Initial Thoughts On B.C. Local Elections Task Force Report

The 'Report of the Local Government Elections Task Force' does not place much emphasis on the many comments/suggestions received from local governments, organizations or individuals. Instead, they appear to have relied mainly on what they would prefer to have happen and/or what is being done in other provinces (which offers no tangible benefit for us voters). It is already well known that the opportunity to provide input was not widely advertised and it is a stated goal of the Task Force to improve voter participation. I can tell you that ignoring the 'stakeholder' comments and concerns will do nothing to help in this regard. Let's look at the issue of election cycle (term of office) to demonstrate my concern: first off, common sense would suggest that strong/overwhelming support for change needs to be present before a change is made: - only 4 (3%) of the 155 local governments in B. C. took up the suggestion by the UBCM to hold referendums in 2008 on the issue of extending the term of office from 3 years to 4, resulting in a 53% overall majority for change - the Task Force input from local governments is 48.6% in favour of extending - 21.4% of organizations are in favour of extending - 38.8% of individuals are in favour of extending.
This change has been implemented in other provinces in anticipation of achieving certain/similar goals but, for unknown reasons, we have no data as to whether or not things like increased voter participation or reduced costs were actually achieved. If such claims cannot be substantiated, they should not be considered. Even with this distinctly underwhelming support and a dearth of data to quantify the benefits, the Task Force still decided to recommend the extension. The best justification they can come up with is that a longer term gives Councils more time to "implement their vision" and it improves accessibility because it may reduce "the potential of voter fatigue over time"; give me a break - people facing a vote once every three years is too much effort in support of democracy! The real reason appears to be that the UBCM membership had endorsed this action at their last annual meeting and four of the seven Task Force members are UBCM executives [note added 10 09 30 - this is exactly what happened, as confirmed in the text of the 'News Release' announcing the publication of the Elections Task Force Report - "your UBCM representatives relied upon and advocated for established UBCM policies (i.e., no corporate vote; a move to four year terms)". In areas outside of existing policy, they state they were "guided' by feedback at various meetings of UBCM members and from local governments but not one mention of considering the thousands of comments from the public!]. [UPDATE: At their annual meeting held in Whistler in September, the UBCM held a re-vote on the issue of 'term of office' and, this time, they voted to recommend to the government that they leave the term at where it is, 3 years - we will have to wait for the legislation to see what the government does with their 'conflicted' input. Just goes to show what a 'sham' the whole thing really was]. [FURTHER UPDATE: At their annual meeting held at Vancouver in September 2013, the UBCM once again took up the issue of 'term of office' and decided, reportedly with a narrow majority, to ask the government to extend to 4 years. Going even further back, in 2006, they did not endorse, while in 2007, they did. So we have 3 years, 4 years, 3 years and back to 4 years, which clearly demonstrates lack of significant support for a change to the term of office.]
The very real concern of having to wait an extra year to "express opinions on the performance of their local elected officials" seems not to have carried any weight, even though the courts have said that, in the absence of recall legislation, the ballot box is the only place to hold politicians accountable. The input from individuals for March was not posted on the LocalElectionsTaskForce website until April 21st and only after I raised the issue with them via email. My own input, which was submitted on April 15th was not posted until the same day the report was posted, May 31st, despite repeated requests to do so much earlier. This 'whenever' approach has done serious harm to the transparency of the entire process. Anyone wishing to read what I had to say in my submitted comments on this issue can go to http://vigilantz.blogspot.com/2010/05/local-government-election-rules-in.html.

Democracy Is Really In Trouble!!

The voter turnout in the recent provincial election has sunk to a dismal 48%, down a full 10 percentage points from 2005. For a more in-depth discussion of this phenomenon in Canada, read my earlier post to this blog, 'Voter Turnout is All Relative in B.C. Politics'.
Commenting in the Vancouver Sun three days after the May 12th election, Harry Neufeld, B.C.'s Chief Electoral Officer said, "(c)learly people believe in democracy and the voting process. But they don't vote and they lie about it." Have truer words ever been spoken and what are we prepared to do about it?!?

Voter Turnout Is All Relative in B. C. Politics

I find it somewhat amusing to read the recent musings from the media (and others) about the historically low voter turnout in the recent federal election here in Canada. It has been reported that the 59% number was the lowest since Confederation and, while the fact that there was really no reason to have called this election (as a matter of fact, it broke the 'New' Conservatives own fixed election dates legislation) since Prime Minister Harper admitted several times that it was likely that he would have another minority government (which is precisely what happened) may have kept some people at home, some perspective on this number might be helpful.
In the last provincial election in May 2005, the voter turnout was 58%, which is quite comparable to the recent federal election figure, even though that was the lowest ever.
So far, the pundits and assorted other politicians are suggesting that it might be due to a certain amount of cynicism on the part of voters (gee, you think?!). However, a look at the most recent voter turnouts in municipal elections makes the federal result look downright stellar by comparison.
In the British Columbia, province-wide, municipal elections in 2005, the governments which probably have the most impact on the average citizen's day-to-day existence, we saw the following sampling of voter turnouts: Burnaby -25.5%, Central Saanich -28%, Colwood -24.8%, Coquitlam -23.3%, Courtenay -25.0%, Delta -34.8%, Esquimalt -32.5%, Fort St. John -26.0%, Kelowna -31.5%, Ladysmith -23.3%, Langford -21.3%, Langley -19.7%, Maple Ridge -30.9%, Nanaimo -35%, New Westminster -26.2%, Oak Bay -28.7%, Pitt Meadows -27.0%, Port Alberni -28.1%, Port Coquitlam -19.4%, Port Moody -17.5%, Richmond -25.9%, Saanich -19.1%, Sidney -9%, Surrey -35.4%, Vancouver -32.5%, Victoria -26.4%. So, you see, it could have been far worse. [UPDATE: in 2008, in my own community of Lantzville, voter turnout sank to an abysmal 21.6%! It's bad enough that our local Council ended up being elected by something like 15% of the registered voters but, if you don't make the effort to vote for Council, you won't be voting for school board members either and they manage the education of our children and have a budget of ~$110 million!

Why this large discrepancy between the federal and local government elections one can only speculate. My own opinion is that it has a lot to do with voter 'laziness' - in the federal and provincial campaigns, we have the party leaders splashing their faces everywhere there is a flat surface so, we can get everything we feel we need to know in a few quick 'sound/video bytes'. We can then translate that party information to our local candidate and, ta-dah, problem solved! Municipal elections, where few of the candidates actually run on party platforms and the budgets are much more modest so there is very little radio and television advertising, really make us have to work to try and figure out who would best represent our concerns on local Council/School Boards.
Another factor may be that, again because of the 'party system', in federal and provincial elections we would typically be choosing one candidate from a list of maybe 4 - 7, while in municipal elections we usually have to select 6 - 8 people out of a list that may contain 20 or more names (and that doesn't even count the School Board elections). This then becomes too much like work so we find it easier to go and have a beer! What this all demonstrates to me is that, although we want to enjoy all the benefits of a democracy, most of us are not willing to invest more than a few minutes (no, as the numbers above clearly demonstrate, most of us are not willing to devote even that!) in selecting those that will represent us for the next three or more years. By and large, we want to be able to 'bitch and moan' when our local government does something that we don't agree with but, clearly, most of us haven't earned that right!