It's that time again...

Ah, I can barely contain myself. Tomorrow I head off to the advance polls to do my part in determining which oligarchy shall rule British Columbia for the next 4 years. However, as the election date approached this year, I found myself particularly intrigued not so much by the candidates or the parties, but rather by the concurrent referendum on whether we should adopt a new system of voting known as the Single Transferable Vote (STV).

For those who haven't had an opportunity to follow the debate, the simple explanation of BC’s version of STV is as follows:

• Each constituency now has multiple seats instead of just 1 (each riding has no fewer than 2 seats and no more than 7 seats).
  
• Province-wide the number of seats remains the same as before, but the ridings are enlarged to compensate (for example, Vancouver east could be 1 riding with 5 seats. However, a large swath of northwestern BC 50 times bigger could be a single riding with 2 seats. The initial theoretical boundaries seem to be based on population).
  
• Voters rank the candidates in order of precedence as to who they would most like to see voted in. You can rank as many or as few people as you like. (For instance, you could rank a member of the Marijuana party 1st, one member of Liberal party 2nd, another Liberal fella 3rd, and a member of the NDP 4th. You wouldn’t, but you could).

At this point it gets a bit complicated, but simply put, they tally everyone’s votes and if the person you voted for as your 1st preference has no chance of getting in, then they try your 2nd choice. If your 2nd choice has no chance, they try your 3rd choice, and so on, and so forth. This is a serious simplification so please no flaming about how ‘that isn’t how it works’, but that’s basically what it amounts to. If you want to learn more about the details, I’d recommend the following link:

http://www.citizensassembly.bc.ca/resources/deliberation/BC-STV-counting.pdf

This is a relatively simple, 2 page document that explains the basic process of vote counting and ranking. Oddly enough, I was directed to the first link by the “Know STV” site, a group who argue against the STV system, but it really helped me wrapped my head around exactly what happens and how. Perhaps they thought that the sheer complexity of it would scare voters away, but for myself it really helped me understand why the system could work out. I’m sure many people won’t care ‘why’ it works so long as it does, but the analyst in me simply has to know the wherefores before I can put my name to it.

So, just in case you haven’t had enough of all this election nuttiness, I give you my extremely informal, very tangential analysis of the pros and cons of STV. Skip this if you aren't partial to unprofessional, armchair style political analysis:

Benefits:

1. No risk voting: Quite frankly, I’m sick of voting for the guy who scares me less. This happens in both provincial and federal politics all the time. I’d have to say that right now, I’m not crazy about the idea of voting Liberal federally this time around. Martin hasn’t really wowed me and the whole AdScam thing has taken it’s toll on my patience. But vote for the Conservatives? Not likely. However, using STV, perhaps I could vote NDP, Green, or (brace yourself) even an independent as my first choice, while having a Liberal as my second choice. Finally an end to strategic voting! I could actually vote for someone I want to get in. What a concept.
   
2. Elections representative of the vote percentage: Under the present First Past the Pole system, you often end up with election results in which one party slaughters the others in terms of seats won, but didn’t really deserve it. Take the last provincial election in which the Liberal party obtained 57% of the vote, but ended up with all but 2 of the 79 available seats. On the flip side, the Green party managed to scrape together a respectable 12.4% of the vote, but didn’t win a single seat. Doesn’t really seem fair. Under STV, however, the combination of increased riding sizes, multiple seats per riding, and the ‘no risk’ factor could theoretically cause the percentage distribution of the vote to somewhat resemble the composition of our elected representatives. Long story short, it’s easier for people to combine voting power that has traditionally been spread out.
   
3. Minority governments(?): For exactly the same reasons as the previous point, I’d say it’s a fair bet that with STV we would end up with more minority governments. The more observant readers will note that I’ve put this one in both the positive and negative sections. This is because I’m honestly not sure what the net effect would be of minority governments in BC today. I’ve heard Canadian politics described as a ‘friendly dictatorship’, in which the guy we vote in can basically do whatever the hell he wants for 4 years. Perhaps if coalition governments became the rule rather than the exception, as they are in many parts of the world, we would end up with more balanced decisions. I think I’d cite Israel as a positive example of what a coalition government can achieve. In Israel you can end up with the more extreme rabbinical parties having a direct say in government, but honestly they’d have their influence anyways and at least this way it happens in the full public eye. Fundamentalists are always a bit scary, but they personally scare me less when I can keep an eye on them. The controlling Likud party itself leans fairly heavily to the right, yes, but it does so in a more secular way, and they’re balanced out by strong representation from the centre-left Labour party and several moderate/liberal parties. In a country with so many different voices screaming (and screaming loudly) to be heard, what kind of chaos and dissent would we see without such coalitions?

Disadvantages:

1. Less local representation: Seeing as we’re enlarging the ridings, it will almost certainly mean less local representation. In fact, you can pretty well guarantee that some fairly large, albeit sparsely populated, regions of the province will have no local MLA elected. By ‘local’ I mean anyone living within 1,000 km of you. We’re a big bloody province. In practice, this means very little to us urbanites living in the more populous regions of the province. Really, unless you happen to be in a cabinet minister’s riding when was the last time your local MLA had any influence on provincial policy? But for rural BC, it might make the more out of the way regions just that much easier to ignore. Overall, I would have to say that there is some risk to rural BC.
   
