News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

Editor:

It would seem that our Premier is the victim of the Gidget effect.  You know....Sally Field gushing while accepting her Oscar, "You like me.  You really like me!"  I think Gordo read too much into the latest election victory and said to himself, "I can do whatever I want, because they like me!  They really, really like me!"

I would like to make a few suggestions about the current political situation in British Columbia.

1.  I would like to suggest that any Premier, or Prime Minister, only be elected for two terms.  It seems that after two terms a sense of entitlement creeps in and these politicians think they can do whatever they want.  The precedent for this is monumental.

2.  I would like to see the powers of the office of the Ombudsman expanded.  This Super Ombudsman Office would be independent, and reporting to us, the electorate, directly.  Their budget would be written in stone and not subject to the whims of the current political party in power.

3.  Finally, if we are not prepared to make voting mandatory, then we should have a minimum percentage of the electorate voting before an election is considered valid.  Let me spell it out for you.  Gordo has been re-elected with fewer than 25% of the possible votes.  And you just know that these right-wing Liberals love it that way.

I think we should have a voting quorum of at least 75% of the electorate before an election is declared valid.  If not, we go back to the polls and do it all over again.  The precedent for this, I think, was set in the BC-STV vote.  A simple majority of 50%+1 should have been sufficient to pass this referendum.  Overall, I think, the BC-STV had the potential for a positive change in the political landscape of BC.

If you think it would be too expensive to have concurrent elections when a ‘quorum’ is not achieved, I think it's too expensive not to.

John Visentin
Williams Lake, BC

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