It's a province-wide, single transferable vote process, which is profoundly different from first past the post, and it results--for example, if you were dealing with a case of four vacancies--in a situation where the number of first choices you would require, or accumulated preferences, or others to drop off would be 25%, roughly a quarter of the population. So from that perspective, a minority is more secure in ensuring that its representation--can be there, if they wish to engage in group voting. I don't want to speculate on that or whether it's appropriate, whether one should go there.
The notion that a benevolent, non-democratic, unaccountable appointment of people, because it might result in increased minority representation, could equally not result in minority representation, depending on who's doing that appointment, is anathema to our democratic system. The logical extension of that argument is, shouldn't we do away with the House of Commons? Shouldn't we do away with any form of democratic representation, because we should simply come up with some format whereby we ensure each minority group has a certain amount of representation and some benevolent absolute monarch should appoint those people? That's the logical extension of that argument.
I think in this day and age people have a right, in a western democracy, to expect their democratic institutions to have a basic level of democratic function. That means the people who are being represented are actually being represented--not that some single individual decided that person would speak on behalf of hundreds of thousands or millions of people, but that those individuals, those people who are allegedly being represented, get to have a say in who represents them. It's a pretty fundamental principle of democracy. I think that when one looks around the world, the countries that have done the best job of ensuring that minorities are protected, that their rights are protected, are those very countries that function in a democratic fashion and let people have a say, because democracy works. People find a way to get along. Democracy works as a way of working out the interests between minorities and majorities, or between various minorities.
I think the track record of humanity is very strong in that regard. Almost every incident of serious persecution we've seen in this world of minorities has happened in systems where that kind of democratic function is lacking.