A new coalition, a different politics
By Andrew Coyne - Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 33 Comments
Did Gordon Campbell win because of his carbon tax?
It would be a stretch to claim that Gordon Campbell received much of a “mandate” in last week’s British Columbia election. With 46 per cent of the vote, in an election that saw turnout fall, for the first time, to less than 50 per cent, Campbell is the choice of barely one in five electors.
Still, it is triumph enough that he was not defeated. Not only were Campbell’s Liberals seeking a third term, an honour voters have historically proved unwilling to bestow, but as the incumbents in a recession-year election, they were fighting daunting odds. His win ought to make opposition parties in other parts of the country sit up straight: if they were under any illusion that they had only to show up, and the economy would carry them to power, they can think again.
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Dear Andrew Coyne, not in my backyard
By Ken MacQueen - Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 4:04 PM - 12 Comments
Vancouver Bureau Chief Ken MacQueen explains why B.C. didn’t go along with electoral reform
Dear Andrew Coyne,Thank you for your column urging British Columbians to “light a candle for electoral reformers everywhere” by voting for the Single Transferable Vote, better known as STV. It was a riveting read, though the fact that it took almost three pages of the magazine to explain the concept gives one pause, don’t you think? And, no, we don’t think it an intrusion that you “being from another province and all” would wish to offer us advice. We’re quite used to that.
In fact, ‘I’m from Central Canada and I’m here to help’ is a sentence we hear quite often. We tend to respond thusly: “La-la-la-la your lips are moving but I can’t hear you!”
Resent your exhortation? Not a bit. But ignore it, that’s a whole other matter.
And ignore it we did.
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A vote that really counts
By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 137 Comments
Politics is broken in Canada, writes Andrew Coyne. But B.C. could help fix it today.
Dear British Columbia:I know you’re kind of busy right now, and maybe it’s not my place, being from another province and all, but could I just ask you, on behalf of the rest of the country, to please vote Yes in the May 12 electoral reform referendum? I wouldn’t intrude, except it’s terribly important—important not just for B.C., but for all of us.
Because politics is broken in Canada, and electoral reform—changing the way we vote—may just be the key to fixing it.
