Section 3 – Policy Initiatives & 2025 Deliverables
11. Democratic and Electoral Reform
The Parties will work together to create a special legislative all-party committee to evaluate and recommend policy and legislation measures to be pursued beginning in 2026 to increase democratic engagement & voter participation, address increasing political polarization, and improve the representativeness of government. The committee will review and consider preferred methods of proportional representation as part of its deliberations. The Government will work with the BCGC to establish the detailed terms of reference for this review, which are subject to the approval of both parties. The terms of reference will include the ability to receive expert and public input, provide for completion of the Special Committee’s work in Summer 2025, and public release of the Committee’s report within 45 days of completion. The committee will also review the administration of the 43rd provincial general election, including consideration of the Chief Electoral Officer’s report on the 43rd provincial general election, and make recommendations for future elections.
A direct democracy is impractical, but perhaps a liquid democracy might be. In any case, this is why we have a representative democracy, our elected representatives are supposed to represent us, which seldom happens in FPTP due to its winner-take-all nature.
But the discussion we are having isn’t about the degree of concentration of power, but rather PR versus non-PR.
Okay, so if I’m advocating for direct democracy, it’s more democratic than PR. So, this is PR vs non PR.
Or, do you not actually care about democracy? Because earlier it seemed that the only thing that mattered to an electoral system was how democratic it was. Hard to argue direct democracy is less democratic than PR…
You are trying to make the case that FPTP is better than PR. That’s the discussion we are having, so stop moving the goal posts.
If you want to have a serious discussion, let’s have it, but don’t play these nonsense games of dodging inconvenient facts.
I’m just seeing how your logic plays out. You can’t have it wherein “if I’m talking about PR, then all that matters is how democratic a system is” AND “if I’m talking about any other system, then the practicalities and consequences matter.”
You’ve been arguing that PR is the best system because it is the most democratic. I’m pointing out that there are more democratic systems.
As you stated above, your principles:
So, according to the two principles you’ve laid out, direct democracy seems superior to PR.
Edited to include your quotes about the context/reminding you of the goal posts which you chose.
So, are you running away from the two principles that you laid out above? I’m just pointing out here that you seem to move the goal posts to whatever is convenient. When you are defending PR, all that matters is how democratic something is. When I bring up direct democracy, all of a sudden, the costs and practical consequences matter.
You cannot have it both ways.
And are you confusing me with someone else? My very original point was
I suppose so…? At the end of the day, PR can be demonstrated to be mathematically superior to FPTP, and you have not provided arguments that also couldn’t be made against any ordinary democracy.
I’m not scared to say that a direct democracy is more democratic than PR. But this is not new information, nor is it in contention. What is in contention is whether PR is democratically superior to FPTP.
To say “anything but full PR” necessarily implies that you believe PR is worse than FPTP. Again, you have yet to demonstrate this claim. I’m waiting for you to get back on topic.
Okay, then this:
Doesn’t really make sense. You can’t just say “when we’re talking about PR vs FPTP, what matters is whether PR is more democratic” but then when Direct Democracy vs PR is the question, all of a sudden it doesn’t matter which is more democratic.
So again, what are the principles by which you are judging PR to be a good or bad choice? If it is purely, which is the most democratic system, then direct democracy blows PR out of the water…
If you want an answer to the question “which is better, PR or FPTP” you have to have criteria to use as judgement. And again, if that criteria is only “which is more democratic” then why aren’t you advocating direct democracy?
Oh boy…
You want me to say that I am using more factors to judge an electoral system than measures of democracy alone? Yes, that’s true, but I’ve literally never pretended it was anything otherwise. Because I live in reality, where I know a direct democracy is impractical. But everyone knows that, and it adds no value to the conversation, because the true contention is of FPTP vs PR.
And then you’re going to ask me how I know a direct democracy is impractical… And then I’ll say, how does this demonstrate which of FPTP or PR is better…
Because it’s not the only criteria. You thought you had me trapped in a corner, didn’t you?
The feasibility of the electoral system was always a presupposition.
You know what’s even better than a direct democracy? If we could clone everyone’s “spirit”, and have the spirit legislate on behalf of the person, while the person just lives their life (similar to Severance!). But that’s entirely impossible, so it’s not for consideration in the first place.
So overall, you’re quite the skilled
debaterconversationalist. But you play dirty to get it to appear like you can win arguments.I’m going to re-insert a link to my prior comment, that is still unanswered.
At the end of this whole conversation, you still haven’t gotten to demonstrating why FPTP is better than PR. Instead, you’ve wasted mine and everyone else’s time by going on wild tangents and playing games.
It’s conversations like this that demonstrate to me just how out of touch the no-PR side is. Thanks to you, I now have almost sort of a renewed vigour to push for full PR.