the North

Charge: BC-STV won’t work in the North.

It is the current system, FPTP, that doesn’t work in the North.

From Fort St. John's online news source, energeticcity.ca (1),

The Peace River North Constituency is now officially without an MLA, as the resignation of newly appointed Senator, Richard Neufeld, went to the speaker of the provincial legislature this morning. Speaking this morning on Issues and Answers, Mr. Neufeld confirmed, from now until the provincial election this spring, Peace River South MLA Blair Lekstrom, will be the only Northeast BC elected official, in the legislature...

Under the current system, we have zero MLAs to represent the Peace River North constituency. There are approximately 37,000 people without a representative.

In the Alaska Highway News, Tessa Holloway wrote (2),

“However, there will be no by-election due to the close proximity to the provincial election date, scheduled for May 12, meaning the North Peace will be left without a representative.”

In that same article, Blair Lekstrom, MLA for Peace River South, is quoted as saying,

“…tell the people up there to give our office in Dawson Creek a call and we’ll do what we can to help. As MLA for the South Peace, really we share a lot of the same issues.”

Although the residents of the North Peace can turn to the South Peace MLA to some extent in the interim, we cannot expect as much from him as his own constituents would as we are not his constituents and we don’t count as potential votes.

Currently there is only one MLA in the whole Northeast district and his only real obligation is to the constituents of the South Peace Riding. Under STV there would be two MLAs and they would both be accountable to all constituents of the Northeast equally. If one of the two MLAs were to resign than the district would still be left with representation by the other MLA. You would never get 37,000 people without representation under STV. Mr. Lekstrom has acknowledged that ‘we share a lot of the same issues’ making the combined ridings quite feasible. BC-STV would be much better than what we currently have now.

(1) Peace River North is officially without an MLA, January 19^th, 2009, http://www.energeticcity.ca/news/01/19/09/peace-river-north-officially-without-mla

(2) Lekstrom will be interim MLA by Tessa Holloway, p. A1, Alaska Highway News, January 15^th, 2009.