It’s on. Sort of.
B.C. Premier John Horgan says he is willing to have a debate with B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson about electoral reform. But the challenge is there has been no agreement yet of where the debate will take place or what involvement news organizations in the province will have.
“I believe we have asked a consortium of broadcasters to figure out a time and place and if Mr. Wilkinson still wants to go, I am good with that,” Horgan said. “I do believe that the public are the ones that are going to be making the decision here. Mr. Wilkinson has made his view very clear, he believes that his political party’s interests are best served by the current system.”
The official stance from the government is in favour of changing the electoral system to a proportional one. The B.C. Liberal party is in favour of the current first-past-the-post system.
Last week, Wilkinson took to twitter to challenge Horgan to a debate. Wilkinson said the NDP has broken a promise of making the “referendum simple” and says most British Columbians don’t even know a referendum is taking place.
“This is a great opportunity for John Horgan to give us some answers about his rigged referendum,” said Wilkinson. “I’m looking forward to the debate and I’m ready anytime.”
The mail-in ballot referendum takes place from Oct. 22 to Nov. 30. Voters will be asked two questions, one about keeping the current system or switching to a proportional one, another about the type of PR they would like to see.
The debate response comes the same day the No BC Proportional Representation Society has launched a new ad campaign. The ads focus on countries and regions where PR has seen far-right extremist parties win political seats. All three PR system B.C. is looking it has voting thresholds for fringe parties in an attempt to prevent that scenario from unfolding here.
“My father fought with the Dutch resistance against the Nazis in World War Two,” said Bill Tieleman, co-director of the No BC Proportional Representation Society. “I will never accept the idea that neo-Nazis or extremists, with views that are abhorrent to the views that I hold, that my father held, and that we should all hold dear, would be allowed into our legislature with just 5 per cent of the vote. If that were to happen — and believe me, it could — we would all be in very deep trouble.”
The second ad focuses on the changes to the local MLA system, where a greater majority of the elected officials would come from the more heavily populated areas of the province.
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