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Last Updated: Jul 2nd, 2008 - 20:21:03
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The leader of the new Wildrose Alliance Party is pushing a few ideas he believes will strengthen democracy and weaken apathy in the province.
Paul Hinman, who spoke Thursday at a session of the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs, said democracy is taking a beating in Alberta and people are apathetic, complacent and disengaged because they don’t believe they can make a difference.
That was demonstrated in the last provincial election when only 41 per cent of voters cast a ballot.
“I think democracy is exciting, it’s wonderful, but boy, oh boy, it’s frustrating sometimes,” Hinman said.
That’s why he believes in fixed election dates, recall legislation, opposition party funding, a citizen initiative referendum, split election dates, preferential balloting and a double house vote.
The double house vote would allow MLAs, as they already do, to vote first where a simple majority is all that’s needed to pass a bill. However, leaders of the parties would cast a second vote and each leaders’ vote would represent the number of votes they each received in the last election.
The Tories did not have a majority vote in the last election and would not have been able to pass some of the bills without support from the opposition.
“It puts power back in the peoples’ hands,” Hinman said.
That power would also be evident in preferential balloting — 50 per cent plus one — in which voters could choose their candidates in order of their preference. The ballots for the unsuccessful candidates are transferred to the voters’ second choice until one of the candidates’ votes pass 50 per cent plus one. Hinman said that system would have created a very different looking opposition and one that would have reflected the majority of voters’ wishes.
Hinman suggested voters would also feel more in control if they could recall elected officials who don’t hold themselves accountable to the people who elected them. A citizen initiative referendum would give them similar control by empowering them to, with enough signatures, force a referendum on any issue.
While split election dates, where an election is held every two years and only half the MLAs are elected at a time, might not reduce voter apathy, it would, Hinman said, reduce the fear of massive change all at once.
Hinman compared the Wright Brothers’ experiments with flying to democracy. He said balance, not lift, was the biggest barrier to gravity, and once the Wright Brothers’ figured out how to keep their aircraft balanced in the air despite turbulence and other factors, they had more success.
“We really need to do that with democracy.”
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