : Frédéric Van Caenegem
Send : November 22 12:36:33
To : Engineering Records Management

Hello Darren
Thank you for looking into this fixing the problem.  Great internal communications!
Sincerely,
Frédéric.

Subject: RE: Pedestrian crossing on 4th under Granville Bridge
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:32:13 -0800
From: Engineering Records Management
To: Frédéric Van Caenegem

Hello,
The following message was sent from the electrical office:
Thank you for advising us of this pedestrian crossing problem. We will look into the matter.
Thank you,
Darren

From: Frédéric Van Caenegem
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 9:45 AM
To: Engineering Records Management
Subject: Pedestrian crossing on 4th under Granville Bridge

Hi!
Just wanted to advise that the pedestrian crossing on 4th avenue, under Granville Bridge, is not working properly.  The detector on the North side is not functioning, therefore it never gives enough time to cross the street.
It should be fix rapidly, at this crossing is a blind spot for drivers who can’t easily see pedestrians.
Frédéric

ICBC and many police departments in the province have started a campaign to increase security at intersections.  You can read more here: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/2008/11/07/7334016-sun.html.

I’m wondering at all if we should abolish the right to turn right on a red light. I know it is a very unpopular measure, but I have seen so many times drivers only looking left at incoming traffic and turning without realizing pedestrians crossing the street on their right. Once I saved my (then fiancée, now wife) life by knocking on the vehicle’s hood of a driver who did not bother looking to the right. Another time, I saw a man doing the same thing, saving his dog’s life undoubtedly.

Many drivers don’t seem to know that drivers are required by law to immobilize their vehicle before turning on a red light and that pedestrians have the right of way over automobiles. I know this idea is very unpopular, but saving lives has no price.

Also, advise for pedestrians: MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH DRIVERS. I always make eye contact, and it is why my wife is alive (or at least not crippled) today.

In 2003, I voted for the Olympics.  Even though most (if not all) Olympics games organized since WWII have been to the benefit of the rich and privileged in any society, I hoped these games would not be too much for the well-being but would also be for the average people.  My hopes were not too high, but just enough to vote yes.  Five years later, I bitterly regret it.

Probably because the city had a good mayor then, I hope he and the city council (controlled by the left-wing COPE) would be a good counter-balance to the right-wing liberal provincial government.  However, as you know, mayor Larry Campbell didn’t seek a second mandate, and despite coming close, his protégé wasn’t elected.  The new mayor had no vision for the city and turned out to be blindly pro-business.

Olympics games require a lot of projects and infrastructures development, and the key decisions regarding these investments are done between 5 to 3 years before the actual Olympics games. That, for Vancouver, is between 2005 to 2007.  Just the right time to have pro-business right-wing administrations controlling the city, the province and even the federal government (from 2006)!

Consequences: almost all developments in infrastructures in the greater Vancouver benefited private enterprises: new bridges, more roads, new convention centre, etc. The only project that would be useful to everyone was the rapid transit RAV line.  But even that was done in private partnership and with overflowing costs.

Thinking about it, five years later, my hope for balanced Olympics where roads are expanded in conjunction with public transport projects, where real estate development includes good quality affordable housing projects are quite dead. It is too late now for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics: they will benefit only the rich and powerful.  But hope is not all lost, now is time to prepare the after Olympics!

Frédéric Van Caenegem

Here is my response to this comment:
http://billtieleman.blogspot.com/2007/12/poll-shows-strong-opposition-to.html

Hi Bill!

As always, you have a very interesting article, but this time I have to disagree with your analysis of the poll numbers. As you know, the real debate is not the take land out of the ALR (most people would not) but whether to take it out of the ALR in order to reach an agreement with the Tsawwassen First Nation. Lets look closely at the questions.

The first question ends with “and allowing the band to do what it pleases with that land?” This addition, while being true, is there to create a negative answer from the respondent. Words and expression have hidden meanings; and the expression “do what it pleases” creates a negative reaction in most people (unless it applies to them directly). Therefore, most people would answer negatively to such a comment, no matter what preceded it. I am sure that a significant number of people answered negatively to the question, because of this little addition and not because they oppose the treaty.

It would be interesting to know what would be the answer to the question without the addition: “Do you support or oppose the province removing farmland from the agricultural land reserve to reach a treaty with the Tsawwassen First Nation?”

The second question, on the other hand, is well done and contains no biases. It shows that 71% of British Columbians support final settlements with First Nations. This is a significantly high number.

My impression is that British Columbians very are divided on whether or not ALR lands should be taken out of it in order to reach an agreement. The reality is that this treaty is going ahead. Lets now hope and convince the Tsawwassen First Nation to maintain the Agricultural vocation of their new lands.

Frédéric Van Caenegem

Here is the latest text to be published in TheSource:

__________

The Enduring Voices project from the National Geographic Society has recently identified five “global hotspots” where languages are rapidly disappearing. One of these five regions is the Pacific Northwest of North America.

Although many reasons explain the endangered status of Native languages, the main blow was the Residential School System established in Canada by French and British missionaries from the 17th century to convert Native populations to Christianity.

