MLA In Action #10 - July 22, 2025
It’s a wrap!
Over the past two weeks, the Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform heard from over 175 presenters in Vancouver, Prince George, Cranbrook, Kelowna, Surrey and Victoria. We heard from experts and folks from every walk of life about issues including citizen engagement, voter participation and turnout, foreign interference in our elections, artificial intelligence, voter registration, and most prominently, voter age and proportional representation (PR). It is impossible to understate the passion, quality, and breadth of the presentations we heard on every day of the hearings.
But just because the presentations are done, doesn’t mean you can’t have your say either.
The deadline for written submissions is this Friday, July 25th. You can make a submission here.
I plan to read as many of the written submissions as I can – I’ll be surprised if there aren’t 500+ submissions on my reading list – so please make your voice heard.
To illustrate how remarkable the presentations were, here’s a snapshot into who some of the presenters were, and what they presented to the committee:
Jean Pierre Kingsley, the former Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, expressed his view that the first-past-the-post system (FPTP) works when there are two parties, but not when there are more. He also made a strong case for eliminating anonymity on social media networks that I found interesting.
Maxwell Anderson, representing VotingBC, provided an overview of the benefits of proportional representation in a variety of areas, including economic growth and effective governance.
Shanaaz Gokool, representing Leadnow, provided a recap of 1,500 comments provided by members in response to a recent survey on electoral reform which supports proportional representation.
Adam Bailey of Dogwood outlined fundamental issues of governance where the interests of capital outweigh the interests of the people who live in BC.
Dr. Fred Cutler, an associate professor of political science at UBC, made the case for multi-member districts, amongst other things including increasing local representation and cooperation across party lines.
John Beebe, representing the Democratic Engagement Exchange, recommended enhancing ElectionsBC’s outreach and engagement role, requiring voter engagement plans at post secondary institutions, and adopting the recommendations of SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue for a fund to scale up community engagement.
Alex Hemingway, representing the BC Society for Policy Solutions, recommended expanding citizen assemblies to strengthen democratic engagement.
Mario Canseco of Research Co. made a presentation on recent polling on issues related to democratic process including the level of support for FPTP and PR, making voting mandatory, holding provincial elections in May, and declaring provincial election days a statutory holiday.
Jason Woywada of the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association made a thorough presentation on privacy safeguards in elections and the need to look at best practices.
Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch made ten recommendations to ensure our political and election system is actually democratic.
We also had our youngest presenter — a grade five student — who made a strong case for kids being able to vote. “Adults in government are making decisions for kids, and kids don’t get to decide who’s going to make decisions for them. It’s just not fair. And right now, the adults are not listening to the kids.”
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the best presentation of all during the two weeks of hearings was made by former BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau! You can listen here.
Obviously it’s hard to capture the depth and breadth of everyone who presented, but these were some highlights. I thank everyone who came and presented to make their voices heard.
Thank you so much for your interest in the important work of democratic and electoral reform!
