Electoral reform debate marks time in final week for Fall session of Legislature

This was the last week for the Fall session for the Legislature
and prior to the suspension of work for MLA's yesterday,
Skeena MLA Ellis Ross revisited the themes of electoral reform

The MLA's bade their farewell to the Fall session on Thursday, a milestone moment for the government of John Horgan, who has steered the NDP agenda through the summer months and delivered some of their planned legislation into the fall.

The final week appear to have provided for few speaking opportunities for North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice at the Legislature, however the MLA found to the east of Prince Rupert had a productive week in Victoria.

As Skeena's Ellis Ross weighed in on two themes, the first making inquiries on issues related to steel duties and the impact that those duties could have on any LNG development projects in the province.

The larger presentation to the House however, returned to the core essence of democracy, with the Skeena MLA engaging once again in the discussions related to the government's electoral reform act.

Proposed legislation from the NDP government which will see British Columbians cast their vote in November of 2018 to decide if we will stick with the current first past the post system, or make a change to proportional representation, though the actual format for that potential new system has yet to be fully explains.

Mr. Ross had already made a fairly expansive overview of the situation a few weeks ago, which we chronicled here and on Monday afternoon, the Skeena MLA was back to the topic in the chamber, this time speaking in favour of a proposed Liberal amendment to seek extra time for consultation to better understand the the government's proposal for proportional representation and to allow for feedback from the public on the topic.

A good portion of his response to the topic, followed the lead of other Liberals to take note of the combined forces in motion from the Green and NDP parties to move the project forward, calling on some of the political commentary from journalists to highlight some of the troubling aspects of the way the process is being handled

For his part, some of the key elements for Mr. Ross's commentary involved some of the consequences that he believes could affect rural riding's in particular, should the shift to proportional representative gain approval.

Those should make for some debate not only in Skeena, but in other rural riding's such as the North Coast and whether one is in favour of the proposed change, or a strong proponent of the status quo; the themes introduced by Ross could be something to start a conversation.

The observations include a short overview of how the MLA sees the political map in BC at the moment and how he believes that rather than bridge the gap between rural and urban communities, the change to the alternative to the first past the post system will only exacerbate those divisions.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review