[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L104FT-5wdo[/embedyt]
This past Saturday we launched our proportional representation campaign. I am encouraging all British Columbians to vote in favour of changing our electoral system to a more fair, proportional system.
Before I was elected I thought that banning big money was the single most important thing we could to do improve our democracy. It was important, but it was only one step towards a better government. Electoral reform is the next step and we have an opportunity to vote for a system that ensure no one political party will be able to get 100% of the power with 40% of the vote.
[Transcript]
So it’s been a long week and as has been pointed out my colleague Andrew Weaver is not here with us today, he is sick, and I can confirm his sickness, it’s awful. I drove back with him yesterday from Whistler, we were at the UBCM and he had a towel wrapped around his face, and he insisted on driving so, he had a towel wrapped around his face and he and Richard Zussman from Global TV came down and he was coughing away and I was like aww man, we all can’t be down with the cold so anyway he is at home probably watching the live stream and so this is for Andrew and I can confirm the illness is real.
But it was a long week and the UBCM is always a long week, it’s one of those weeks in which the provincial government gets together and when I was an elected local official in Central Saanich it was always one of the most important weeks, although less important for us because we are so close to the Legislature.
But, very important for municipalities across the province to be able to come together with the elected officials in the provincial government and talk about the things on the ground that need to be done and the work that needs to be done on behalf of all of our municipalities, all of our communities in the province.
Time to rally for Pro-Rep!
And it is, it makes for a long week but it’s a very productive and important week. And, then I was talking to Stefan, who works in the Green Party office, yesterday and we were talking about the rally today and I was thinking this feels like the campaign. Just a year and a bit ago, we were upstairs in the big room rallying getting ready for the political campaign, the 2017 election and here we are in the downstairs talking about another campaign, and it is a campaign, it’s the most important campaign in front of us right now. Well, there is a municipal campaign that’s very important as well, but this is the most important provincial campaign.
That’s right, I had a dream last night when I was, right getting ready to wake up, you know that time when you can remember, about this speech. And it was amazing! I was doing such a great job! And I had just a killer ending to that speech and when I woke up and drug myself downstairs and went to write, I forgot it. And so I think I am doing pretty good so far, but, you know it was one of those things, it’s there lodged in the back of my head this importance of electoral reform.
“Who you gonna partner with?”
The importance of renewing our democracy, and I remember when we were in, after the election, after the campaign, after the rallies, after the amazing, that amazing night, and I media at 6am, so at 3am I’m in the hotel in Victoria, 6am on CBC Vancouver with Steven Quinn, and he said, “who you gonna partner with?” and I said, “it’s a little early Steven.”
But, that started a process over coming weeks where we started to get together with the BC Liberals, who had a one seat advantage, so technically Christy Clark remained as the Premier, and they remained as the goverment. But, you all remember, it was 42, 41, and 3.
The Balance of Responsibility
And for the first time in B.C. in decades we had a minority government situation. And Andrew, Sonia and I held what was called the “Balance of Power” something which throughout the summer I kicked back on, and said “no the “Balance of Power” is something I am not interested in, it’s the “Balance of Responsibility” that interests me.”
We sat down with the BC Liberals and we sat down our colleagues in the BC NDP and we started to talk about what the most important environmental issues were, what the most important social issues were, and what the most important economic issues were. Because those were going to be issues that were going to form the work that was going to be ahead for whoever it was that we partnered with.
And we made the decision at that time, that it was time in British Columbia to change government, neither Andrew, Sonia nor I ran with either the BC Liberals or the BC NDP. We ran with a different party. And we had, and ran on a different platform, with a different set of values. And we wanted to ensure that we could preserve those values while ensuring that the issues that were important to us remained front and centre and that the government actually was committed to delivering on those issues. And so what were they?
We saw power at any cost!
We saw power at any cost, and it is grotesque! You saw power at any cost, and it was grotesque! When the Throne Speech or the clone speech, or this useless speech which was going to voted down, promising us the BC NDP and the BC Greens platform. You saw just exactly what we saw day in and day out in those hotel rooms. And you could feel it when we were in those hotel rooms. And we made the decision that our democracy and electoral reform were the most important issues of the day.
And before the election, when we were campaigning, and I see Aldous here, Aldous was my campaign manager and has been with me ever since, working in my constituency office, and as we were moving around Saanich North and the Islands, the issue that I was focussed so heavily on for electoral reform was banning big money. Getting the influence of corporate and union donations out of our politics.
And to me that was the most important act of electoral reform, I thought that if we could get that influence out of our politics that you know first past the post or how we allocate seats at the end of the day is not going to be that big of a deal. From the outside that’s the way it felt, that’s the way it felt to me. And in the first session of the Legislature after a summer of working with the BC NDP, and I am so happy that we had partners to work with that wanted to get rid of big money as well, we did! We got rid of big money!
Banning big money
And then as I spend more in the Legislature I realized we are not done with this democratic reform agenda yet. Because it takes more to changing government than just getting the external influences of big money, from corporate, union and foreign donations out of our system. Our system requires more than that because you know what the elements there of chasing these swing ridings still exists.
Where public policy, frankly, is being developed on the fly in an election, where parties are looking for a majority governments and they are making public policy up right on the fly. BC Liberals, we are going to cut bridge tolls in half, BC NDP, we are going to do better… it’s going to be free. No one is going to pay for the bridge tolls, Andrew Weaver said naw we’d leave the bridge tolls, not a popular, we didn’t win those seats on either side of the bridge. But it is not good policy, to be making decisions like that on the fly during an election. That’s not good public policy-making, that’s not good governance!
Let’s get rid of first past the post
It’s the way that it’s been going in the province for very long time so I don’t blame the parties for doing that, it’s the system that creates that desire to do that. We need to change that system. And that’s the opportunity that’s in front us in the next couple of weeks. Proportional Representation. Electoral reform, getting rid of first past the post.
Creating a situation that I have been in, it’s the only situation that I know, in the legislature. Working together. Collaboration. That’s a good thing! You know what and it’s actually not a bad thing to have to compromise and negotiate a little. Recognizing that there is at least 4.5 million differences of opinion in this province. That as right as we think we are all of the time, we are only that at least one of the time, or whatever that should, I don’t even know I just made that up, but the point is, that there is a whole lot of differences of opinion right in this room. And we need to create a collaborative scenario where people can govern together. Where we look at each other and we say where is the common ground, and that’s what we did.
Governing is not easy… and it shouldn’t be!
That’s what we did with the BC NDP. And, I’ll tell you know what it’s the damn hardest thing I have ever had to do in my entire life. But why should governing be easy? It’s not, we just heard Jonina’s story, that’s not easy. It’s tough and it should be tough! And we should create checks and balances in our system.
Otherwise, we get the 40% man that we are seeing our east. Should I talk about him? Why it’s the single most biggest, most compelling reason to vote for Pro-Rep, why wouldn’t I talk about him? You know what I am not going to talk about him. I am going to let Sonia talk about him. That’ll hurt more.
The answer is… proportional representation!
Look, I am going to answer the question. What is the single most important economic decision, economic issue facing us today? What is the single most pressing social issue facing us today? What is the single most important environmental issue facing us today? Proportional representation.
There is, nothing, more important, all of those answers that you gave are absolutely correct by the way. But, we have got to create a framework, in which your politicians, people like me, get elected to serve you, are actually serving you. And not serving their political interests, not serving their own personal, partisan interests. But that we are actually serving you. And the only way that, that can happen is if we vote in favour of proportional representation, or as our party wants me to say Pro-Rep! Thank you very much, HISKWE SIAM!
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