CKNW Editorial
for March 23, 2000

There is no question but that the voters of BC are ready to very carefully examine the way we govern ourselves. Since I began telling you about the ad hoc committee I sit on there has been considerable mail and nearly all of it very thoughtful.

I'm beginning to have another fear however and you may think it strange. I'm afraid we'll rush into a reform process without thinking it through.

Our committee has been hard at work coming up with proposals for reform. We are looking at the electoral system and various reforms that are possible.

We've looked at styles of government, parliamentary, republican and so on. And how governments finance things ... the list goes on. And I have no doubt that at the end of this exercise we'll be able to place before you, the public, some considerable food for thought.

It is not our intention to try to foist some elite solution on the public but simply to make recommendations but, more than that, give out minority views if indeed that’s the way it turns out. The object of our exercise is to promote as full and wide-ranging debate as is possible.

But we're all overlooking the process. And that is critical. For if we have a flawed process in which no one has any real confidence all the bright ideas in the world are worth nothing.

The Liberals have already proposed a process much like a grand jury to be selected at random. I have no doubt that the NDP will also have some proposal for reform in the near future - after all the "near" future may all the future they have.

There is no one in this province that wants fundamental reform of our system of governance more than I. No one has been more vocal for longer except, perhaps I will concede a dead heat to Mel Smith and Gordon Gibson. But I don't want the effort to change to be ruined by a process that no one has any faith in. I wish I knew the answer. Off the top of my head I would probably divide the province into, perhaps 10 regions and have each region elect a delegate. I would see that delegates were properly paid and I would appoint the Chair as a person with a combination of high public regard and some background in government, preferably a judge. Then I would give them carte blanche terms of reference. But as I say, this is just off the top of my head as I suspect the Liberals' proposal is and as I suspect the NDPs will be.

There are understandable reasons for this. The Liberals' idea has not really been tested by public debate and the NDP, with an election perhaps a year away at most, will feel the need to have any process in place rather than none.

I have suggested to the Chair of our ad hoc committee that we address ourselves to this problem and I hope we will - though we all have a plate full with projects at hand.

Today I simply want to sound the tocsin ... the most important thing we could ever do over the next half decade would be to reform our system so that the voter for once feels some real sense of connection to his representative and to his government. We can't go on as we are. But to do this requires a very careful assessment and decision on just how we are going to come up with ideas, prioritize them, and ultimately dispose of them. How do we start? How do we do it? And how do we deal with the recommendations? Three vital questions.

Probably we should start by looking at other places they have done this - New Zealand for example. And because the political agenda is closing in on us, we must deal with this condition precedent to actual reform right now. Let's not ruin the journey by selecting the wrong vehicle.