As someone who enjoys being active in our community, I often have the opportunity to meet and work with our elected representatives.
In particular I have had the pleasure of working with both our MP Gord Johns and our MLA Michelle Stilwell, two people who despite having differing political backgrounds are always willing to volunteer at festivals, participate in community events and attend fundraisers.
They live in our communities, their children go to school with ours, and we can have a conversation with them in the grocery store. We are fortunate to have such great local representation.
Strong local representation in B.C. is endangered.
In the current referendum on electoral reform, we are being asked if we would like to fundamentally change how we pick our representatives by switching to some form of proportional representation. We don’t know what kind of system we might end up with because the government has not worked out the details yet, however we know that a proportional representation system would necessarily diminish local representation.
We know that proportional representation would bring one or more of the following: larger ridings, MLAs picked from lists of party elite, the ability for a third- or fourth-place finisher to win a seat, voting for parties instead of voting for people, or a domination of urban over rural concerns. Any one of these changes would begin to undermine the strength of having good local representatives.
Please pay attention to the referendum. I will be voting to keep the current system and its strong local representation.
Allen Larsen
Parksville