Electoral reform – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised it during the last federal election campaign, citing a justifiable concern that a majority government can be elected with more Canadians voting against the ruling political party than for it.
It remains to be seen whether the newly elected federal Liberals will continue to take action on changing Canada’s election system – especially since it gave them such a resounding victory. Suddenly, reforming a system which works to your advantage might not be as high a priority as when you were the party on the outside looking in.
There’s no getting away from the fact that self-interest is a powerful motivator.
This area has to look no further than its neighbourhood schools to find another electoral system rife with faults.
Currently, school trustees are elected in a ward system, where trustees are voted in for a specific geographical area.
Salmon Arm and Armstrong both have two elected representatives, while Sicamous, Enderby, Falkland/DeepCreek/Ranchero, North Shuswap and Carlin each have one elected trustee.
If you want to talk representation by population, however, Salmon Arm represents 50 per cent of the region’s population but does not get even close to 50 per cent of the voting power.
Indeed the trustee for the North Shuswap, whose region only encompasses a single school, gets the same voting power as a single Salmon Arm trustee who represents a vastly larger number of constituents.
During the discussion on school closures I have heard many times that there is a bias against rural schools. In my opinion, the system is actually set up to overrepresent the sparsely populated rural areas. Five of the trustees represent rural areas, where only four would represent the larger populations of Salmon Arm and Armstrong.
The system itself has become so unbalanced that to say it represents the will of the majority in the region is laughable.
It has created a situation where the politicians are rewarded, not for making carefully considered decisions on behalf of all the students across the region, but on protectionism for their own area. If not, elected trustees face the wrath of the voters in their home community come election time.
Now, I am not saying school trustees are not interested in quality education for all the students, or that they are in it for selfish motives. The angst of being a trustee far outweighs the $11,710 pay cheque. What I am saying is that the system is not set up to accurately reflect the electorate.
There are two ways this could be handled: either re-draw the trustee boundaries to make representation more equitable, or shift to a system like the City of Salmon Arm council, where the entire school board is elected from voters across the region, but no trustee represents a specific area.
It’s been electoral status quo for too long. The system needs tweaking to ensure its democratic effectiveness.