2. Specialty groups: This is the uglier side of combining voter power. For every Green candidate, you have a Marijuana party lobbyist. I’ve nothing really against the Marijuana party or their platform in particular, but I do object to electing single-issue candidates who will spend the next 4 years harping on a single topic with no real interest in governing the province. Think a provincial version of the Bloc Quebecois ;).
   
3. Minority governments(?): And here we have the nasty side of coalitions and minorities. A valid objection to minority governments is that in the worst case scenarios, no real change can ever be implemented, as no one party with a clear vision is ever strong enough to put that vision into place. Moreover, instability of government can also hurt the economic well being of a region. I suppose I’d use Italy as a negative example of the kind of catharsis that can occur with minorities and coalition governments. Between 1945 and 1993, Italy had no fewer than 52 governments, most of which lasted less than a year. Certainly not encouraging, but then Italy is a very fragmented country.

Hopefully this didn’t turn into too much of a rant, but in any case, assessing the good and the bad, I think I’m throwing my vote towards the ‘Yes’ side. I find the system at present to be profoundly dissatisfying and I think the risks are worth it to see some change.

Oh and for those wondering why I’m not simply waiting until May 17th like the rest of the province to vote, Flo and I will be heading off on a cruise to Alaska next week for some much needed vacation. Many pictures to come of the scenic inside passage and the dwindling icebergs of the North.

The Maiden Voyage

After nearly two years of dithering about, I finally took the plunge this weekend and bought myself a brand, spanking new bicycle. For the past month or so I've been spending seriously hunting around town on the weekends and after slogging through a host of stores that were either too big or too small, staffed with folks that were either unknowledgeable, unhelpful, or just plain odd, I finally found myself at Caps.

I think the last time I was there I was around 10 years old, back when I was more interested in BMXs than mountain bikes, and so I can perhaps be forgiven for not recalling straight off just how good they were. I think this was just about the only place I had been to all month where anyone had actually bothered to perform an actual needs analysis. Within 10 minutes of my arrival, I had managed to find someone who could give me real advice, supplied a range of choices, and even offered his own balanced recommendation. The prices were even better than I had found elsewhere. If you live anywhere near the Lower Mainland, skip yourself a world of hurt and just go here. It's located in an out of the way portion of New Westminster, which is bad in that it's inconveniently located, but good in that you don't have to hire an armed guard to accompany you from the distance between your car and the shop. Anyone acquainted with the Londsdale Quay region will know what I'm talking about.

I confess, I went a bit nuts on the accessories. Although my 33 liter Sakaroo(TM) paniers ARE in fact constructed entirely of 600 Deniers Polyester With PVC Coating To Increase Water Resistance and could probably stop a bullet, $75 was a bit much to spend compared to the half-priced nylon packs that held a good third more. But these just look so darned cool... and they have high molecular weight polyethylene plates... and there was a kangaroo on the front. I'm such a consumer whore.

As I excitedly bounded about the house in childlike glee over my new toy, my wife presciently sensed that I was likely to do damage to the house if I didn't find a way to work off my exuberance and so wisely suggested that I go out for a ride. And so, forgoing the bottle of champagne for fear of scratching the paint, on Sunday afternoon I launched my sparkling new Trek 4300 on her maiden voyage. And a beautiful day it was for cycling, being as it was a warmer than usual Vancouver spring afternoon with barely a cloud in the sky. I quickly suited up and charged off down Broadway. Lemme tell ya, they've done some amazing things with bicycles in the 12 years since my last purchase. This sucker flies. What with it being constructed entirely of Alpha Aluminum (which, as we all know, is infinitely superior to Beta or Gamma aluminum), it doesn't weigh 10 pounds. A good bloody thing too, as I quickly discovered that over the course of two years in drydock, my quads had managed to atrophy into what amounted to two withered bananas. Still, I immediately felt my purchase validated as I steadily trundled alongside an 18 wheeler, managing to match it's pace for about 6 city blocks. On a busy day in the city, riding a bike really is only marginally slower than driving.

Seeing as the one bicycling accessory I hadn't yet purchased was some sort of security device, the maiden destination in question was the local hardware store. Now see, the reason I was in the market for a new bike at all was because my previous item had been stolen. I do claim partial responsibility for this. Having little room in our townhouse to store large leisure equipment, I made the monumentally stupid decision to lock up my bike on our ground-floor patio with only a simple cable lock (known to Vancouver's finest as "Gift Wrapping") for 'protection'. So I wasn't about to mess around this time. Following the example of my brother in law, I picked up a 9 foot length of steel chain and one of the biggest, baddest padlocks I could find. Notwithstanding the difficulties of hauling 30 pounds of metal back to my place (thank god for those 600 Deniers), I felt satisfied with the end result after securing my bike for the night.

If they can get past the chain, the padlock, and the cement pillar, they can have what's left of the bike.