Consensus Politics needed.

When we look at politics and politicians, it is important to understand that if you stripped away political parties and election positioning, most politicians have a lot more in common with each other than they differ.

I have friends who support the Liberals, NDP, Greens, and Conservatives and while we have different policies, there are many basic ones that we agree on. We all agree that we need a strong economy, a good education system, proper health care and that poverty and homelessness are bad.

We may have policy difference on what levels of services the government should provide, what level of taxation is needed and what things we should tax, what kind of balance between economic growth and environmental protection is best. However, our differences are rarely as big as they sound, until the policies get attached to a political party.

As soon as Gordon Campbell, Carole James, Stephen Harper, Jack Layton or others takes a position, suddenly pack mentality kicks in. It no longer becomes an issue of whether GST should be 10% of 5%, but whether the leaders and party's made the right decision or not. Rather than working to find consensus on issue, we try to prove that we are right.

In fact our current electoral system punishes those who try and build consensus and rewards those who can undermine their opponent's position with the public.

Those who reach out are deemed as "flip flopping" and we are too often told the best leaders are those who stay the course, take a firm position on a policy, and reach out to their hard core ideological supporters with the cheque books.

If there is any attempt at consensus it happens in closed caucuses within a party. Politicians from a party will meet and come up with a position that all elected members of a party "consent", and this is done behind closed doors. This is rarely a true consensus, as there is tremendous pressure on members of a party not to speak up against the party leader, or in many cases there are a small handful of power brokers who elected representatives defer to. Even if it is consensus within the party, the consensus is from from being reflective of the general population.

If you look at a political party, they offer a segment of society.

Elected members of the Liberals or the NDP often have geographic concentration. Federally, the examples are even bigger. The Conservatives have no seats in Canada's three largest cities. The Liberals have hardly any seats west of Ontario. A party like the Bloc has representation only from Quebec and is over represented there.

This results in a party whose decision making ability is hindered by lack of a broad based representation.

Once a decision comes out of the caucus, its is treated as a marketing campaign rather than as policy in progress. The party members immediately go into the legislature promoting their policies or opposing the oppositions policies with little incentive to find common ground.

Majority governments are especially bad for that, while minority governments are often forced due to their circumstances of having to find some consensus or be prepared to go to an election.

The Single Transferable Vote would change the dynamics in regards to this.

Provincially, representation would be more broad based. Both the BC Liberals and NDP would have representatives from all areas of the province which would reduce the regional skewing. There would also be less of an incentive to take aggressive positions on legislation because no longer would small changes in votes be over rewarded.

In fact, the competition dynamics change from what is best for the party to what is best for the regions or the province. The reason is that voting dynamics move from which party is best for your area to which candidates have satisfied their own constituency objectives.

Suddenly, the role of an individual MLA increases. They can no longer rely on their party's marketing campaign alone to get themselves re-elected, they will have to prove their individual worth.

This is due to fact that BC-STV works like musical chair, dropping the individuals with the least support. A strong party campaign may make more likely that incumbnents get re-elected but there is little to guarantee it. Those who get elected are the ones who can best communicate their own role in setting policy and those who can show their constituents that they are working the hardest for local needs are more likely to get re-elected. This also is a result of increased competition. No longer will voters be forced to choose between the Liberal vision and the NDPs vision, they will have sub choices within the parties candidates and will have niche candidates from the left, right, or issues based to choose from. In a greater field of candidates, there is a much greater necessity for politicians to emphasize their own credentials and their own ability to represent the interests of their constituents.

Under such a circumstance, pack mentality gets replaced with more individualism from the MLAs in decision making. Political individualism rewards those who can be shown to have a value and can have the broadest appeal in their local decision making. Thus consensus builders who can manage competing interests are more likely to succeed.