BC-STV: Bill Tieleman's misleading argument on BC/Ireland size.
In a recent web post, Bill Tieleman, a proponent of polarized politics and president of the No STV campaign, made a post on the size of the ridings under BC-STV.
Bill Claimed:
"The facts are the STV is used in just two tiny island nations as a national electoral system - Malta and Ireland.
Those two countries, who could easily fit in the bottom part of Vancouver Island"
However, "the facts" prove otherwise:
• The Republic of Ireland is 70,000 Square Kilometers.
• Vancouver Island is 32,000 Square Kilometers.
• Metro Vancouver, home to half of British Columbians is 2800 Square Kilometer
• The Okanagan is 20,000 square Kilometers.
Together, 75% of BCs population lives in an area 75% of the size of Ireland.
If you exclude BC's large provincial parks and unoccupied crown land, BC land mass is around 50,000 square kilometers.
Yes, Northern BC will have larger districts using the Single Transferable Vote.
So large, they are nearly 3/4 the size of their current federal ridings and the same size as the ridings were up until 1991.
The Single Transferable Vote will bring more choice, effective representation and balanced government.
It is unfortunate that critics such as Bill Tieleman and David Schreck are trying to confuse voters rather than acknowledge that there are major problems with the "winner-takes-all" elections.
- Dan Grice's blog
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Greece is a democracy with thousands of islands
Greece, the birthplace of western democracy, is composed of a mainland and thousands of big and small islands.
By Tieleman's logic, the larger the country and the less islandish it is, the less democratic it should be. Tieleman is opposes STV in British Columbia; he should be strongly supporting STV in Prince Edward Island.
Democracy matters in all countries--big and small by population and area.
For comment by Bill Tieleman on my blogsite, visit http://skinnydips.blogspot.com/2009/01/g-bc-forecast-ndp-government-and-.... (I don't delete opposing comments.)
SD-Strong supporter of BC-STV.
Tieleman on Ireland and Malta
Hi Dan - good to be debating you again on the Single Transferable Vote.
I appreciate your point on my comment about the size of Ireland and I stand corrected - I never have a problem if I make a factual error.
What I should have said - and checked rather than making a quick comment - is that Ireland would fit inside British Columbia's 944,000 square kilometres over 13 times but has nearly double the number of elected representatives.
I also should have said that Malta's size is 316 square kilometres - that means it would fit inside Vancouver Island 101 times - but it has 65 representatives for its population of 410,000 people. That means BC's MLAs represent over 10 times more voters than Malta's.
Lastly Dan, Malta's Green Party took 1.31% of the votes in the 2008 election under the Single Transferable Vote - Green Party candidates like yourself seem to do a lot better under our current system than the one you propose for BC if Malta is any example!
Thanks again for pointing out my error - I won't repeat it.
Yes Bill, and England could
Yes Bill, and England could fit 6 times inside of BC. So thus how can we use the English system?
You fully know that 95% of British Columbia is park or crown land. Your argument about geography is pure rhetoric with no substance.
I received a higher percentage of the vote than most of the Green candidates in Ireland, Germany and elsewhere.
Maybe people liked me.
Although your kind editorial probably helped me out as well. Thanks again for that.