BY BRENDA OSLAWSKY
GUEST OPINION
Congratulations to Gerard Mitchell on being appointed referendum commissioner. If MLA Bush Dumville’s comments in his opinion article - -Governing by consensus,’ are anything to go by, Mr. Mitchell will have his work cut out for him.
Despite Mr. Dumville having been in the legislature when the Electoral Referendum Act was tabled, debated and then amended 27 times, he somehow missed the fact that Islanders would vote directly for their choice of province-wide candidates in Mixed Member Proportional. This is the same version of MMP that won the 2016 plebiscite, when he was still a member of the Liberal caucus.
If come voting day, any Islander is still under the impression that province-wide candidates are not voted for directly, that will be a failure on the part of the referendum commissioner to run an adequate public information campaign for the referendum.
Education will be required to ensure that people aren’t under the same misapprehension that Mr. Dumville is about the benefits of PR. Because no one party tends to have the support of a true majority of voters, parties in proportional democracies have to form coalitions to pass legislation and govern.
Countries that have PR, like Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and New Zealand, find that this consensus-style government provides better oversight, transparency and accountability. Interestingly, and to Mr. Dumville's point, the MMP system being proposed would be better at allowing independent candidates to be elected than our current system - a voter could choose a strong local Independent candidate because they can still cast a vote for their preferred party in the second part of the ballot.
Islanders will expect - and parties will be expected to deliver - a fair process by which candidates from across the Island can be represented on the ballot.
There will be a lot of attention given to that part of Mr. Mitchell’s mandate that deals with his responsibilities to police those advertising either for or against proportional representation during the referendum. The education portion of his mandate will likely not receive the same attention – but it should.
He will not be able to wait until the election is called to launch his education campaign as that will not allow sufficient time to properly inform Islanders. He will have to get started before the spring on the assumption that we will have a spring 2019 election.
We know from the plebiscite that one mailing 3 or 4 weeks before the vote is not sufficient - he will have to actively start educating before the writ is dropped.
How robust an awareness and education campaign he launches will significantly determine the percentage of people who cast a ballot in the referendum or who feel that they can make an informed choice.
- Brenda Oslawsky lives in Spring Valley and is an active member of the P.E.I. Proportional Representation Network atbit.ly/PRnet.