To the editor,
If you add up all the left-of-center votes, the NDP, Liberal and Greens, you get a total of 32,621, and all the right-of-center votes, the Conservatives and the PPC, you get 31,360 votes.
Bill Sundhu would have won over Frank Caputo by 1,261 votes. The point is that Caputo won because of a divided left-of-center vote.
In the 1980s, it was the other way around in this riding, which of course, didn’t then contain the Cariboo area which has been traditionally conservative in voting. The right-of-center split was between the Alliance and the Conservative allowing for an NDP dominance of 16 years.
These results point out the need for electoral reform to more fairly reflect the voter’s intentions. Nationally in this 2021 election, the Conservatives won the popular vote, but not the seat count. Electoral reform could have given the Conservatives a minority government.
Another anomaly in this and the previous election is the presence of 34 seats being occupied in the federal parliament by a strictly provincial party, the Bloc. This party doesn’t run candidates outside the province of Quebec, and their leader, Mr. Blanchete, openly declares that he is only “interested in promoting Quebec independence.” The Bloc is, of course, the remainder of the separatist movement.
I know that in their eyes, I’ll be accused of being a Quebec Basher, but in my view, I am simply shining a light on a situation which is clearly unfair to other members of the federation, and needs to be addressed.
The Black Press editorial Sept. 23 was, in my opinion, completely wrong when it declared “the electoral process in Canada is fair and transparent and subject to scrutiny,” but I am not surprised, given the right-wing views of Black Press.
I still have faith that we will correct these problems to the benefit of our democratic system.
Wes Morden,
Clearwater, B.C.
newsroom@surgeryitaly.com
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