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The Alternative Vote in British Columbia: Values Debates and Party Politics

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The Alternative Vote in British Columbia: Values Debates and Party Politics The Alternative Vote in British Columbia: Values Debates and Party Politics by Stephen Harrison B.A., University of Victoria, 2008 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of History Stephen Harrison, 2010 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee The Alternative Vote in British Columbia: Values Debates and Party Politics by Stephen Harrison B.A., University of Victoria, 2008 Supervisory Committee Dr. P. E. Bryden, (Department of History) Supervisor Dr. Richard Rajala, (Department of History) Departmental Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Dr. P. E. Bryden, (Department of History) Supervisor Dr. Richard Rajala, (Department of History) Departmental Member This thesis provides a detailed account of the introduction, use, and repeal of the alternative vote (AV) in British Columbia in the 1950s. It argues that British Columbians, familiar with polarized, two-party politics, were dismissive of majority representation. Conversely, the public expressed a strong preference for local representation during discussions of redistribution. While the Liberal and Conservative Coalition parties introduced AV to keep the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from forming a government, party members were often stronger proponents of electoral reform than their leaders. Nevertheless, the system was debated in terms of democratic values. This was true of electoral reform debates across Canada, including federal debates on proportional representation. Contrary to histories that focus solely on the 1952 and 1953 AV elections and W.A.C. Bennett and Social Credit, this project traces the origins of the alternative vote in BC from the 1940s forward, including ongoing discussions of the single transferable vote (STV) and a points system. The history of BC’s provincial party system in the twentieth century is included in order to establish how polarized politics affected British Columbians’ attachment to the idea of local representation. This thesis contends that the public’s preference for plurality voting contributed to its dismissal of AV: even those who ranked multiple candidates did not necessarily endorse the system. This project also looks at the alternative vote debates in the 1970s and redistribution commissions in BC, particularly the 1978 Eckardt Commission, in order to better understand British Columbians’ attachment to local representation and first-past-the-post, and their dismissal of a preferential system that encouraged them to rank candidates. Social Credit favoured regional representation over representation by population during the redistribution process, and the theme of local representation has consistently framed discussions of electoral reform in British Columbia, including the 2004 BC Citizens’ Assembly’s STV proposal. iv Table of Contents Supervisory Committee .......................................................................................................................ii Abstract .................................................................................................................................................iii Table of Contents................................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................v Introduction – Electoral Reform in Historical Context: The Importance of Democratic Values .....................................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 – Proportional Representation and the Alternative Vote in Canada .......................14 Chapter 2 – Reconsidering the Voting System: Two-Party Politics in British Columbia .......39 Chapter 3 – The Alternative Vote in the 1952 and 1953 Elections: The Persistence of Plurality.................................................................................................................................................87 Chapter 4 – Electoral Redistribution and Local Representation in British Columbia...........128 Conclusion – British Columbia and the Alternative Vote in Context......................................163 Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................190 v Acknowledgments I was first drawn to British Columbia’s history with electoral reform when I read a 2005 Times Colonist article on the use of the alternative vote in the 1950s. The article did not equate the system with the single transferable vote, which was put to a referendum in the 2005 election, but it nevertheless noted that electoral reform in BC was actually old news. This information was new to me, however, and in 2007 I wrote a short paper on the subject for an undergraduate course with Dr. Richard Rajala. For his enthusiastic response to my work, and his insistence that our class make a trek down to the BC Archives, I am forever grateful. I am also appreciative of his more recent comments on my thesis, as well as those of Dr. Dennis Pilon, whose own research helped bring this work to life. This project was just getting underway in early 2009, which coincided with BC’s second referendum on the single transferable vote. I must therefore thank my colleagues, friends, and family for tolerating untold acronym-heavy discussions of voting systems with good humour and minimal yelling. I would also like to thank Lisa Pasolli, Lee Blanding, and Amber Ayers for their comments on an early version of my first chapter. I subjected Ryan Tervo to multiple inane complaints over the past two years, and I thank him for his alleged moral support and his assistance with a problem sentence. Finally, I am most indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Penny Bryden, for providing encouragement and insightful feedback throughout the research and writing process. I cannot imagine having written this thesis with anyone else. Introduction – Electoral Reform in Historical Context: The Importance of Democratic Values The voting system in Canada is often taken for granted. Under plurality voting, or the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, voters cast a single vote for a candidate, and the candidate with the most votes in a district represents that constituency. FPTP and constituency representation are both well-established practices. The voting system does not have to remain constant, however, and indeed in Canadian history it has not. Electoral reform was a frequent subject of discussion in Canada during the first half of the twentieth century. Governments, opposition parties, politicians, independent reformers, and voters all debated the prospect of changing the voting system. Voting systems determine how votes are translated into seats, and the distribution of seats determines who governs. Changing how ballots are marked and candidates are elected will invariably affect the composition of government. In 1952, the Liberal and Conservative parties in British Columbia abandoned FPTP in favour of the alternative vote (AV), which allowed voters to rank candidates on their ballots. The Liberals and Conservatives had governed as a coalition from 1941 to 1952, and the adoption of AV was driven by their desire to stay in power. They needed the public to engage with the system for it to have its desired effect, however. Faced with the public’s familiarity with FPTP and two-party politics, which encouraged a single vote for a single candidate, the old-line parties launched a campaign focused on the democratic fairness of the new voting system. Only AV could ensure candidates were elected by a majority, they said, and it would keep the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which was supported by a minority of voters, out of office. Many British Columbians used AV to vote the way they always had, ranking a single 2 candidate; others ranked only ideologically similar candidates. Both of these mindsets perpetuated the divided political system and encouraged the abolition of AV and a return to FPTP in 1953. Examining the ingrained traditions of plurality voting can go some way to explaining the function of the party system in BC, the necessity of the alternative vote, and the ultimate rejection and abolition of the system. The 1952 election marked the emergence of the Social Credit party as a political force in British Columbia. The party rose to prominence in Canada with the election of a Socred majority government in Alberta in 1935. The fractious BC wing of the movement took its message of monetary reform into the 1937 provincial election with little success, and wartime prosperity shifted the organization’s focus from alleviating poverty to advocating freedom for the individual.1 W.A.C. Bennett, a former Conservative MLA and a frequent critic of the Coalition government, was sitting as an independent in 1951 when he threw his support behind Social Credit. In the 1952 election, the party campaigned on a platform of “less government interference in business, an increase in essential health and social services, encouragement of co-operatives, larger old-age pensions and a pay-as-you-go approach to government spending.”2 The party offered voters a non-socialist and non-Coalition option, and the Socreds
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