Thank you, Mr. Preston.
Thank you, committee members, for inviting me here. I'm very honoured to share with you the wisdom from across the mountains.
B.C. referendum legislation allows a referendum to be held either in conjunction with an election or as a stand-alone event. Conducting a referendum, we say, as a thin layer on top of a general election is very effective at reducing costs and increasing participation.
The British Columbia Referendum Act predates a complete rewrite of the provincial Election Act in 1995, so we find that not all the provisions are exactly parallel. However, it continues to remain workable.
In British Columbia, regulations must be established specific to each referendum. In 2005 the regulations, at 16 pages in length, were substantially lengthier than the Referendum Act, which has never been longer than two pages since it was introduced in 1992. While it's not an ideal model for clarity—there is a lot of cross-referencing—it is a reasonable model for referencing the parts of the Election Act that are to be used, and this provides the framework for administration of the event, either as a stand-alone or in conjunction with an election.
Please be aware that there are several pieces of referendum law in the B.C. equation in addition to the Referendum Act. There is the Constitutional Amendment Approval Act, which was passed in anticipation of the referendum in 1992, but the decision of the B.C. government was to allow Elections Canada to run that referendum and not to do it at a provincial level. So that act has never actually been used.
There was a specific 2009 Electoral Reform Referendum Act, which specifically said that the Referendum Act did not apply, and this act was what was to be used for the referendum we held earlier this year. However, they all follow the same approach of setting out the general framework of policy and process and requiring regulations to fill in the administrative detail with references to the Election Act and to other pieces of legislation.
B.C. has held two province-wide referenda in my tenure, in 2005 and this year. Both were on the subject of electoral reform, and they were both conducted in conjunction with a general election. I think they were both successfully administered as a thin layer on top of a general election, and there was no public criticism of the administration of either referendum.
Additionally, for both referenda an independent referendum information office was established to provide neutral information to voters about the referendum subject.
In 2005 the ballot question voters were asked was: Should British Columbia change to the BC-STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform? Yes or No. There were two threshold requirements, and this is different from the Referendum Act normally, which is that 50% plus one vote is a majority, and that's binding on government if the referendum question receives that. Here the first threshold was that at least 60% of the ballot votes needed to be cast as yes in order for BC-STV to be implemented. This threshold was not met, with 57.69% of the total ballot votes marked yes.
The second threshold was that in at least 60% of the electoral districts—and at the time there were 79 provincial electoral districts, so in 48 of those—more than 50% of the ballot votes needed to be cast as yes for BC-STV to be adopted. This threshold was met when voters in 77 of the 79 districts, or 97.5% of the districts, voted yes by more than 50%.
The total expense for the 2005 referendum was just over $1 million on top of a general election cost of $23 million. Due to the fact that the referendum results only narrowly missed the first threshold and greatly exceeded the second, the government decided that a second referendum on the same subject was needed.
The 2009 referendum was originally expected to be conducted in conjunction with the November 2008 province-wide local government elections. The winning system was then to be used in the 2009 general election. Concerns were raised by my office that this would be an expensive proposition. For various legal reasons there would have been no substantive cost savings associated with holding the provincial referendum in tandem with local government elections.
The provincial boundaries for electoral districts did not always line up with the local government boundaries. As well, the eligibility rules were different at the local government level. It would have been effectively a stand-alone event.
That stand-alone event was expected to cost $27 million. We would have had to invest heavily in preparing for a general election under both electoral systems, a cost expected to exceed $30 million.
Based on these concerns, the government decided instead to conduct the referendum in conjunction with the 2009 provincial general election.
In 2009 the question posed in the referendum was slightly different. Voters were asked the following: which electoral system should British Columbia use to elect members to the provincial legislative assembly? There were two choices--the existing electoral system of first past the post or the BC-STV, the single transferable vote electoral system proposed by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform.
There were several other differences as well. Late in 2005, an electoral boundaries commission was convened to redraw the provincial electoral boundaries. As required by statute, I was one of the three commissioners.
Our commission was tasked with also proposing multi-member BC-STV boundaries along with single-member plurality boundaries. Missing in the first referendum on electoral reform, the BC-STV boundaries gave voters a tangible understanding of what the BC-STV system would mean in terms of representation for their respective area.
Following criticism from the 2005 referendum regarding the availability of information to voters regarding the referendum, for 2009 the legislators agreed to fund registered proponent and opponent groups at $500,000 apiece. That didn't really seem to have the desired effect. In our pre-election survey at the end of April, just two weeks before general voting day, the information we received was that only 63% of eligible voters had any knowledge of the referendum, while more than 96% had knowledge of the general election.
Again, for this year's referendum there were two thresholds. One threshold was that 60% of all votes province-wide had to support BC-STV in order for it to pass. At the end of the vote count, this threshold was not met, with only 39.09% supporting BC-STV.
Threshold two was that in 60% of the electoral districts--that would be 51 of the now 85 districts--more than 50% of the votes had to support BC-STV. This threshold also was not met, with only eight districts, 9.04%, supporting BC-STV in the majority.
Although the total costs of the 2009 general election and referendum are still being compiled, the projected expense for the referendum this year was $2 million on top of a general election projected expense of $36 million.
In the way of general advice before I open things up for the inevitable questions, I would say, first, provide in your review the legislative ability to hold referenda in conjunction with federal electoral events whenever possible, for the obvious administrative and economic efficiencies. Secondly, ensure that the regulations, however they're done and whoever does them, are passed in a timely way, preferably six months to a year in advance of the event, in order to allow for orderly planning of the administration of the referendum.
Back to you, Mr. Chair.