BC-STV Campaign Marks International Women's Day

On the weekend of International Women's Day, British Columbians for BC-STV pointed to the scarcity of women in Canadian legislatures as a reason to scrap the obsolete First-Past-the-Post voting system. BC-STV is the new voting system which was recommended in 2004 by the BC Citizens' Assembly on electoral reform and which British Columbians will vote on in a referendum on May 12th.

"Women hold only 22% of the seats in Ottawa, and a similar number in Victoria", said Arjun Singh, a former Kamloops city councilor, and the president of Fair Voting BC. "Although that's actually better than most countries which use First-Past-the-Post, it is far, far behind the levels which are common in countries using fairer voting systems."

In Sweden, women hold 47% of the parliamentary seats, and other European countries such as Finland and the Netherlands are close behind. Singh noted that some Australia legislatures use STV, and others First-Past -the-Post, and added, "When Australians use First-Past-the-Post, about 20% of the successful candidates are women, just as in Canada. But when they use STV, that number rises to 35 or 40 percent."

All of these systems that successfully elect more women have multi-member constituencies, the way BC-STV will, rather than one at a time, as under first-past-the-post.

Multi-member constituencies give political parties an easy way to achieve candidate parity goals without resorting to controversial male exclusion policies.

"Political scientists agree that the main structural obstacle to electing women is the use of single-member districts", said Shoni Field, a former member of the Citizens' Assembly, and a spokesperson for the STV campaign. "The best thing British Columbians can do for
women in politics this year is to scrap the first-past-the-post system which is blocking opportunities for women."

-30-

For more information contact:
Bruce Hallsor, 250-888-7846
Shoni Field, 604-720-0541