In the beginning, missionaries were encouraged to learn native languages. But from the late 19th century, the use of these native languages was greatly discouraged, mainly by directives coming from the Department of Indian Affairs, and the use of English greatly encouraged if not forced. Schools usually punished children (sometimes quite severely) for using native languages. In addition to punishment, isolation was the main reason for the lost of languages. Children were usually separated from their communities for months, sometimes seeing their families only during the two months of summer.

The Coast Salish people’s homeland is located around the Georgia Straight and Puget Sound and includes the locations of present-day cities of Vancouver and Seattle. The Salish people spoke about a dozen languages; today most are only spoken by few individuals, rarely under 60 years of age. Halkomelem is the language spoken on the territory that is now the city of Vancouver. The Halkomelem language includes three dialects: The Upriver (or Sto:lo) dialect spoken in the Fraser Valley; the Downriver dialect, spoken roughly in what is now the GVRD; and the Island dialect, spoken on the East Coast of Vancouver Island, around what is now Nanaimo.

Halkomelem (all dialects) is spoken by about 200 individuals, of which none are under 15 years old! The Musqueam (downriver) dialect is spoken fluently by only a handful of people. But, according to Larry Grant, Elder of the Musqueam Nation and teacher of Halkomelem at UBC, “a majority of the community’s 1200 members do understand a lot of words in the language.”

Dr Suzanne Gessner, Director of the First Nations Languages Program at UBC, insists on the difference between languages and dialects, because many individuals don’t know the difference very well. Basically, if two people can understand each other, they speak the same language. If they have some different expressions and tones but still can understand each other then they speak two different dialects of the same language. Numbers of speakers, prestige status or having a written form has nothing to do with it. English is a language; Scottish, Australian or Jamaican English are dialects. There are about 37 First Nations languages in BC, of which three have already disappeared, but the other languages can still be learned and passed to the younger generation.

First Nations people are slowly taking control of teaching their respective heritage, culture and languages. But, the effects of colonisation had a profound and sometime twisted impact. One of the major challenges in teaching languages where most speakers are elderly is precisely that elders don’t necessarily have the energy or ability to teach to children. The middle generation needs to intervene to teach themselves the language they are learning from their parents.

The challenges are enormous and pressing. Dr Gessner notices that most First Nations want to educate their children, but they need long-term stable funding. In her opinion, grants and one-time financial settlements, while helpful, are not as essential as long-term stable funding that needs, perhaps, to be incorporated into the Ministry of Education programs. Documentation is required in the form of books for children but also to record and write down the current knowledge of elders. Funding is also necessary for training and teaching and also for computer application. Dr Gessner adds that First Nations should be given the means to take control of teaching their respective languages.

There are some successes that gives hope to save First Nations languages. The Nisga’a have control of their own education and are able to teach their language in school. About 30 children now speak the language. Same for the Shuswap Nation where the Chief Atahm School of Adam’s Lake made it so that about 40 children and teens can speak Secwepemc, and more are learning. The Lillooet Band has also just started a school to teach Stl’atl’imx.

With the First Nations languages disappearing, it’s not just a means of communication that is fading, but also a whole different way to see and understand the universe. But the future of mankind is not written in stone, and the First Nations languages of British Columbia are still alive. However, actions must be taken now to pass this knowledge on to future generations before it is too late.

This is a comment sent to the Electoral Boundaries Comission a few days ago.

__________

I was absolutely impressed by the report made by the Electoral Boundaries Commission in August of this year.  When I saw the Preliminary Report, my reaction was (and my wife is a witness) “Oh my God! It’s like they followed all my recommendations”.  So I’d like to congratulate the Commission and everyone who works there for a remarkable work.

You can imagine my deception when the Premier, following discontent mostly in the North of the province, decided to increase the number of MLAs from 81 to 89.  I personally don’t see the difference in having 7 MLAs out of 81 or having 8 out of 89!  But that is another issue and is not the point of this submission.

My focus is mainly on the STV maps and boundaries, for which I have more of an interest and which I think needs to “make geographic sense”; a very vague concept I admit.  I want to come back to the Preliminary Report made this August, which I found near perfect.  It’s difficult to put Boundaries inside Vancouver or Surrey for example and the decision by the Commission looks appropriate to me.  Major Regions of BC are separated and I don’t see any STV district that, in my opinion, is located in 2 regions.  In total, looking at both STV and SMP maps, I saw only 3 minor problems.  In order of importance:

1. Downtown Kelowna.  Most of downtown Kelowna is part of the Okanagan-Boundary STV district and is completely surrounded by Okanagan-Shuswap STV district.  Kelowna, as a whole, needs, in my opinion, to be part of the same STV district and not be divided.

2. North.  There is a strip north of the Northwest STV district that is part of the Northeast STV district.  In my humble opinion, that strip needs to be part of Northwest STV district.

3. North Shore.  The North Shore STV district needs a name that reflects that it also includes Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton.  I think it should be name something like “North Shore – Sea to Sky”; or something similar.

That being said, I hope that the Premier’s new “instructions” will not force you to start completely from scratch because you have done, in my opinion, a wonderful job.

Thank you,
Frédéric Van Caenegem