Letter: New system better than deciding who you like least

I don’t believe that there is a perfect system of choosing our political representatives. Each system has its drawbacks. We currently have First past the Post. Everybody knows what it is. Changing the name to “Getting the most votes” is like putting lipstick on a pig: the bacon still tastes the same.

Every election, I hear “don’t split the vote” from both sides. In B.C., it is “Don’t vote Conservative. The hated Socialists will get elected.” “Don’t vote Green, the hated Liberals will get elected.” That they themselves are splitting the vote never enters into their calculations. Federally, neither Trudeau nor Mulcair suggested voting for a candidate of the other party to prevent a Conservative from taking office.

Related: Reforming the ballot

Are we now “ruled by a minority of three seats?” The Greens were opposed to Site C, as was John Horgan when he was running for the post of Premier, yet when he flipped and approved it (before asking the bureaucracy for a justification for doing so) they never threatened, never walked out, and never tried to force their views on the government. This isn’t supposed to happen. Perhaps a form of proportional representation isn’t so bad after all.

In the words of Martyn Brown (Gordon Campbell’s chief of staff) ‘we are asked to believe that … “there is nothing so heinous and inexcusable as voting one’s conscience, when it collides with ‘common sense’ that suggests a higher imperative as the only legitimate moral choice.”

Mixed Member proportional representation will still leave us with an MLA to talk to in the unlikely event we ever want to do so. For myself, I am tired of deciding who I least dislike but whom I think can win and voting for them.

Be positive. You could vote for what you want.

Richard Smiley