The major reason for this is the stranglehold political parties have on our system; they trap us in perpetual election mode as they constantly vie for power. Elections are supposed to occur over 28 days every four years, in between all elected members of the Legislative Assembly should be involved in the governing of our province. But, political parties trap us into electioneering 24/7, 365 days of ever year as they fight the last election and position themselves for the next one.
Political parties also enable the dictatorship of the Premier’s office between elections through the exercise of “party discipline.” MLAs often have to put the interests of their political party ahead of those of their constituents or even the best interests of British Columbians in general. Enabling autocratic control by the Premier is also why we can’t truly address poverty, climate change, the collapse of our resource economy or any other major, complex challenge confronting us today, because too few people are involved in the actual governing of the Province.
For our democracy to work, every MLA must play a meaningful role in governing the province between elections, and elections should be about competing visions for British Columbia, not competing negative ads. Elections run on competing visions will also engage British Columbians in their electoral process, and engaged citizens will be more directly involved in their own governance between elections.
To achieve this we need fundamental and radical reform of our voting system, election finance reform, political party reform and the fundamental changes to how the Legislature functions.
For me, as an independent MLA, the reform of our democratic systems is a top priority and I will be working with others who desire change to come up with an agenda for reform. Stay tuned to this page as I’ll be putting forward a draft agenda soon.