Author: Evan Wilson
There are few things in a liberal democracy as important as how elected representatives are selected. While there are at least as many electoral systems as there are democracies, Canadians have generally stuck with the “first-past-the-post” method.
In British Columbia, 160 members of the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform were chosen at random from among the electorate and given the task of recommending changes to the province’s voting system. Despite the recommendation to switch to proportional representation from the current first-past-the-post method, the electorate rejected the idea in two separate referendums.
Picking Winners documents the failure of five recent attempts to introduce proportional representation at the provincial level, and argues that the reform efforts have set a precedent for significant citizen involvement in any future deliberations about how Canadians are governed.
Picking Winners is part of Canada West Foundation’s West in Canada Project.