Former Deputy Premier Christy Clark's Change of Heart

Christy Clark, former Deputy Premier, and now host of "The Christy Clark Show" on CKNW, campaigned AGAINST BC-STV in 2005.  Now she is asking everyone to vote YES. Here, from the CKNW website, is the full text of why she has had a change of heart.  The original post is at http://www.cknw.com/blog/christys_bc_15/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10031397

Why I'm supporting STV

Posted
5/7/2009 12:00:00 AM

In the last election I voted against STV. I even campaigned against it.

The single transferable vote, an idea that was launched by an assembly
of non partisan everyday citizens, didn’t appeal to me. At the time, I
believed my vote was the right one because I liked the current system
of selecting MLA's.

Looking back, I realize I liked our current system because it served my
interests well. I was an elected politician who had been chosen under
the first past the post system. I, like many of the entrenched
interests who are today fighting against STV, didn’t see a need to
change a system that was working - for me.

But since I have left politics my view has changed dramatically. Part
of it has been due to the fact that I sit here in this chair at CKNW
every day and hear from you. What do I hear?

I hear that people are sick to death of the way our political system operates.

(And I note that that frustration is
bearing itself out at the polls as we see fewer and fewer people,
especially young ones, showing up to vote. Every year, as we get more
frustrated, fewer of us take the time to exercise our franchise - our
most important democratic right, and one that thousands of Canadians
died to preserve.)

People tell me they're sick of seeing their vote thrown in the garbage
if they live in one of the 2/3 of ridings that are safe and they didn’t
happen to vote for the incumbent party.

Theyre tired of electing politicians who ignore what their constituents want and do what their leaders want them to instead.
And I hear that people have had it up to here with politicians who
attack each other relentlessly in an endless vitriolic war of words
that poisons us all against our democratic process.

I have learned through my own experience in radio and in politics that
while those are all things that likely bother you, they don’t for one
moment bother the hacks, the backroom boys, and the politicians who are
served and elected by our current system.

And when I look at so many of the people who are actively campaigning
against STV, some of whom you often hear on CKNW, that is what I see:
strategists and interest groups who have grown accustomed to the power
the current system grants to them. I see people whose interests and in
many cases, whose income is dependent on keeping our system the way it
is. People who, unlike you, relish the ugly realities that are the
consequence of our first past the post system.

They are fighting STV because the change it will bring frightens them.

First, it will force all politicians to compete for all of your votes.
Candidates will be looking to be your first choice, but if not, then
your second, or your third. In this context, no MLA will be safe
forever, and every vote will be counted. We will stop throwing vast
numbers of votes in the garbage once one candidate gets their 35%

Second, politicians will be forced to listen to their communities first
and their leaders and parties second. When you vote you will have
several choices to pick from your favourite party. If, for example, you
are a committed BC Liberal wouldn’t it be nice to be able to choose
from among them the one who was brave enough to stand up for you and
against his or her party and stop the road, prison, or big polluter
from going through your back yard?
Wouldn’t it be nice to choose the one who actually listened to you between elections?

Third, because STV will give you choices from among individuals, and
you will have the choice to select the one you think is the smartest,
most ethical, someone you can respect. How many times has a political
party in your riding foisted a candidate on you who is an embarrassment
but whom you vote for anyway because they are with the party you like?

Say good-bye to voting for bumblers who are destined for the backbench,
because with STV you get to choose the best person not the party back
roomers.

Fourth, the level of hateful invective will diminish radically. Under
STV all politicians will have a strong incentive to get along better.
They will be hoping to be the second or third choices of their
opponents and supporters. The toxic insults and nasty rhetoric will be
turned to a lower volume as politicians stop trying to win by ruining
their opponents and instead start acknowledging them.

To me this is the biggest most important change that STV will bring
about: civility in politics. I believe we need a new civility in our
society and politics is where it can begin.

On Tuesday you will make two choices. The first is a short term choice
of who will run our system for the next four years. You will vote for
someone who has been chosen for you by entrenched interests in a big
party machine. They will be someone who will be accountable to that
machine, not to you. And perhaps some of the people you vote for will
get elected not because of who they are but because they have proven to
be the best at slinging mud.

The other vote you will cast will be the much more important one. It
will be the vote that determines if next time you will be faced with
exactly the same ugly choices, or if you get to make the choices
yourself.

Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

We have a choice, perhaps a once in a lifetime choice, to do things
differently. We have a chance to change our political system and remake
it into one that we can have some measure of faith in. If the
established interests succeed in defeating this on Tuesday, they won’t
give you another chance. I hope British Columbians take this chance for
real change.

I hope we take this chance and vote for STV on Tuesday May 12.